Like everyone else picking up a new system on launch day this month, I've been keeping up on the news feeds for the new gaming/media/adware consoles.  And since Battlefield 4 is a day-one pickup for my shiny new toy, naturally I've followed up on stories concerning it.  Which has lead to reading about the minor blowup between blogs and threads concerning how, for both Call of Duty: Sequel (er, Ghosts) and Battlefield Again (um, 4) the XB1 natively outputs at 720p (upscaled to 1080p) whereas the PS4 natively outputs to 1080p for .  Both target to run at 60 FPS.  Also, according to the PC Master Race, with the right graphics card you can run them both at the same time at 8K with light beamed directly into your optic nerves so its cute that console players think anything without a mouse and keyboard is worth playing because Steam.

Sorry.  A bit of vitriol must have spilled over from the forums I was reading and spilled onto my keyboard like the slime from Ghostbusters 2.  No offense to PC gamers.  It's not as if some console gamers say less goofy things.  And the XB1/PS4 number game is a perfect example; it's no exaggeration to say that folks have changed (or confirmed) their next generation console purchase decision based off this technical data about COD/BF4. 

I suppose on the surface it can make sense.  The XB1 is at a $100 premium over the PS4. To read that it appears to run two of the premier, AAA production games less impressively than the cheaper competition is understandably frown-worthy.  Especially if you're picking up Microsoft's Halo DVR instead of the Play-It-Safe 4.  (Settle down, kids, I love you both. )

However, the internet gives an unfortunate advantage most of us would never have otherwise; the ability to see both console versions, running side by side.  In the real world, unless at a convention or PR event, we're not going to stare at each one and pick out how may grains of sand are on each picture, or if that power line appears a little more jagged on the left versus the right.  Screen shots from our gaming magazines begat these comparisons decades ago, but we've moved from showing the technical prowess of an Intellivision vs. Atari 2600 to the point that we now read about counted pixels and imperceptible 2-3 frames per second.

While there can be a noticeable difference between upscaled 720p and native 1080p, in reality if we were to see one and then later the other, many people would not be able to distinguish much difference.  (Well, since RFGeneration tends to cater to the OCD gamers, probably more of us here would notice than the average gamer.)  Sure, there are differences.  Would it truly keep us from enjoying the game on an 'inferior' version?  Phrased another way, if an XBox One Battlefield 4 gamer never heard/read about these numbers, they probably wouldn't care and it certainly wouldn't keep them from enjoying the game on their system.

The relative power of both new consoles are close enough that we are not in a Atari versus Intellivision type of disparity.  I think Nintendo was brilliant to stay out of this horsepower horserace; games on the Wii U are their own thing (many of which are great, IMHO) and the weakest games on it tend to be ports from other consoles. 

It's a strange trait for most of us, that ignorance really can be bliss.  When I first got Cruisin' USA for the N64, I enjoyed it for weeks.  Then one day I off-handedly read a critical review of it in a magazine.  It was thoroughly trounced as the reviewer nit-picked and complained about a dozen issues, none of which I had even noticed while playing.  As I went back to the game, I couldn't 'unsee' what I now saw.  Every criticism I read pointed itself out to me, and I just didn't have fun with it anymore.  Where before I just took the game at face value and enjoyed it, now my eyes were searching for flaws both real and imagined.

For this reason I've become enormously careful about video game reviews.  I certainly have no problem with a critic giving opinions and it is valuable for the technical merits or flaws to be discussed and pointed out.  But assigning an 'entertainment value' in the form of a number or grade strikes me as strangely foreign to a new media many consider a form of artistic impression.  It's not that I don't want to know things a critic finds 'wrong' with a game, especially if it is technical; it's that more and more I see an emphasis on obtuse nitpicking and general negativity instead of a passionate enjoyment of the hobby. 

I want to know if a game is buggy or has a flawed save system, sure.  And for those who own more than one system it's nice to know if there is a performance disparity for multiplatform releases.  I have no issue with sites like Digital Foundry discussing the numbers and breakdowns of a game's performance or comparisons between systems.  My issue comes from what is normally done with this data: the increasingly aggressive flame war that prevents people from the whole point.  Most people play games to have fun.  Yet to hear it from forums, and indeed overheard in game stores, apparently we are having the wrong kind of fun.  Folks are belittled for enjoying or desiring to enjoy a game with some lesser numbers attached.  It is as if we must have a certain kind of fun on a certain optimum setting, or we are messing up some arbitrary thing or we are judged as ignorant for liking some subpar experience.

However, after great (and continuing) mental effort, I have found that detaching these data points from my attention makes for a far more entertaining experience in gaming.  I still go back and enjoy Starfox on SNES.  That game's frame-rate runs like a ViewMaster with a lethargic child on the lever, but I can still see it with the mind's eye of my 15 year-old self and have lots of fun.  The Dreamcast version of Unreal Tournament runs laughably bad compared to the PC version and is very trimmed down content-wise, yet the summer vacations my friends and I spent on it come rolling back every time I load it up.

The ability to overlook flaws works differently for each gamer, of course.  Going back to Goldeneye for me is an exercise frustration, and it is largely due to the technical issues.  (How on earth did I ever find my way around when the cavern wall is a single color with no definition!?)  I never liked Resident Evil's original 'tank' controls, and after the last few games in the series, going back to the older games wasn't as fun as I had hoped.

And back in the now, no one wants to spend more on an XBox One for 'second best.'

(-PC gamers: "Third best!")
(-XB1/PS4 gamers: "Shut up!  Nobody asked you!") 

However, to rile antagonism over launch era multiplatform games comes across as being needlessly negative, especially when the parity requires side-by-side comparisons to tease out differences.  Over the last generation I preferred the XBox 360, not for any 'superior' multiplatform games, but because of the franchises exclusive to that system.  Ditto for every Nintendo platform released.  The beginning of this console generation has me excited for several Wii U games.  And because more of my online friends will have one, a PS4 is our next system.

One day I have no doubt XBox One will be in the queue because of some franchise exclusives that interest me.  Our family picks up what we'd like to play for fun as opposed to an arbitrary corporate allegiance.  I recommend the same thing at the gaming store I work at, yet I'm always overhearing about how someone is making some kind of wrong entertainment choice.  And all across the web, gamers are actively making fun of and trashing other people's opinions.

Most of us are taught at a young age that entertainment at the expense of others is a form of bullying and should be avoided.  No one realistically expects internet forums to 'behave,' but it would be preferable if gamers focused more on the positive elements of our industry instead of generating and perpetuating pointless negativity.  Let's always keep in mind, these electronic doodads are here to entertain us and make life a little nicer; if we let them generate more negativity, I think we're missing the point.

Permalink | Comments [5] | Digg This Article | Tweet