PC Gaming Is Dead To Me

Are you listening, PC gaming? Hmm? You digging up what I’m burying, you sonofabitch? Look at me when I’m talking to you.

Here. Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, I had Fallout 3 for my Xbox 360. We played for many hours across the Wasteland. We killed many mutants together. We nuked Megaton. We had a dog. Life was jolly.

Eventually, I said goodbye to Fallout 3 even though some delicious DLC was about to drop for it. Five sweet pieces of DLC sounded great, but for around ten bucks a pop, I just couldn’t justify almost doubling the cost of the original game. The game went to trade-in.

Then, Fallout 3, Game of the Year (GOTY) edition came out. Same game, but now with all the DLC included, for the same price as the original game. Except, buy it for the PC, and it’s cheaper. Buy it from GoGamer Madness, and it’s cheaper still. I can basically get the DLC for no extra cost, then, since I traded in the original, and I get to slap it onto a fairly bad-ass, graphically robust desktop. Fine. Yes. I’ll take it.

I got it.

I unwrapped it.

I licked it, I made love to it, we watched the sunrise together, and then I went to install it.

It hasn’t gone well.

The GOTY comes with two disks. Discs? Whatever. Two DVDs. I installed the one, and it never asked me for the other. The instructions that come with it are the same ones that come with the original game, so I just assume that when the game needs that second DVD, it’ll yell at me, I’ll concede to its will, and the game will progress.

I play the game for about five minutes.

This is about all the playtime I can manage before the game freezes.

Okay. Fine. That’s super. I decide to look online for solutions. In the process, I discover that the second DVD is actually the DLC, and you need to install that separately. I figure, what the hell, maybe that’s the problem. Maybe that’s the magical key that will unlike this mystical treasure.

I try that. I open the drive. I run the install setup.

The little blue Windows wheel just spins. And spins. And spins.

I reboot. I try again. Same process. It snores. It snoozes. It wheezes. It does nothing.

Once more, I return online and discover that, for some dumbfuck reason, this is normal. You’re supposed to just “let it go.” Like it needs time to work up to it. Installation is hard, don’t you know? It takes a lot out of a guy. A very emotional time in a DVD’s life. So, I do that. I just let it hang. I let it hang for fifteen goddamn minutes. Then! Hah! Yes! It installs!

I think, Glory of glories, it’s time to murder mutated miscreants in the D.C. Wasteland!

Mmmm. Not so much. No, what happens at this point is — an error message. Something about blah blah blah, “Original 5360 could not be located” in some blah blah blah “xlive.dll.”

Once more, I forge online. Ah. Solution. I need to install Games for Windows Live, which is apparently a required piece of software (one you would think would autofuckinginstall).

I install it.

The game plays.

It plays.

It plays!

Let the angels sing! A mighty chorus! Harpsichord! Golden voices! Dappled light filtered though gauzy clouds! The dulcet tones of –

It locks up.

It locks up.

IT LOCKS UP.

Five, ten minutes in, boom. Like a narcoleptic terrier, it just drops.

Would I have this problem on the Xbox? No. No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have gone through a minute of this frustration, and if I had, somebody would just patch that motherfucker and spoonfeed it to my console like it was a colicky infant. But on the PC? I have to put on a mining hat. I have to lube up. I have to rip out organs. I have to consult with oracles and read the guts of vultures and fight off hungry spiders and punch myself in the junk drawer over and over and over again.

This is why PC gaming is dead to me.

(I reserve the right to resurrect its corpse with grim necromancy, however, when I want to play any of the Sims 3 expansions. Shut up.)

11 comments

  • Rob Donoghue

    October 25, 2009 at 8:48 AM // Reply

    The PC won’t ever actually let you leave. As much as everything else in the universe gives you a better experience, the PC is still the default. This maddens me.

    -Rob D.

  • Scionic

    October 25, 2009 at 8:51 AM // Reply

    PC Gaming is going that way quickly with me as well. Before I got my Big Black Moneysink (or the PS3, to you unwashed masses) I was a huge proponent of PC Gaming. Even given that my rig is six years old and still uses an AGP card, I have been able to run most things up to CoD 4… CoD 5 became the mark where my machine told me what I could do with myself, and even gave me recommendations on how to accomplish that with a light socket (thanks Office Assistant!).

