I'm 63 and cut my teeth on Doom when it first came out. I've played a great many FPS games including all of id's. That's thousands of hours, many of em'. My children too play FPS games with my daughter, who could have turned pro at one time, terrorizing Q3 servers with her HUMILIATION road show. Now I will get a Halloween first grandchild from her, so she has other things to do.
I've played, well not all of em', but nearly. The Stalker trio is the most fun I have ever had with a video game. I'm clearing Duty scum from the Garbage now completely ignoring the main quest since I picked a faction. The atmosphere is unrivaled and the guns to die for. Gun and armor tweaking is extremely addictive.
I built my new machine to run Rage and after Fallout 3, great game crappy shooter, and now Stalker greatest yet, I will have very high standards to meet.
I worry about the console emphasis. They are always dumbed down for the poor controller and have limited memory/cpu/throughput etc. I built an i5-750 with a lot of memory and 3D horsepower and it's many times stronger than any console. I worry about how a game that will run well on minimal hardware will run on my custom built beast. Built for Rage. My first computer was built to run Doom. An OC'd Pentium 120.
Im 25 and I remember when my buddy's stepdad bought Doom and Doom II, we played that stuff for hours and hours (and we werent allowed to call them hellknights, rather H-knights). But anyway, the speed at which computer hardware and software advanced, usually meant I couldnt always afford to play the computer games I wanted to b/c my system was barebones. I still remember the heartbreaking incident when I bought Duke Nukem, took it home and realized my system couldnt handle it :sadvaultboy: So, I found console(ation) in owning nintendos and the like, b/c I always knew that I could run the games no problem.
Now that Im a college student, ive been able to off and on afford a decent PC or laptop that could play decent games, but now im in a money crunch when my laptop crapped out on my and I again turned to consoles. I have a PS3, which i believe to be the best of the consoles, but I understand that computers will always be a step ahead of consoles. But i find them to be more practical b/c it can be technically challenging (and expensive) to keep up with the best graphics cards and knowing whats compatible with what. Its also true that keyboards provide a plethora of choices for button layout, where as controllers have there Xs and Os and bumpers. But we also have motion control, which the computer player misses out on (sometimes). As a console player I worry that too many software devs are still focused on the XBOX 360, when they should be turning their attention to the potentials of the PS3, which comeon, has blu-ray. But anyway, I hoist my glass to you sir, and warmly reminisce about throwing blurry dollar bills at pixelated strippers. :rock: