Category: Technology

I finished my first play through of BioShock today, having taken my time exploring through the game’s wonderfully rendered underwater city environment. In terms of reviewing the title, there’s not really more about the game that I could say that hasn’t already been said.

One thing about the game I do feel I should talk about is the fact that I bought it for the Xbox 360, despite having been a long-time PC gamer. Up to this point when a game has been released for both Windows PCs and gaming consoles, I’ve tended torwards the PC simply because I’ve always felt more comfortable with the mouse and keyboard control setup, as well as the fact that generally my computer could produce higher resolution graphics than the consoles of the time.

BioShock really represents a turning point in my way of thinking on the issue. Granted, there were games I’ve considered purchasing on the consoles instead of the PC, such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Spider-Man 3, but I still generally thought of the PC as being the better platform. With BioShock, however, that’s changed because of several reasons.

Firstly, I managed to have little issue with a FPS using console gamepad controls with this game, which hasn’t always been true prior to this point. Probably the biggest reason I haven’t completed Gears of War for the 360 was because of the problems I was having retraining my brain after a decade of mouse and keyboard usage.

However, the second reason is probably the more important, that of console games being simply easier to run than PC games. I’m a computer support specialist and yet I had absolutely no interest in trying to get past the copyright-protection or system performance issues some gamers were having under Microsoft Windows Vista. And I also had little interest in paying another couple hundred dollars just to upgrade my aging video card for one capable of DirectX 10 in light of the decreasing number of games I’m interested in coming to the PC platform.

I won’t give up my PC gaming completely, but BioShock has really been the turning point for me to look at my Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii as my primary gaming choices.

Even though it’s only a $20 price decrease, Microsoft’s recent reduction to $179 for the Xbox 360 HD-DVD Add-On was enough to push me into finally buying a HD media format in the next generation video disc wars.

I chose the add-on over a standalone unit based on price alone, really. We’re still too early in the format wars for a clear winner to be proclaimed, despite the ever-growing edge that Sony’s Blu-ray has. All the same, I figured I’d go for the cheapest entry and bide my time until the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray combo units from companies such as LG come down to reasonable price levels sometime in the next year or two.

Overall, I’m happy with the unit, having watched the HD-DVD versions of Batman Begins and 300 on my reasonably cheap 32″ LCD HDTV. The video quality is good, running across a VGA connection, though I’d prefer HDMI. However, that will have to wait for an eventual purchase of an Elite 360 should this one perish to the dreaded “red-ring of death”.