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Console gaming is struggling to find it's place in the competitve gaming arena. The many amazing gamers I have met, whether it be PC or Console, have always reaffirmed my pride in one thing: gaming. Be it with a keyboard or controller, what I ask the entire gaming community to do is realize that we are all here for the same reason: to play with passion and have fun. Perhaps PC gamers can look back on their gaming roots and pick up a controller again? Or perhaps us console players will find a new interest in PC games in the new year?
“I’m getting really good, huh?“ I could almost picture the cute grin of triumph as those words came over Xbox Live's gameroom voice chat. What made those words unique were that they were not said by your everyday console player. In fact, they were not said by your everyday gamer, either. Those words of triumph were spoken by none other than the famous Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel, the Tiger Woods of professional gamers everywhere. What, you might ask, was Fatal1ty doing playing Halo2 on Xbox Live? He plays PC! Yup, that's right, as a 10-time world champion on 5 different games, Fatal1ty proved that even the most hardcore PC gamer can have a little fun, and let their competitiveness run wild, on the “C-Word” of gaming… Console, that is. What makes the story above really unique is that a few months earlier, at a LAN event featuring the band Fear Factory, Fatal1ty told me with much zest that, "Any newb can use a controller." Now this was said in the presence of the world's top Halo player in Zyos, who has pretty much defined profitability in pro console gaming. As an avid Xbox player and personal friend of Fatal1ty, I could not believe my ears. We lived our lives very much the same way PC gamers did (i.e. hours practicing, tournaments, etc.), so how did using a controller make us “newbs”? Where did this perception come from? It wasn’t until a couple months later, after I spent some time with those in the PC community, that I began to realize a very important thing: a lot of PC gamers appeared to share Fatal1ty's belief! I would find many comments across the various gaming forums painting a negative picture of console gaming. It was then that I sat back and started to see the bigger picture of how "Consoles" were held in disrespect by hardcore gamers, and began my mission to help fellow PC gamers see the wonderful joys a console system can bring to the gaming community!
There are many reasons why PC gaming is so far ahead of console gaming, but the most important aspect is the online capability. Online functions help people better their techniques and match their own skills with people from across the world (i.e. ranking ladders). It also enables gamers to “checkout” other competitors' skills, play competitive matches, and form allies for team games. This is how gaming has become a viable e-sport (although direct correlation to a real sport is still highly debatable). However, with the birth of Xbox LIVE and PS2 online, consoles now have those same benefits. Xbox360 has proven that consoles can also have superior graphics and fast game play. We are now equipped, and we console gamers are ready to take our place in the hardcore competitive gaming community! You see, it was not us console junkies that kept us away from our PC friends; it was the inability to play online in competitive arenas! The new generation consoles have already began to bridge that gap. All that separates console gamers from PC gamers now is a keyboard and mouse! We owe our PC brethren greatly for building such a great progaming community, and we are excited to finally be able to participate in the world of e-sports! The acceptance of console gaming has already begun. Major League Gaming (MLG) created a highly successful pro console tournament circuit that has hundreds of console gamers excited this season. Even the PC world had to take notice when the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) showcased Halo 2 on Xbox for its 2005 Summer Championships, and events everywhere have followed suit. Rumor has it that you will probably see console tournaments in almost every major PC event in 2006… which has this Xbox gamer whistling a merry tune indeed! The many amazing gamers I have met, whether it be PC or Console, have always reaffirmed my pride in one thing: gaming. Be it with a keyboard or controller, what I ask the entire gaming community to do is realize that we are all here for the same reason: to play with passion and have fun. Perhaps PC gamers can look back on their gaming roots and pick up a controller again. Who knows, perhaps you could have as much fun as Fatal1ty did when he decided to play Halo on the Xbox. Or perhaps us console players will find a new interest in PC games in the new year. Regardless of your choice of gaming systems now or in the future, I raise my glass to all my fellow gamers, and look forward to seeing you all at the tournaments of 2006! |
Sunday November 22 2009 | |||||
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User Comments
consoles for multiplayer fun
PCs for pr0 gaming =)
1. Controllers are terrible compared to mouse and keyboard. You're never going to be as quick and precise with a joystick than you can with a mouse.
2. Console games tend to be lacking for competition. Halo with its floaty physics, extremely powerful starter weapon, recharging shields, and super powerful grenades and rocket launcher all make the game inferior to many PC FPSes that are better balanced and allow for more complex strategies. Many PC games used in competition get modified to better suit competitive play, where as console games cannot be modified. Console developers have absolutely no consideration for competitive players, where as many of the top PC developers include competition-friendly features like demo recording and spectator modes.
Consoles are fun. Tournaments for "fun" games are pointless. The MLG exists solely because so many people bought Halo or Smash Brothers.
Halo is inferior to Quake, Unreal, and Counter-Strike, but it's the best FPS consoles have to offer. Smash Brothers is fun, but lacks the strategy and precision and is generally not taken seriously by the competitive fighting game community.
Super Smash Brothers for the game cube is one of the hardest but balanced fighting game you will ever play. Its easy to pick up and play, but very hard to master. You have to have really fast reflexes while being very precise to be a pro at it. Its insane.
