Teraflops, you guys.

[The Curmudgeon]

So I went shopping for some new games last week. It's usually a baffling, mind-boggling experience because I have almost zero idea what to buy. So Mrs C hunted out ones that looked good, I Googled them to see a) what kind of game it was and b) if it got good reviews.

And when you think about it, "what is it? Is it any good?" is about as fundamental and grass-roots as gaming gets. I mean, that's why we play, right?

And then at the till there was a poster hyping Microsoft's upcoming new console, "Project Scorpio." All it was? A sheet of specs about processors and compression speeds and, hey, TERAFLOPS. Hold me back.

Now, I don't know about you, but that sort of shit does nothing for me. There was an advert for the Batman "VR" game, which I've never played, but you know what that was? A guy putting the glasses on and it shows you him IN Gotham, and the tagline is "Be the Bat." Now THAT sells it for me. There are iPhone commercials right now showing a guy creating stunning looking photographs using the built-in software on his phone, and at the end it says "created on iPhone." Again, that's me sold.

I don't know when it started, but if you venture onto game discussion pages or Facebook groups and all the chatter and arguments are over frame-rates and how fast the processors are or whatever. Who the fuck cares? Why is that even an issue? When the Nintendo Switch was released, there were assholes falling over themselves to talk about the "low" specs of the console, completely ignoring the actual fucking GAMES on it. Isn't that the point?

When did this shit start?

[trashcanman]

Earlier in the decade. And yeah, it's irritating as hell. Almost as irritating as every single game release becoming about a bunch of losers forcing their politics and opinions based entirely on things they read on Twitter that morning down everyone else's throats. I've got a guy at my work who has a program on his PC that displays the frame rate on-screen constantly and whenever I ask him about whatever game he's currently playing, all he talks about is how many FPS (frames per second) he can get. And now the 4K shit and these new consoles that are barely better and have the same games as the ones that just came out a couple years ago. I just don't care. There have never been more quality games on the market for as cheap as they are now and people want to focus on specs and resolutions? A lot of the best games you can buy look like 80s or 90s titles, who gives a fuck? It's about creativity and fun, not bragging about abstract and arbitrary numbers.

[The Curmudgeon]

Thank God for some sanity.

I mean, there's always been "my console is better than yours" feuds. I get that. And really, the only argument to me worth a damn is what console has the best exclusive games. That's surely the only thing that fucking matters? Reading some of the comments on this new X Box One X or whatever the fuck its called is just.. Jesus. FPS, 4K.. no-one even mentions the games. What's the point?

[trashcanman]

Yeah, it's pretty sad that you can't rely on anything but your judgement anymore when it comes to what games to get. Professional reviews and publicity are bought and sold and childish politics causes every game that does or doesn't have a LGBT person in it and/or a female or minority lead to get scores of morons saying it's the worst or best game ever. It's a nightmare. I can't even rely on sites for news anymore. A couple weeks ago I saw somebody on my friends list playing a game called Marvel Heroes Omega. And it's free! But I hadn't heard about it despite perusing multiple gaming news websites daily even though it was a decent video game based on what's probably the biggest property in entertainment right now because the developer is kind of small and probably can't pay whatever it costs to get IGN to report on it.

Meanwhile, they are still pushing out stories about every new Overwatch costume that comes out even though the game (I would argue half a game sold at full price with microtransactions up the wazoo) is a year old and has been dominating every fucking website like's it's the Donald Trump of video games incessantly that entire time. If you want to know what to buy, you've got to go old school and trust your gut because the web just isn't helpful for keeping up with gaming anymore.

[The Curmudgeon]

What's interesting is that Microsoft seem to be going down the Apple route, in the "it's expensive for a reason, you get what you pay for, it's a premium product at a premium price" frame of mind.

www.polygon.com/e3/2017/6/11/15779644/xbox-one-x-price-microsoft-defends


What's especially irritating in this statement is just how obsessed with their technology stats they are. If Microsoft unveiled this console and actually had a stellar catalogue of upcoming titles, games you could only get on this system, then yeah, that's a sell for me. I don't give a fuck what processors are in there, the games you've shown me on the E3 thread look amazing. A-ma-zing. And at no point have I even thought about the FPS on them.