Deprived

The effects of Wing Commander deprivation

I have resorted to these extreme measures because I learned my lesson after being saddled with an Apple while having to read about a Next Big Thing called Wing Commander, which I would never be able to play. Some of you die-hard PC-only gamers might call me an 'early adopter', which is just a polite way to say 'sucker', and I'll reply 'guilty as charged'. But then I'll ask how far you've gotten in Knights of the Old Republic. I will watch you blanch and stammer and I'll hear the gears turning in your head as you mentally calculate whether you can eke out $250 from your budget and what your wife/girlfriend/mom will say if she catches you connecting to your TV an Xbox that you supposedly don't need.

Believe me, I know how that mental calculus works. I've seen people struggle with it. I know what kind of things people will tell you to save themselves the $250 (the price of one system and a single game), which is likely to swell to $1000 (the price of all three systems, all the Next Big Thing games, a few extra controllers, a couple of memory cards, and a handful of older Must Haves that you can’t pass up for the reduced prices they cost).

They'll tell you they don't like console games. But there's no such thing as 'console games' anymore. They're just games. You can't use a mouse with a console game and you can't play a computer game on the TV in your living room, but otherwise, the basics are the same. They're just games and they're being made by the same people. The creators of Grand Theft Auto, Halo, and Knights of the Old Republic are all PC developers. It's not that surprising, really. The talent follows the money and the money flows the path of least resistance where people don't have to fiddle with drivers and video cards and tech support and upgrades and DirectX version something-point-something.

They'll tell you they prefer multiplayer gaming. But there's no multiplayer quite like shoulder-to-shoulder. Whether it's playing through Halo co-op, beating up on each other in Incog's giant creature feature War of the Monsters, or four-player Virtua Tennis or its latter day incarnation Beach Spikers, this is as good as anything you can do on a PC. It's smoother and more accessible. There is zero lag. There are no technical problems. Plus you don't have to type in a chat window to taunt. Just look to the left and cuss.

(Hey Tom, so tell us about your last killer co-op experience in Vietcong in Xbox. Judas! -ed.)