Nerd Debate! PC Gaming Vs. Console Gaming…FIGHT!

Since PC’s have been able to do other things besides word processing and spreadsheets, we have been playing games on them, and since the late 80’s when the NES was originally released there have been debates on which platform is better, PC or Console. With the steady increase of consoles since the mid 90’s the PC has been losing it’s grip on the gaming market and major decline early on in the New Millennium with the addition of the Xbox and PS2.

The PC definitely has the edge on console gaming in areas. For instance, consoles will never be able to keep with the constantly changing PC market. In the first year of a console’s lifespan the PC will have upgraded it’s graphics and processing power close to three times. So with this increase in products for the inside of a PC also comes one of it’s major downfalls which the mobile market is currently working around as well, fragmentation. PC’s can vary so much that when playing in any sort of multiplayer situation you can either live or die just by a few months difference in the rendering speed of your GPU. Also battling with driver issues (even though it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be) can make some games unplayable if you don’t have the latest version.

Another reason to love the PC is the fact that most of the games that we play today wouldn’t exist without the PC. The first person shooter genre was born on the PC. I personally didn’t get into the FPS genre on the PC because the keyboard (even though now I find it relatively simple now) was intimidating to me. Using the WASD keys for general movement and the mouse for aiming was like trying to juggle flaming chainsaws at first.

Now for the current generation of Consoles, Xbox 360 and PS3, are still selling and selling quickly. Most recently the Xbox 360 posted over 236,000 sold in the month of April alone. That is 6 YEARS after the consoles original release date. The consoles are definitely starting to show their age though. If you look at any PC game released in the last 6 months and their console counterpart, the PC blows the game graphically out of the water.

The console is also a lot less intimidating to the new player than the PC. All you need is your console a TV, and a game (sometimes just the console if you go the downloadable games route) and you’re good to go. The PC with it’s tower, monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers can seem like a lot.

If you’re into DLC and getting games first, the console is the way to go as well. Games and DLC and generally released on consoles a week or two or even sometimes a month ahead of the PC. Also on the DLC front there has been a recent trend of Day 1 DLC and on the Disc DLC which has whipped the internet into a frenzy, and I understand why. Making customers pay for data that’s already on the disc they paid for is kind of ridiculous. I understand it is a way to curb the piracy of games but that still doesn’t stop a lot of pirates out there.

So to me, at this moment, I would have to give the console the edge. Yes, the PC is more powerful and always will be. But the console gives players a Base 0 when playing multiplayer, everyone is the same and takes away any hardware advantage. Also instead of spending $1000-$2000 on a gaming PC you’re going to spend $300-$600 for a console that can play at 1080p on your TV without any complex settings that need to be changed.

Thanks

Zach

 

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Wow!

So after really trying to get my blog looked at a bit more and resharing my Xbox post there has been a pretty steady stream of views to that and my most recent post, which is awesome! I’m definitely not the kind of person that feels like anything I am doing is good enough at the time so seeing how many times this has been viewed and shared is incredible to me and I appreciate everyone that has shared it.

Now on to stuff that’s been happening, lately I have just been playing games that I have been trying to finish (by finish I mean getting all single player achievements) like Borderlands, NFL Blitz, and Trials Evo. Also I have really wanted to get Kyla into playing some games with me that she would enjoy so I downloaded Castle Crashers, which is fun, but didn’t really keep either of our attentions. So if you have any suggestions for some co-op games that are fun and interesting let me know!

On Monday we had Lilly’s 4 month appointment and got her measurements and she is coming along amazingly. She’s in the 85th percentile for her age in height, which to me is awesome.

This post is gonna be a bit short since I’m posting from my phone but I would still appreciate, very much, if you would please share if you enjoy the words I spew on to the interwebs.

Thanks,

Zach

Things Move Quick

What’s up internet, it’s been awhile since I made a real blog post. I did get some love on my Xbox 360: A Love Story was my most viewed post to date and it made me very happy to see that people do sometimes enjoy what I write.