The only reason I see that it is not taken seriously is because of the content. It has mario, pokemon and all of that in it. So that is the only main reason it is somewhat unpopular with the people who dont really play it.
Can you imagine if in the quake series you ran around shooting at mario models. Yea you probably would have not taken that game seriously either.
Controllers tend to lack for fps games when compared to mouse and keyboard, but they excel for the fighting and racing genre's.
You do have a point though that most developers dont really make games with a competitive aspect in mind. And with consoles, you literally have to rely on the developer for balance and changes. With pc games, there can be mods and such.
for some PC gamers a mouse & keyboard just fit better
gives you more control, and it better for competitive play.
nice read!
Popularity isn't what makes a game suitable for competition.
Smash Brothers, more than most recent fighting games has major balance issues. Only about five or six of the many characters ever get any serious playtime in tournaments, and tournaments disable the vast majority of levels and options.
Smash Brothers is a very fun game, but the fighting mechanics are quite simple compared to a game like Tekken or Capcom vs SNK. Smash Brothers offers more complexity in movement, but the combat is much more simplistic than other, more accepted, competitive fighting games.
Either way, Smash Brothers, like other fighting games, doesn't have online multiplayer. Until that is included and working well, the competitive communities for the game will never grow to have a serious draw. Right now, to get good at Smash Brothers you need to track down the local competitive community and go to whatever mini-tourneys they hold on their Mom's basement. Even with that, chances are slim that you'll get exposure to the better strategies or top players, and like other fighting games, if you want to become extremely good, you're going to need to travel to the larger tournaments for the game that will lack any substantial prizes.
Smash Brothers is a great game to play with three friends with all the powerups enabled. So is Halo. Neither are the best of their genre for competition.
smash is the perfect fighting game. its great for scrubs who like to mess on with friends, but at the higher level its extremely competitive with a high difficulty curve.
i'd love to see u handle the team of ken and isai and call them noobs.
and tekken? dont make laugh that game was poor, bad balance and extremely unpopular.
and as the topic said, and newb can use a controller. but id pay to see fatal1ty sucking down Zyos pistol shots if he thinks its so easy. powerful starting weapon? mmm is that so u dont get spawn raped like u do on Quake and unreal?
and dont get my wrong, i love quake and unreal (well not q4, that was garbage) and i cant wait for UT2K7 in fact im gonr buy a new pc to play it properly. but halo was better balanced starting wise. at least u had to chance. on UT u can spawn and be dead b4 u even had time to see where you've spawned.
Rofl so true, consoles are a joke for FPS games.
The newer quake and unreal games actually have stronger starting weapons than the original DM games like Quakeworld and Q2. They are intentionally designed to be weaker to increase the strategy required to be good, its not just who gets a lucky spawn or who can aim the best. You don't see the top players whining about getting spawnkilled because the game is designed that way, so you get punished if you cant outtactic them. Halo just newbs it up to make it easier for the average joe.
" and tournaments disable the vast majority of levels and options. "
Well, in Counter-Strike, they only allow certain maps to be played , and they have to be de_ (defuse only). There is no hostage maps or VIP maps played either, so that in a sense is disabling certain maps as you call it.
"Smash Brothers is a very fun game, but the fighting mechanics are quite simple compared to a game like Tekken or Capcom vs SNK. Smash Brothers offers more complexity in movement, but the combat is much more simplistic than other, more accepted, competitive fighting games. "
Actually the game is more complex then you realise. Unless you have played the game seriously, you may not know things about the game exist (fighting moves in general).
"Either way, Smash Brothers, like other fighting games, doesn't have online multiplayer. Until that is included and working well, the competitive communities for the game will never grow to have a serious draw. Right now, to get good at Smash Brothers you need to track down the local competitive community and go to whatever mini-tourneys they hold on their Mom's basement. Even with that, chances are slim that you'll get exposure to the better strategies or top players, and like other fighting games.."
Now with online multiplayer, that can be blamed somewhat on nintendo, because that is something nintendo has been putting off for a while. However, because of the type of game Smash Brothers is, it may or may not work online. The moves in that game are so fast and precise there might be lag and such over long distances, which means alot for that game.
And saying that they have to be in person to create strategies , etc isn't true either. They have this website they go to (www.smashboards.com) which they can visit whenever they want and talk about the game.
It does have a slight balance problem between certain characters, mainly because it has never been updated in the U.S, whereas halo 2 and pc games get updated regularly.
Halo PC is horrible so you cant say that Console games are bad when Halo for the XBOX is amazing and Halo PC is just plain old bad.
Bit off topic.
If anyone gets the chance to attend any of the MLG events, its really great to watch, in fact I enjoy watching console compeitions as much as PC competitions. Having developers be the only ones who can create competition mods and whatnot for the game is a blessing and a curse, leaves them with a very big responsability, one that i hope they really take into account in the future with professional gaming becomming bigger and bigger. Good article and great read.
#22 sad to see you wasted your PC because you invested in those games... there are PLENTY of other games for the PC that make it well, well worth the money. i purchased all 3 of those games too and, although disappointed, i just moved on to bigger and better things like FEAR, Age of Empires 3, Call of Duty 2, and others.
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