Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Battlefield 3 PS3 v. PC Observations
I've been playing Battlefield 3 since its release in late October 2011. I've been playing on both the PS3 and PC platforms. Some things that need to be stated up front, because neither platform is equal...and they both have their good and bad things.
Things that are equal:
I've had a couple people argue with me on these notse, and I'm sure more people will, but largely when you are very active in gameplay, like the game encourages...you don't notice the graphical differences.
Other annoyances on the PC version:
So, as I continue to play both versions (actually, I've given the PC version more actual hours of gameplay), I am more and more frustrated with the PC version, perhaps because of the annoyances...perhaps because of the people. When I play games, I really am looking for a stress-free diversion and a bit of fun. Long load-times, more cluttered interfaces, occasional crashes, connection failures, differences in map limitations, and lots of trash-talk make the PC version more of a chore that a diversion to play.
If you are a hardcore gamer, by all means play the PC version, because you will get all the graphical enhancements and server choices that you probably want. If you are more of a casual gamer who loves Battlefield, but just wants to jump in for a few diversionary matches, then a console like the PS3 is definitely more for you.
Things that are equal:
- Playing at 1080p, 30fps on both platforms
- Potential for good K/D ratios
- Anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering work beautifully on the PC with a decent video card
- Textures are better on the PC
- Fire, smoke, explosions, and particle effects are beautiful on the PC
- Lighting effects are a little better, especially in that they chose to allow light to shine through windows in the PC version.
- Potential frame-rate is tons better, though I had to keep vertical-sync on to stop all the tearing and blur looking horizontally
- Building designs. Though the textures of the models are clearly better on the PC, it appears that EA acknowledged this and gave us more complicated building models as a gimme.
- Load times. Unless you are running a SSD for Battlefield 3 on your PC, all load times for maps and matches are faster on the PS3. I wager this is because the models are simply lower resolution on the PS3.
- Match-ups. Quick-match works beautifully on the PS3...balancing teams pretty well, and picking populated servers.
- Simplicity of the interface.
I've had a couple people argue with me on these notse, and I'm sure more people will, but largely when you are very active in gameplay, like the game encourages...you don't notice the graphical differences.
Other annoyances on the PC version:
- You must use Origin to play, plus a web-browser plugin to pick your match. Once you pick the server you want, then it spawns the Battlefield 3 game.
- Long load times. Again, beautiful models mean more load-time.
- Connection problems. Often I get failed connections with Origin.
- Crashes. I've had the game crash on many occasions.
- Quick-match doesn't seem to work. I've had friends say I'm wrong about this, but I've never had quick-match for a conquest map put me on a server with any population. Perhaps if you have ZERO criterion checked, then it works...dunno.
- The web interface for choosing a server is just poor altogether. You can check a bunch of criteria for what server you want to play on pretty easily, but the interface is busy and doesn't refresh itself especially well. Also, there is no 'link' between your BF3 web-page chat and Origin's chat.
- The web interface lies to me. It says very specifically this text: "You own Back to Karkand. get ready to play it!" But I don't own it.
So, as I continue to play both versions (actually, I've given the PC version more actual hours of gameplay), I am more and more frustrated with the PC version, perhaps because of the annoyances...perhaps because of the people. When I play games, I really am looking for a stress-free diversion and a bit of fun. Long load-times, more cluttered interfaces, occasional crashes, connection failures, differences in map limitations, and lots of trash-talk make the PC version more of a chore that a diversion to play.
If you are a hardcore gamer, by all means play the PC version, because you will get all the graphical enhancements and server choices that you probably want. If you are more of a casual gamer who loves Battlefield, but just wants to jump in for a few diversionary matches, then a console like the PS3 is definitely more for you.
Bird Joins Bluegrass Band
Josh Williams and his band get a woodland visitor that joins them during one of their songs.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Onomatopoeia Woes
If I never heard someone use the throwback to the Cookie Monster sound 'om nom nom' to mean 'delicious' again, it would be wonderful.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
2012 Isn't The End The World
And if it were...what would you do? What would you be able to do? Oh, yeah...nothing.
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