Aerothorn

@TraceurRyuk Part III

Yeah, you can definitely get the AAA titles for fairly cheap after a year or so; they don't depreciate quite as fast or as much, but still a lot. Though usually you have to get them used to get them at those prices, so none of it goes to the devs (which is a totally separate issue!).

I think you're right that social circle often just makes the decision for you. The only think keeping the console/PC divide existent right now, in terms of multiplayer, is worries about balance issues with gamepad vs. mouse input (and, of course, the fact that the multiplayer would have to use the settings of the lowest common demonimator) but I think it won't be long before it falls.

Likewise, consoles are totally capable of modding; making things on a gamepad is harder, but you could always just plug in a USB keyboard/mouse if the publishers would support them. It's just that Sony , Microsoft and Nintendo are so controlling about their hardware that they won't allow it. I hope they change their ways soon.

@TraceurRyuk Part III

Yeah, in the past PC gaming has definitely been more expensive than console gaming (unless you buy all the consoles, anyway). I'm not so sure this is true anymore, though. It is at this point in the console lifecycle given how old the hardware is, but come the next (and last?) generation of consoles, I'm not so sure.

First, even today, you can build a gaming PC with pretty hefty power (certainly plenty to run Skyrim!) for all of $600. Ordering it would cost more, maybe $750. But it's really an up-front cost, because the actual *games* are so much cheaper. There's the historic $10 you save on new releases (though some publishers are trying to fight this through sheer greed, which is particularly egregious when they put less effort into the PC version; see Skyrim!) but between the massive Steam sales and more indie bundles you can shake a stick at, you can end up getting games for really, really cheap. My *big* purchase was L.A. Noire for $12 on the last round, and I got a lot more games for $5 or so. At the end of the day I think it's actually cheaper than if I gamed on 360, where there is a lot more price control. And, of course, that's ignoring all the free games.

@TraceurRyuk Part III

But of those millions, I think the vast majority of them can be placed in one of two (overlapping) categories:

1. People who have no experience/history playing games on PC. Trying a game on PC takes some extra effort that just isn't worth it; it outside their comfort zone.

2. People who (possibly because of one) have either no conception of modding or only an abstract one; it's not clear to them just how substantially mods improve Elder Scrolls games, regardless of your tastes (because there are mods to suit anyone). Not to mention the aforementioned bug-circumventing capabilities.

So to put it another way: I misspoke when I said I "didn't understand." I guess I just meant that it's really hard for me to imagine, given how much better the PC experience is in with this specific franchise.

In other words, even if you prefer using consoles in general, it seems like any sort of version comparison would strongly favor PC. And if you really want to play it on the couch with a gamepad, well, you can do that - as Joystiq (somewhat strangely) did for their Witcher 2 review.

@Aerothorn And just to be clear: this is not a sort of general PC elitism speaking here. There are a lot of game designs that work really well on consoles. The Elder Scrolls just isn't one of them, even if they've made a lot of changes/streamlining to get it to work well with a gamepad.

"We" don't have a PC strong enough? What are they paying you guys? Skyrim is a DX9 game whose specs are scaled down to accommodate for the 360's hardware. You don't exactly need a supercomputer to run it. Hell, my inexpensive *laptop* can run Skyrim at mid-high settings. Unless you're somehow writing this from a 6-year-old PC, I'm not really sure why you couldn't run it.

Which brings up the larger question of why anyone would buy a TES game on a console in the first place. I'd have so many broken quests if I wasn't able to fix them with console commands due to Bethesda's typical poor QA, not to mention the array of improvements already released before the Creation Kit has even come out (Sky UI!).

Joystiq seems to be under the impression that mods are mostly for goofing off or adding aesthetic improvements, but once this comes out we'll see mods that create a proper economy, expand and balance the magic system, add new landmasses, etc.

@Sh1fty

BECAUSE OLD PC GAMERS ARE ELITISTS AND SHOULD JUST RETIRE!!111

Yeah, it's not fun.

@dpaul420

You've remembered Deus Ex for 11 years, but now you're going to forget about it by the Spring? What?

@CBA25

It's not that difficult relative to most things gaming. It's just a really big difficulty spike relative to the rest of Psychonauts. Basically, Psychonauts goes from being and easier-than-average action-platformer to requiring some real skill/practice. It was bad design, but it's far from insurmountable.

The question is why they waited until 7 years after the game's launch to start the official magazine. The mind boggles.

@Nolan North

On the hard difficulty setting, yes. On easy and normal, no - it's on by default.

It's awesome that they included the option to turn it off, but the fact is that the game was designed for it to be turned on (its removal was added late in development) and there are certain things that are nearly impossible to see without it. Namely, breakable walls.

A marvelous game, no doubt, but the implementation of "augmented vision" was flawed.