So after just over 2 months and about 44 hours I beat the main story of Grand Theft Auto 4 last night. Yes how exciting is my life when I’m talking about beating a video games. That is not really the point of this post. The point of this post is the single player experince on a console.
I had forgotten what the single player experinice on the console could be like. The last time a game enthralled me this much was 1998 with “The Legend of Zelda: Orconia of time” which is in my book the best Zelda game to date. I do have the Zelda games for Wii and Gamecube, but I got through about 80% of them and then put them down. I just lost interest same thing with the last three metroid games too (and just for the record there the best one of the series is probally still Super Metroid from 1993). I don’t know what it is about the Grand Theft Auto game that has kept my attention. It had a pretty good story which is a nice change of pace, it’s wasn’t the classic play the good guy or play the bad guy, all of the characters had depth of some sort even the secondary back ground characters. And no it wasn’t the random senseless violence of it all either, though I will admit that launching a few RPG’s down a busy street in the game does have a certain amount of fun to it all. Then again so does running from the cops.
I wish I had the same love for the multi-player experience on Xbox Live. While Xbox Live is the best service amongst the current generation of platforms (I didn’t care for it when I borrowed the PS3 and the online mulitplayer in MarioKart makes me want to dig out my eyes) I just don’t like it. I was talking with Curtis about online multiplayer games and we basically came to the same opionion that it still isn’t there on the console like it’s been there on the PC for 10+ years now. And I think that this the problem for me is I’ve been playing on line on a PC for so long that I have very high expectations. Now by no means is the PC multiplayer experince unified, but at least it’s a consistent part of just about every game that comes out these days.
So that brings me back to the ultimate question. Is the current PC the last one I will build just to be a gaming rig? Right now I don’t know, there is a certain simplicty about just dropping $500 every 5 years for a new console instead of a $1000 ever two to three years (depending on new technology and what games your buying) and that is not including the new video card that is pretty much a standard upgrade every 18 months at this point. I think that I will always be a multi platform house. I like games and I like them in their natural enviroment. Right now the console ecosystem seems to be the more robust ecosystem for the single player or limited multi player experince. If you want to do a MMO the PC is really your only choice, well until Sony and Microsoft get their respective acts together and allow for cross platform play on a third party back end.
OH wait that’s a when hell freezes over kind of thing.