I'm a die hard PC gamer, but I'm beginning to get a little pissed.

I'm about to give you an extremely opinionated blog on the topic of PC gaming, why I have a love\hate relationship with consoles, and what exactly is pissing me off. You just might want to grab a coffee or drink some BAWLS, because this will take a minute, and this has been on my mind for a while so now it's time to let it all out.

As you all know by looking at my blog I love PC's, and I doubt that will ever change. I work on a computer all day, and when I finally get home after a long day I still sit in front of my own rig until it's time for bed. Why do I love PC's so much you may ask? It all comes down to two words that I know all you PC guys will agree with me on: POWER and UNIQUENESS. Now when I say uniqueness I'm not referring to Aunt Mary and her Dell Dimension, I'm referring to all of you out there who build your own rigs piece by piece. I'm referring to the joy that comes along with the UPS guy when he hands you a bunch of brown boxes with NewEgg.com in the sender field. I'm referring to the feeling that come with a job well done when you build a rig the way you want and it exceeds your expectations. That's right, the challenge is how much performance you can squeeze out of a computer and still stay within your budget. It's all about the do-it-yourself attitude that hardcore PC gamers have, and this is why consoles bore me. When was the the last time you saw a bunch of XBOX enthusiasts get together and benchmark their consoles? That's what I thought.

So where am I going with all of this you ask? Well, all I'm saying is gaming began with PC's, and PC's blazed the trail for consoles in the living room. It was the homebrew guys decades ago that brought entertainment on computers, yet PC's seem to get the shaft lately from a lot of game studios. Let me set the stage for a few great examples. I built my current rig back in December and it has an 8800 GTS in it, which supports Direct-X 10. So why didn't I wait until the price dropped to build my new rig? Well, I can remember last summer seeing articles everywhere about all the new titles like Unreal Tournament 3, Team Fortress 2, Portal, and Half Life Episode 2 and Shadowrun. Just looking at the trailers for these games got me excited, which isn't easy to do. What's more, the release dates for these games ALL pointed to Q1 2007! Maybe I fell victim to the hype, and maybe I believed what I read, but I set out to prepare for these highly anticipated games and build an 8800 based rig. Of course, here it is almost April and I'm not even playing a demo of any of these games. What do these highly anticipated titles have in common? They are all being released on consoles at the same time as the PC. Now I can't blame a game developer for wanting to make more money, but I also can't shake the suspicion that these titles keep being pushed back because of the coding for the console versions. In fact, I will go out on a limb and say that the reason I'm not playing Unreal Tournament 3 right now is because of the PS3 and XBOX 360. Beta testing and releasing a game on one platform is a much different story than trying to do the same on three different platforms. Send me hate mail if you want, but it's a logistical nightmare.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't HATE consoles, I just wish the PC platform would stop being pushed aside all the time. For instance, Microsoft keeps pushing this "Games for Windows" initiative, which I think is great, but what disappoints me is there half ass attitude towards it. If they REALLY wanted to push "Games for Windows" they would release Halo 3 on the PC simultaneously with the XBOX 360, rather than give me some BULLSHIT, half ass Halo 2 release for Vista. Gee, thanks Microsoft, and only 3 years after the XBOX release. Do you see what I am getting at? I have to wait for the Valve Black Box so the consoles can enjoy a simultaneous release, but I get Halo 2 three years after the fact. And by the way, what's the big deal with Halo? Run and gun bullshit in my opinion. Play Counter Strike Source for an hour and see if you go back to Halo. Then again, console gamers are "casual" gamers, and enjoy the run and gun style of Halo. Would you like me to keep going? Alright then, how about the big disappointment when Call of Duty 3 was a console only release? I mean, what were they thinking? Talk about turning your back on PC gamers! The Call of Duty franchise was MADE on the PC platform!

But, there is light at the end of the tunnel for us PC gamers! In my estimation, one game and one game only will turn the tide and it will happen this year. This one game will change the way even the most dedicated console fanboy will view the PC platform. Still don't know what I am talking about? I'm referring to Crysis, and it will go down in history as the game that raised the bar forever, akin to the Half-Life series. Also, let's not forget all the games that will support the new Physx processor like Warmonger and Cell Factor Revolution. And since you need to have a Physx card in your computer to play these games I doubt the console guys will ever see most of them.

I suppose this article wouldn't be complete if I didn't give consoles their props as well. I will concede that there are a few console titles I am anxious to get my hands on. And yes, it is convenient to KNOW for a fact that any game you buy for your console will work perfectly, since they are all designed around the same hardware. This is a moot point for me, because I can't remember the last time I didn't have a good enough video card to run ANY game. Also, consoles are cheaper to buy which is great for people that like video games but don't want to spend $500 on a new video card. For me, this is also irrelevant since I am an avid gamer and I enjoy having the latest and the greatest. I would also have to admit, (and this is hard for me since I am a hard core first person shooter kinda guy) every time I see a Mario Galaxy trailer I can't but imagine how much fun that game will be.

See you this fall on the Team Fortress 2 servers....