So I wanted to go ahead and update a few things going on in my life. Lilly is 4 months old and is incredible, she is sitting up almost completely on her own. She also is very giggly and has some high pitched squeal noises that she makes and enjoys immensely. I know everyone says that a baby grows up quickly, but until you see it on a daily basis you really have no idea how quickly it really is.

Now to the gaming stuff. Lately,  I have been playing the incredible Trials: Evolution. I liked Trials HD but in my opinion Evo blows HD out of the water. RedLynx has improved on the already good graphics, all of the maps are very fun and mind numbingly frustrating at the same time. This combination creates the perfect recipe for an addicting and difficult game.

A game I’m really excited to play that’s already out but I haven’t picked up is Prototype 2. I played the original Prototype for hours and  I can’t wait to get back into that universe.

 

 

Well that’s all I really have to say for now. Currently, Lilly is asleep in a deep food coma and needs to be put in her bed. Thanks for stopping by and please share this if you enjoyed it. The more people see it the more I get the drive to write, I may also have some more creative stuff like the Xbox Love Story.

The Nerd-in-Charge

 

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Xbox 360: A Love Story

Dearest Xbox 360,

We’ve been through so much these last few years some good and some bad. I know I didn’t get with you right away, you see I was young and unemployed but eventually I had you in my arms and we were able to spend hours together. Finishing the fight against the Covenant, battling against the Locust, fighting our way into the vault on Pandora, even exploring the expanses of Skyrim. Sure, there were some bad times like when you gave me the same, ugly, red ring you had given to so many others before me and sure I may have gotten angry and overreacted a bit but see you were still within warranty, so we spent a few days apart and like I knew you would, you came back feeling better than ever.

After a couple more years went by you started feeling a bit bloated, your nice white case had started to become dusty and dingy so you decided it was time to slim down maybe try on a darker, sleeker black case. Which I think looks amazing by the way. You even went as far as adding some new features, integrated wireless, Kinect support, touch sensitive buttons. Now, not only do I enjoy the hours we spend exploring new worlds together, we also get to talk. Being able to navigate your beautiful interface with just the sound of my voice is extremely gratifying.

Xbox 360 I love all of the hours we have spent together and I couldn’t ask for a better console than you…that is until a younger, faster and stronger console is released, but until then you’re the only one for me.

Zach

PS I’m sorry I touched that PS3 it was just an experiment and I didn’t enjoy it at all.

Podcast News!

So people have been wondering what the name of Podcast is going to be, well I have settled on The Nerdhood Podcast. It’s going to be a weekly gaming and tech news show and I am looking for 3-4 more people who are passionate about gaming and would like to join me. I have made a Twitter account for the show as well, Nerdhood Podcast, I will be posting any new information about the show on this twitter account and on my Facebook page as well.

The-Nerd-In-Charge

Guess who’s back, back again!

What’s up guys! It’s definitely been awhile since I have posted anything but I have been super busy lately with the baby and work and what not.

That’s right, our baby was born on December 29th at 2:06AM, she weighed in at 7 pounds 7 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. Since it’s been 8 weeks since she was born has matured so much already it’s incredible. She went from being this little blob of nothing basically to this cooing, pooping, happy little monster, Kyla and I couldn’t be happier!

Now on to the tech stuff! Over Christmas my in laws bought my wife and I (mostly me) a Canon T3, I have been wanting to buy a DSLR for quite sometime but have been spending all of my moneys on baby stuff so they were nice enough to pick up Canon’s entry level DSLR for us.

Me being me, I was hoping for something a little higher up on the scale such as the T3i or something of the like but in all honesty I really do like the T3 for what it is, an inexpensive, durable, entry level DSLR.

It has a 12.2MP CMOS sensor which isn’t the biggest sensor, Nikon’s D3100 has a 14.1MP sensor, but it does allow for HD video recording along with decent low light performance. The kit lens it comes with is Canon’s 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II which isn’t terrible but it can be very limiting if you do not have good lighting.

Here is a shot of our daughter with the kit lens. Kyla’s grandfather is actually a big fan of Canon products and has let me borrow his 55-250mm f4-5.6 IS II. This provides quite a bit more zoom and what I seem to be finding out as I play with it since it is a longer lens the f4-5.6 seems to not have as dark of shots as the same range with the 18-55mm.

 

 

 

 

 

This is a quick shot of my in-law’s chandelier that I took with the 55-250mm

I have been toying with the idea of doing a podcast for awhile now and have come to a point where I feel I really would like to do one. I plan on getting a couple of my friends to go along with me since a one man podcast would be incredibly boring.

Thanks for reading and I hope to have some more updates here in a few days with reviews on a couple of the games I have been playing lately.

The Nerd-in-Charge

Zach

Tech Support Guidlines

Hey everyone, sorry about that whole no review on Monday thing I talked about, that whole lack of screenshots thing really killed it for me. So I am going to go in a completely different direction, if you know me you know most of my working career I have worked in the Tech Support industry. I’ve worked for a large gaming company, a major cell phone provider, an online credit card gateway, and I’ve also fixed computers for customers of a major office supplies company. So I do have a bit of experience in the customer service/tech support industry, I’ve dealt with so many different people over the phone and in person with an array of different problems and I just wanted to give you a few guidelines before you call into a tech support company.

• Know what you need before you call.
  • You’ve called tech support places before you know what they’re going to ask you for before you call. Things like your full name, address, account number, Social Security, required passcodes, and if it is a product you are calling about any part numbers or serial numbers. The more info you go in with the smoother everything will go.
  • Know your issue.
    • The more you know about your issue the better. Just saying “it’s not working” or “it doesn’t turn on” is completely useless to the person you’re talking to. They are going to need details, what are you trying to do, what were you doing when it stopped working, if it’s something that is plugged in did you recently have any power outage.
    • BE PATIENT
      • As much as you don’t want to be on the phone, honestly the person on the other end doesn’t either. Most likely the person you are talking to has already had to deal with multiple difficult people who thought that their issues were the biggest issues in the world. They spent over an hour talking to that person which was mentally draining, and they don’t get to leave yet. They still have to talk to you and go through everything again and the last thing they need is to have you jumping down their throat again.  They are going to be patient with you and listen to your issues, the least you can do is be patient as well with their steps.
      • Make sure you have time
        • If you called in to quickly troubleshoot it may not always be that simple, especially if it’s a problem you’ve never had. If it’s something you know might only take a few minutes go ahead and try to do it quickly, if it’s not don’t waste yours or the support rep’s time.
        • Don’t try to instantly go over their head
          • Yes, there is normally a supervisor for the person you’re talking to but if you instantly call in without explaining anything you may just be making a longer call for yourself. First, you’re going to get transferred to a supervisor which may cause a longer wait time because there are always fewer supervisors than normal reps. Second, that supervisor is going to have to go through everything a lower level support rep was going to do in the first place. If you just work with the first level rep you may be surprised at how quickly things can get solved. Obviously, if that person is stalling and doesn’t really seem to be paying attention then you have every right to try to get to a supervisor.

These are just few things to keep in mind before you call into a support center. Remember, they’re there to help you solve your problem. They are trying to help and the faster they can help you the better for you and the rep.

Thanks,

The Nerd-In-Charge

Sorry ‘Bout That

I know I said I was gonna do a write up of SWTOR this week but decided against it. The game is still in beta and the things I was going to write about may not even be in the final release which would make doing a write up completely irrelevant. What I will say about it though is that so far I am enjoying it immensely. I’m normally not a huge MMO fan but this game has completely changed my perspective on them. The mechanics are there, it looks amazing for an MMO, and the way quests are provided is very good.

Sorry about the short post today, I will try to post a couple of times this week if anything develops but when it comes to the home front Kyla is 37 weeks and 1 day pregnant today and basically ready to pop at any time. So we are both getting very excited except she does seem to be getting sleepier.

Thanks,

The Nerd-In-Charge

Post Thanksgiving Post

Why hello there! From the title of the post you may have guessed that today is Friday November 25th, 2011 aka Black Friday. No, I did not go shopping this morning or last night, which seems to be a new thing that stores are doing. Which if it catches on I feel bad for my wife, Kyla, who does work in retail.

So just a quick few things that have happened since my first post on Monday, Kyla and I went to our 3rd birthing class which showed a very short video of an actual birth which was interesting and not nearly as bad as people had made it out to be.  Coming up on Sunday is week 37 for Kyla’s pregnancy which, if you’ve ever spent time with a pregnant person or had a pregnant significant other you know that this is considered full term. Which means that if she goes into labor the doctors won’t stop it, so essentially we are in the home stretch to meet our baby for the first time and I am extremely excited and terrified at the same time.

Now that I’ve gotten a little bit of life out of the way I wanna get into my very first written review. We recently bought a baby monitor and I really didn’t want to have just the plain old one way radio from the days of old. I needed to have a decent video monitor. So after a lot of research we went and picked up the Summer Infant Secure Sight Video Monitor. First off one problem I have with the camera is that there is no battery backup for the camera itself. The reason I can see this being a problem is if the power goes out in the middle of the night and the camera goes out, so does the audio. Now given this is one of the lower end cameras from Summer Infant the one that does have a battery in the camera is their highest end one.

The video quality on the handheld is surprisingly good, the screen is a bit small but you can definitely tell what’s going on. When switching from the color well lit view to the night vision view is almost seamless, and when in the night vision mode the picture is still very clear.

The audio quality is also very good. The mic on the camera picks up a lot of sound even from a relatively far distance.

Another problem I have is the length of the power chord for the camera as well. The way we have the nursery set up we have access to every power outlet in the room and I still have difficulty getting the camera into a position where it can see the whole crib from the wall.

Overall I do like the camera a lot and I’m excited to see how well it works with a baby and not just my wife and I messing around with it in the nursery.

 

Now since I have rambled on here for awhile, I’m gonna go ahead get some food. Next Monday I can say I will be reviewing the Star Wars: The Old Republic playtest which I will be starting my second weekend play on Saturday. So look forward to that!

Thanks for visiting!

The Nerd-in-Charge

Obligatory About Me Post

Well how’s it goin’? As you can probably guess this blog is going to be about my experiences as a first time father.  Currently my wife, Kyla, is 36 weeks and 1 day pregnant with our first baby. We are having a girl and are going to be naming her Lilly.

A little bit about myself, I’m 23 currently employed at Boeing in the Electrical Systems Responsibility Center. Basically that’s a fancy way of saying I build wire bundles for the Boeing Commercial Airplanes. I chose the name of my blog, well, because I’m a nerd. I’ve always been a nerd.

Now I say nerd in a general term, but from my experience there’s lots of different nerds. There’s the D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) Nerd that most people think of when they hear that word, there’s Star Trek Nerds more commonly referred to as Trekkies. Hell, there’s even Sports Nerds, and if you play in more than one Fantasy Football league…I’m sorry but you’re just as nerdy as that D&D Nerd, you just replaced Orcs and goblins with QB’s and Running backs.

Me? I’m a Tech Nerd. I love gadgets, gaming and anything to do with modern technology. I love to have the top of the line gadgets, even though I can’t always do that or else I’d be in the poor house with my shiny new Droid Bionic and big LED TV.

I like building and fixing computers I may even have tech tips on here eventually if I start seeing a following growing. I’m generally up on all the new stuff coming out and love to have as much knowledge as I can before I get it.

You may be wondering how I am going to tie being a nerd in with being a father, it’s simple, baby’s need stuff. There’s all sorts of little things out now that are extremely techy and advanced. For instance the next thing my wife and I are going to be purchasing is a baby monitor. Now it’s not gonna be some silly little one way radio that’s always broadcasting like my parents had. No, it’s going to be a video baby monitor, which I find awesome.

So since this post is going kind of long and is just nonsensical ramblings I’m gonna go ahead and wrap it up. So if this interests you, I’m gonna try to post once a week with things like stories about the baby, products I’m watching, possible tech tips and even the occasional product review.

Thanks for the interest.

The Nerd-in-Charge