Red Dead Redemption - for PC fans?

The trend continues...seeing now that the average age of video gamers is 35 years old (which has risen from last few years) we now see a correlation of the console market gaining massive share of the sales of games, with a relatively small percentage of us PC gamers still holding sway.  Is it that perhaps the older gamers get, the more lazy and couch-bound we become? I'm 33, yet I still haven't sprung for the ps3 or it's 60 dollar games. I'm a PC gamer, going on at least 20 years now, and i've had playstations and nintendos (where my age group started of course!), but the games on consoles IMO serve a purpose, but don't satisfy like the PC counterparts. This is immensely arguable, of course, and fiercely debated in countless forums and internet discussions.

Now, more and more of our favorite games are developed for the money making console market FIRST, then...maybe, if we are lucky, the dev/publishers might throw us a bone and port their masterpiece's of simplistic gameplay and limited depth to the PC, where invariably the result is a buggy, un-optimized mess of a game [looking at you GUN] that is basically abandoned shortly after release and rarely polished with patches. There's apparently just no money to motivate them anymore.

Now ordinarily, this never bothered me too much. After all, like I said, console games are usually simplistic quick casual games or action games that are high on explosions and mind-numbing time wasters, fun because you don't have to 'think' too much and therefore, yes, are fun in a casual sit-on-the-couch-after-the-kids-go-to-bed mode. But now there is a crossing over, a turning point, where once in-depth, strategic, or franchised FPS games are being stolen from the PC, published on console first...and worse, ONLY on console, leaving us longtime fans of a certain franchise scratching our heads, with money in hand, wondering why we don't get to share in the fun anymore. Yeah! There I said it!  Listen up EA, 2K games, UBISOFT! Even one of my favorite developers, Bethesda (Morrowind, Oblivion) spent their money on optimizing Oblivion and Fallout 3 for the @%$! [parden me, consolers] Xbox/Ps3 crowd first, then ported it over to the PC-where these games roots began. With InfinityWard/Activision's bastardization of the infamous Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, the trend continues as the money rolls in.

So now we come to one of my other favorite developers, Rockstar, whom have a mostly outstanding track record of high-quality, highly addicting and fun games, releasing what appears to be a stellar new game -Red Dead Redemption, only on the consoles. Yes, I realize that the first in the series '..Revolver' was also a console-only game- that game was mostly a fun 2 player shoot-em up without a major story or single player story campaign. The sequel looks vastly superior, complete with hollywood quality writing, graphics, story and cut-scenes [a la GTA series], and therefore...I really want a chance to place this bad boy. Will I get the chance? Only time will tell.

Rockstar took a year to release GTA4 to PC, almost as long for Vice City and San Andreas. Currently, what Rockstar San Diego is reporting is they have no plans to release Red Dead Redemption for PC, but if that changes they will 'let us know'.

So for you Xbox/Ps3 owners who may enjoy this game- go ahead and 'let me know' how it is. I'll go back to my port of the still excellent Fallout 3 GOTY edition in the meantime.

Violent PC games again attacked by German government

I see a lot of serious video game news while surfing around the net.

The ruling government in Germany is once again, threatening to ban any and all violent video/PC games from being created and sold in their country. This after a new incident of violent youth killings. As long as the suicidal youth leaves a phrase relating to a PC game, or has any affiliation with a video game, types in a gaming websites' forum etc...its all over for the rest of us. The German politicians, very similar to our own, hone in on the correlation like, ahem..Zombies to brains!

Despite all factual evidence, despite numerous professional psychiatrists, doctors, theologists and intellectualist's debunking the common assumption that violent video games are at the foundation of these troubled youth's, money still pours into the coffers of the special interest groups agenda to rid the world of these allegedly dangerous 'Murder Simulators'.

Politicians of the world-violent acts have occurred in all facets of life, in all age groups [some more than others obviously], since the first man had to throw rocks and spears at the neighbors attempting to steal their women and food. A hobby isn't anymore to blame for the turn of a young minds complex behavior and decision making than reading a book is to Hannibal Lecter.

It is just disheartening, how short-sighted and self-serving some people become, taking advantage of a human behavior issue, turning it into a scapegoat to personal fame and fortune.

Now, Germany's own Crytek, master developers of Crysis and Far Cry series, may consider relocating to their Budapest offices, being chased out of their own Country.

Please do your part to oppose any of this nonsense anti-gaming legislation, when it falls on our voting ballets. Even if you don't necessarily like, or agree with violent games, you should take the high road and vote with your conscious. PC games, Video games are no more the problem than the multitude of already available [some for a century now] similar mediums- DVD's, movies, books, magazines and of course...the latest addition on the block: The internetz!

GTA 4 -in mayhem we trust.

I LOVED GTA-Vice City. Being a child of the 80's, the tropical Miami-Vice esque city with all those songs from my childhood cranked up while cruising in an old [generic version] of a White Chevy Nova, never got old. The neon lights of the disco, the wispy rain of the occasional florida thunderstorm. For me, its immersiveness that make me love or forget a game.

For me, the cleverest gimmick that the devs dreamt up, is the vehicle's radio stations. Just to be able to drive up to some rich Billy Idol style mission target, side view your machine gun out your window, mow down your objective in a spray of bullets and blow out the tires, causing him to careen into 3-4 other cars and catch them on fire, knocking down light poles with the ensuing explosions, splattering a gaggle of screaming mall shoppers- all while grooving smoothly to White Snakes 'Here I Go Again' is nothing short of sublime.

The bemoaning critics, the electioneering Senators,and susie-Q Christian's view on why i play these games is humorously far off the mark- which testifies to their ignorance of the subject of which they posture:
I, Dear Mr./Mrs. Fear Monger, play these games because they are a escape from our all-too politically correct, overly-polite, Utopian society that we strive to live in. And at the same time, enjoy the re-creation of a very vivid period of time that a great many of us, the X-gen game-players, have lived through. I play to hear that long lost song that i fell asleep to, as a insecure, pimple-faced 14 year old boy. I play to let out a little aggression of daily stress, which is a daily affair in a modern, hectic working U.S. life. I play to appease a creative mind, that has always wondered, "What IS it like to pay for the services of a prostitute, then accidentally run her over with your 79' El Camino, thereby allowing you to relieve her of the cash you just provided her?" What IS it like, to jump off the highest building in the city, and parachute down to infiltrate a mafia king's home? Do a triple-reverse flip with a dirt-bike, fight off a whole platoon of comically robotic Army Guardsmen, with Grenades and rocket launchers, then stealing the smoking remains of their hummer-all to park it in your newly purchased exotic mansion garage!? I think the first time i played this game, i was laughing non-stop for about an hour, it was all just so randomly humorous, in it's over-the-top exaggerations and mayhem.

Back then, the graphics were good, however untextured, but they had their own style. San Andreas, vastly increased the area to play in, with an additional 2 large city's, another awesome mix of early rap and grunge hits, and added a sweet 'heat-shimmer' effect to the hot summertime atmosphere of early-90's L.A..

So, judging by the screenshots, this version IV looks to be a giant leap in the graphics and fidelity of the detailed environment, and i'm sure there will be uncountable missions to perform, hooker's to cuddle, bro's to cohort with, and unlimited enemies to de-pixelize. (hopefully with hilarious and awe-inducing moments of grandeur)

Looks Like Rockstar ushers in another addition to the emerging concept of modern art- the video game.

Here is a link to the site, as well as to the inevitable patches:

www.rockstargames.com/IV/

And, an interesting philosophical take on the game play virtues from a couple Harvard egg-heads:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/games/2008/05/23/gta4-choice-and-consequence/

check it out!