LVLONE’s Best of 2010 Games Part 3

I never used to. Lets start with that. The first console i boghut, of this current gen, was a 360. The first game i ever played online was Call of Duty 4 and it was like nothing i had ever experienced before. It really did change my view on gaming and playing with friends. Then, as has happened to 90% of the people i know (slight exaggeration maybe), the console RROD’ed. I was angry, i hadn’t even owned the console a year! Off it went to the Microsoft fixy place and back it came after a week or so. On life went. Then it broke again! So off it went again, but this time when it came back it got traded for a PS3.Now at first i hated the PS3, the xmb was, and still is, rubbish. Everything was slow and cumbersome, friends lists took a while to load, installing games was never fun, updates took forever, no cross game chat made setting up games a pain, especially if people were getting kicked, and list goes on. But my anger over being sold a console that broke twice still hadn’t gone away and so i stuck with it. And after a while it became the norm, buying new games and setting aside an extra half an hour for installs and updates, keeping an chat room open for setting up online games, getting used to the loose and inaccurate analogue sticks and lets not talk about those triggers (clip on triggers were boghut asap). . . and it was still good. Most of the big releases were multi-format. Some of the PS3 exclusives, absolutely justified the purchase, Demon’s Souls, Valkyria Chronicles, Uncharted etc. I met a great bunch of lads on another Sony exclusive, MAG, and although i always seemed to have problems with that game, i still had fun.I can’t remember the exact reason i purchased a 360 again, but i think it was a few of our small clan going back to their 360s for gaming and as they were so ridiculously cheap now, i thought why not, and all those problems with the PS3 i had forgotten about were suddenly back with a vengeance; magnified, underlined and in bold.So after that little (long?) story i’m sure it’s quite clear why i prefer the 360. It’s the little things that matter. Joining a friends session on a online game is as simple as bringing up the dashboard and pressing X. Cross game chat when setting up a game with friends is invaluable. Installing entire games to the HDD makes gaming silent (my PS3 is quite noisy now and as i play upstairs, at night, with the tv sound low, this does matter to me). Yes i have to pay to play online, but i think the service is worth it, and if you shop around online, it isn’t that much anyway. The pad i’m torn on, it’s bigger than i’d like, don’t like the d-pad or the face buttons, but the triggers and sticks are spot on. And finally online games, like Street Fighter WORK! Playing Street Fighter on the PS3 was like pulling teeth, my friends and i constantly had problems. On the 360 it’s as smooth as silk. Unsure why the platform should make any difference, but that was the case for me anyhow.So while the 360 is my preferred console, i did spend over two years playing solely on a PS3 and still had fun. Gaming’s just a hobby for most of us after all, albeit one we do take seriously at times, but still just a hobby. I don’t have any sort of affection/loyalty towards any company, so i’ll just go with whoever provides the best product/service and while Microsoft lost me in the early days, in the end Sony didn’t provide me with what i wanted and so i had to go back. In the end i don’t think it matters too much either way, whichever console you have, as long as your having fun gaming, then that’s all that matters no? Leave the fanboy wars to the kids and just play.Paz.