I strongly, strongly recommend it. I haven't had that much fun with a videogame since the original Halo, and I might--dare I say it--yup, it's better than Halo. What really grabbed me was the interaction with the characters. They are very interesting people, and it's FUN getting to know them and making decisions to see how they'll react. I even ended up having sex with one of the female soldiers! :) Okay, so maybe that's a bit shallow, but the game really makes you feel that your choices are significant and that they will have an impact on the story.

I can't think of any flaws. The game played like a dream. Trust me on this: get Mass Effect. You know ol' Fartin' Barton wouldn't lead you wrong.

W00t! Just beat Mass Effect...man, let me tell you, GET THIS GAME. It rawks!!! I think it might actually be one of my favorite games of all time.

The wii definitely intrigues me. I like the idea of a special control scheme and talented developers focusing on that experience. I think you're right about consoles, Bill & Mark. I laughed hard reading Mark's response, though, especially the last part!!!

I think Mark is on to something too about the console experience--the developers know what they are developing and how it will be experienced. With a PC game, who knows if the person will have a GTX 280 or some ancient card? I'd say that a game like F.E.A.R. running on a low-end machine is just a totally different experience than the same game run on high-end system. With a console, though, you know exactly what the specs will be and can tailor the game for that.

If you don't care for the exclusives, then by all means don't get a console. Please don't! We can't seem to convice you with all our arguments and yet you continue to ask the same question over and over again. Look if you enjoy tweaking your pc and playing games on it - that's fine by me. You won't be able to write about console games though as you have no exposure to them ;-) Perhaps that is a compelling reason?

I don't enjoy tweaking my rather new PC. I am disappointed by the fact that - whilst it is powered by an Intel Core Duo E4400 with Nvidia 8600GT graphics card and is sporting a whopping 3Gb of RAM - it still won't run Oblivion properly. I actually preferred the mouse/keyboard control scheme but when I saw it running flawlessly on the Xbox 360 I rushed out and got it for the 360. A guaranteed framerate and gameing experience for my money. I've tried out other Vista games, I let my machine's Windows-experience-Index guide me. Well the results were disappointing in my case. Whilst my computer runs Mame and quite a lot of emulators well it does fail to perform on some Vista games that are supposed to run fine on my system. I don't want to have to open up the case, take out the CPU and replace it with a faster one or replace the graphics card with one that takes up two slots and draws more than 100 Watts of power - I don't think my computer's power supply will be able to cope with something like that. Don't forget that the arcade games you play on Mame have originated on closed / very closed propitiatory arcade systems - very much like consoles.

Matt, don't you dare get a console you hear!

Editor / Pixelator - Armchair Arcade, Inc.
www.markvergeer.nl

That's ridiculous. I said if someone, anyone, was forced to have only one, of course you'd have to choose a PC because it does everything. My statement was that the idea that someone playing games on a modern console doesn't also have access to a PC is pretty absurd. The younger generation especially uses the Internet, and thus computers for all the social networking crap, Websites, e-mail, IM, etc., even though their cell phones perform some of those functions. So the point was, even if they take the ONE function away from the PC that it's not necessarily best at - game playing - and use a device (console) designed for it instead (or primarily, like I do, playing only the occasional PC game), are they really missing out on ANYTHING? If they're so inclined, they'll explore the advanced stuff. If not, they'll just be a normal user like anyone else. Playing games on a PC will not give them any more or less skills than their natural inclination would give them anyway. It's not like the old days where computers weren't menu driven or required lots of hands-on attention.

Again, ideal world, a person would have one or more consoles, one medium to high end computer and one or more handhelds, giving access to the most possible experiences, covering gaps that each device has. Some, like me, go beyond that, others are probably just below that. I would think most, if not statistically all, who have a modern console, also have full-time access to a PC. So it's win-win. It's not like you can play either a PC or console on the "crapper" or in other awkward situations, or toss one in your pocket or something. So that's where a handheld like a DS or PSP or, increasingly an iPod Touch or iPhone comes into play (assuming you want something a bit more advanced than standard cell phone fare, which is also increasing in quality). Again, time, place and purpose for everything.

Wii: 1345 2773 2048 1586 | PS3: ArmchairArcade
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.