peterb is ultimately correct, even though I agree with many of your points. I would rather have a polished and stable — even if dumbed-down — game of epic scope and high quality, rather than drown in an ever-increasing flood of casual games for weak-willed gamers who don’t have the ambition to nurture their computer to get their kicks.

I just finished the European PC version of Fallout 3 and the CD was in the drive all the time. I have played MANY games over the years and in spite of a few crashes Fallout 3 remains the best game I ever played only surpassed by Civ4. So in my opinion we are talking about a game which works really well, is really fun and exciting to play and takes the otherwise great game called Oblivion to new heights.

Many reviewers share my opinions. Overall it gets fine reviews from almost any reviewer.

Am I the over optimistic European here who can’t help wondering why the outstanding qualities of this game is not discussed in this otherwise excellent blog?

Ultimately, these arguments are akin to complaining your car doesn’t work anymore because you don’t change the oil, you don’t get tune-ups, you don’t do anything but put gas in the tank and expect it to go, go, go… All without acknowledging your errors in identifying the issues and properly assigning them. It’s a bad argument. Just like the hordes of XBOX idiots that wail “Fallout 3 Causes the Red Ring of Death.” For example:

Fallout 3 has an issue with the Lincoln Memorial in the post-Union quest. The bug is easily avoidable in that once you finish the quest, you just don’t to up the steps to the Lincoln Memorial to induce the crash. It is a legitimate software bug. There is a semi-random crash-on-exit bug caused by a change in Windows via a Microsoft update. This has been patched, though I don’t care and haven’t installed it. But so much of this is directly not developer related:

Video Errors: NVidia is the biggest culprit in PC Gaming crashes right now because of their screwed up drivers/defective card design in the 8000 series of cards. Seriously, I’ve got a GeForce 8800GTX and it has NEVER been stable. It benches okay so it’s not a defective chipset or cooling fan. But it’s just an unstable piece of crap, like the 8600′s too. Every game I have that’s been released in the past two years crashes about every three-to-five hours. And I’m not the only one and it is an issue that was never properly resolved. Most of us that spent six-months complaining on the NVidia forums have given up complaining and will, eventually, move on to a new ATI card or a newer NVidia card if they prove more stable than the 8000 series. (Note: ATI isn’t perfect, they had issues too. Just not as many.)

Second is on-board sound. Lots of MOBOs have really crappy on-board sound chips that even conflict with Windows. You have to shut those chips off and put in a card or go to a USB sound solution, like headphones. This is, once again, an entire PC manufacturing choices platform issue and has been understood for the last four or five years. Yet you’re not safe with just any card. The ASUS Xonar Card has a problem and you must turn off their poorly implemented GX function.

A third is a software conflict. Lots of people have Codecs on their computers to run their porno. Many of them are not stable and will crash the game. And many other games. This isn’t a Fallout problem. This is someone else’s software causing a problem. The Vodei codec is really bad. If you uninstall it, you’ll improve LOTS of games, not just Fallout. K-Lite is another one that causes huge problems with games (and other programs). You have those on your computer, well, you’ve been warned.

MOBO drivers can be hell. The ASUS gamerOSD and/or smartDOC extenders crash lots of game. They are unstable. Also, some of the ASUS BIOS set-ups are unstable. I had to upgrade my BIOS two years because it conflicted with my 8800GTX so badly even 3D “Windows 95″ games wouldn’t run more than a couple of minutes. I, literally, had an $800 video card that could only play 2D games. An upgrade of the BIOS and the problem was solved.

The fact is, most of what everyone whines about, and erroneously blames the developer, are issues the developer has no control over. Like it or not, the PC is a difficult platform. This is not to say Fallout 3 doesn’t have some bugs. It does have some of it’s own software bugs which I pointed out. But, like most games, which use a lot of the capacity of the computer, it’s being unfairly blamed for problems unrelated to actual developer execution of the game.

So, yes, the XBOX is easy. When it’s defective by design problems aren’t killing you. So is the PS3. But those platforms are limited and have already been surpassed by the PC gaming rigs.

So, if you want a truly great gaming experience, then it’s PC. But if you do, you’ve got to stop whining about the game developers and educate yourself to the issues so you can correct them.

Otherwise, you can play your low-res games on XBoxs and PS3′s on your TVs. Which is fine by me. I really don’t care. What I do care about is that the actual issues are addressed in an adult fashion in which some, at least minor, actual research to the issues is conducted so the article isn’t some silly hack-piece that blames the wrong people.

And, yes, I do agree with the Japanese. If you’re not gamer enough to deal with the PC, you don’t deserve it because you don’t have the fighting spirit. You don’t have what it takes. And failure is your reward.

Just like most good things in life.

Now considering that you go on this diatribe about how you only want to double click I would think you would of tried this but it seems that perhaps you are not what you claim to be.

Now please keep in mind that I did not read this on the internet, I did not have someone tell me, I just saw that when I put the CD in it only loaded the launcher and 10 seconds later I discovered I only needed to double click the actual game exe.

The “CD Check” is only there for the game launch menu nothing more, it is not required for game play.

As for your complaints about PC gaming, yes custom built machines require downloading of drivers, constantly updating your OS, etc but how come you are leaving out the fact that the modern day consoles require, gasp, constant OS updates? Yes the PS3, Wii, and XBox 360 all have updates that you should download and often times when playing XBox games when you launch them you get prompted to, “Download updates for the game”.

Seriously it sounds like you woke up with sand in your vag and perhaps you should just stick to console gaming as console gaming is truely for the lazy. Which based on the amount of actual work you put into learning about the true power of the cd check puts you in that category.

Should not the PC be for work and porn and the console for games?

@Akuma: I can’t tell any difference from those videos.

@Elle: As I’ve said in other forums: Does it require a driver? Does it require admin privileges? If the answer is yes to either of those, it’s intrusive.