    I didn’t realize that with modern games, what you just described was not the norm. My PS3 does everything. Patch up? Done. New content? Done. Smite my enemies? Done. I haven’t had the desire to buy a single PC game outside of MMO’s for a while now, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Year, I’ll update Age of World of Grogcraft (or whatever you called it) when the expansions hit, but until then I am going to melt faces and save Gotham on the console side.

  • Fabio "Sooner" Macedo

    October 25, 2009 at 9:33 AM // Reply

    It’s funny that it all came to you with this game. After getting a PS2 (that’s right, 2, not 3) I’m with you about PC gaming, and I’m saving money for a Xbox just so I can get rid the last reason I have for ever opening a PC game again – Fallout 3.

    Even the regular version has its issues all too often. There was a time when I knew that I would never be able to play for more than 1 hour or so, ’cause about that time it would crash to the desktop, and then I’d save the game at every corner after 50 minutes or so. I also had to try to install it at least three times due to an error near the end of the installation. In fact, the error still appeared during third time, but somehow the game managed to run then. You know, it’s the charm and all that.

  • John

    October 25, 2009 at 10:19 AM // Reply

    I never really have problems with my PC! :P Are you sure you know what a PC is? Remember when you tried to install Doom 3 on your stereo system, Chuck? Remember, PC stands for Personalized Computronizer!

    • Chuck

      October 25, 2009 at 8:15 PM // Reply

      John: You’re dead to me. Sure, try to convince me that *I’m* the only guy in the world who has problems with PC games. Mm-hmm.

      And Rob — no, the PC won’t let me leave, you’re right about that. Sims 3 has me. MMOs just don’t work on consoles yet (not that I dare engage in a deliciously addicting MMO).

      – c.

  • Cam Banks

    October 29, 2009 at 9:54 AM // Reply

    I have cleverly solved this problem by not having a PC but rather, a Mac, and we all know those aren’t supposed to be used as gaming machines. Unless you like running Blizzard software. Or something. No! I have always maintained that I have a computer for doing the Internets and writing/designing/thinging, and my PSX then PS2 then XBox 360 for gaming.

    • Chuck

      October 29, 2009 at 9:57 AM // Reply

      Cam:

      That’s pretty much my attitude. I lurves my PC just fine, and it’s a bad-ass machine for writing and designing (the laptop is less bad-ass, but does the job for writing and Internetting). The PC opens Photoshop in record time, and so I’m happy.

      But PC games have given me agita for endless years, and I grow weary of the promise of potential and the reality of smashing my head into the keyboard again and again.

      – c.

  • Jeff Preston

    October 29, 2009 at 11:33 AM // Reply

    The PC has become the cocktease of gaming. Oooh, look at me, I can give you depth of play an X360 never will. Its beauty is only limited to your hardware, which you will lovingly upgrade. Come on, you know you want it!

    Unf unf unf PSYCH!
    Blue Screen of Death (or other incompatability or failure)

    In the end, the consoles are built for gaming, that’s THEIR forte. The standards to get games published for the x360 and PS3 are high. To get it out with the name PS3 slapped on it, yeah, HIGH!

    Then again, the console isn’t a moving target. Xbox360 is an Xbox360.
    A PC? Sweet zombie jeesus! The myriad possible configurations are literally innumerable. A moving target. No wonder they SUCK at games anymore in comparison to the console.

    Getting an X360 is like a marriage. Playing games on a PC is like shelling out $20 for a hummer in the park at night.

    • Chuck

      October 29, 2009 at 1:14 PM // Reply

      Heh, that’s about rght, Jeff.

      Consoles do their job fairly admirably. Not perfect, of course. And, while I love the PC (and, PC-specific games will still get play from me, much as I resent them), I just don’t have the time to play the “mini-game” where I update drivers and download patches and push through lockups.

      – c.