PC Gamers Crush Console Brethren 387
l_bratch writes "Since December 22nd DICE have been running a competition between each target platform of their latest Battlefield expansion — Bad Company 2: Vietnam. Players were required to complete a large number of 'team actions' in game, in order to unlock a hidden, remastered version of the Operation Hastings map from the original Battlefield: Vietnam. PC gamers have completed the task, whereas gamers on both console platforms are only about halfway there."
Shocking news: (Score:5, Insightful)
hold on there (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to defend the console gamers but:
1) This is based on one game.
2) This assumes that the ports were equivalent
3) This was a count of collective actions of a community not averaged over the individual. The same tournament held between various PC OSes would have resulted in Microsoft crushing Linux's gamers simply because there are more of them on the PC platform.
Breaking news! PC-spawned genre played more on PCs (Score:2, Insightful)
Mostly this shows that the kind of people who like to play first-person shoot-em-ups prefer to play on a computer.
I wonder how much the sales numbers reflect this? Or are the kind of people who like to play FPSs also the kind of people who don't bother to pay for games they get a lot of enjoyment out of?
Color me not surprised... (Score:2, Insightful)
So 14 year old ADD kid or older person with disposable income - who do you think would get done first?
Misleading summary title (Score:5, Insightful)
I read the summary title and thought - for once - some insane game company had enabled PCs to play in the same games with consoles. But no... PC gamers just performed more "team actions" in their own isolated world than console gamers did in theirs.
The game could be more popular on PC than consoles, or perhaps just more "serious" (and maybe older) players on PCs. Hell, maybe the PC version just got cracked and it didn't involve many players at all. Who knows. Slightly interesting, with so little data, only slightly.
It is a superior control system (Score:5, Insightful)
Not just easier to learn, but better. The reason is because a mouse can be both fast and precise. You can easily make quick movements, but can dial that back and be extremely precise too. This is the reason it works so well as an input device. You can get the cursor across the screen fast, but then easily zero in on a small button. Joysticks can't do that. They can be fast or precise, but not both at once. You either have to turn up the sensitivity/acceleration for fast moves, meaning precise aiming is very hard, or you have to turn it down to allow precision, but sacrifice quick movement.
So for FPSes the mouse is by far a superior control system. That is part of the reason for next to no cross platform shooters. Xbox Live makes that possible, Windows and the 360 can play against each other, however in play testing the PC users just slaughter the console users. This is also why in the exceedingly rare cross platform play titles the console users have auto aim and the PC users do not.
Not all games benefit from a mouse. I'd say platformers are easier with a controller, but FPSes do in a big way.
Re:Shocking news: (Score:5, Insightful)
Ordinarily I'd agree with you but I'd say that it has little to do with the input devices and more to do with the skill level, courteousness and ability of the players to work together in this case which gives the PC no intrinsic advantage.
Players had to perform 69 million team actions, which include spotting, performing repairs, and healing, reviving and resupplying. Given the push button, receive medkit nature of these functions there's no difference between console and PC. If it were based on number of kills then we'd be able to say that the PC's input dev has a great advantage. The difference we have is in the kind of people who choose these respective platforms. PC players tend to work together, healing and resupplying others as they go, console players tend to be a lot more selfish, going after other players on their own rather then working as a team.
Re:Breaking news! PC-spawned genre played more on (Score:4, Insightful)
Comparatively speaking the controllers that these games are designed for on consoles fit midway between keyboard and keyboard/mouse combo. They require special tweaks and assistance to work which aren't necessary on PC.
Doesn't mean that console FPS can't or aren't fun, but it does mean that they're the equivalent of arcade race games to the PC's race simulators.
Re:It is a superior control system (Score:5, Insightful)
Better obviously means more precise and accurate control.
And I really can't see how moving a couple of joysticks and clicking buttons is more natural or realistic than a mouse and a keyboard. Neither of them are anything like ducking for cover in a jungle while trying to return fire with an M16.