Since my desktop died, I've been using a moderately fast (2.3ghz Celeron, 256mb RAM) laptop for all of my work stuff and surfing the internet.  It works fine for that, but the 12 year old in me really needs something to play games on.  Almost every game I had for PC was either FPS "first person shooter" or a driving game, with Ghost Recon and GTA Vice City being the 2 I played most often.  Should I:

Buy an Xbox:~$150
Buy a PS2:~$150
Buy a gaming PC:$1500-$2000

The only time I ever played a PS2 was on an old TV a friend had, and the graphics were really bad compared to what I was used on a PC.  Will I be disappointed in a gaming console hooked up to a 55" HDTV, or will the graphics be comparable to a PC?

poll coming...

You can buy a fast PC with a good video card pretty cheap now. A 1.5-2k PC is overkill for most games out today.

My advice:
1) Build one (if you know how)
or
2) Buy one from an online PC maker ( I recommend IBuyPower.com. Very good prices, awesome part selection, and sweet PC Cases.) You could get a sweet gaming rig from them for around $900-1,200.

AWSD + Mouse > all

Fast PC. The only time I would reconsider is if I had a very nice bigscreen TV. But even then I'd most likely go PC. But I'd drop a ton on a good video card, some of the high end games out now and ones soon to come are video card KILLERS. You need alot of horsepower to kick on all the eye candy.

ps2s and xbox graphics can't hang with those of a medium-high to high end pc.

PC's have always ruled the gaming world. I could never keep up with the expensive upgrades. Now that they aren't so expensive I rather spend it towards ammo and gear.

XBOX

Its like having a PC

Years ago, when I was a "gamer" I would have said PC.  Now that I have played games like Halo on Xbox, I would say Xbox.  I like the fun of playing with other people in person.  It is fun to play on line, but there is nothing like having four-16 of your family and friends playing together, either with linked systems, or on one.  It is much more fun than sitting at a PC.  Just my opinion.

Occasionally, I set up a Halo game in my high school classroom after school.  We set up four TVs, with four systems, and sixteen people.  What a rush.  Trash talk.....kidding around.....bravado....it's all good.  There are usually about 30 students just watching and having fun making fun of the newest to get killed.  For some reason they love "killing" their teacher.

gotta get an xbox

Halo   need i say more oh yah    Halo 2! in november.

X-box is a monster for FPS though PC will have more games  xbox is basically a microsoft computer.

Tough choice though  good luckh.gif

Thread Drift: I dont mean to try and hijack the thread. But I have this continuing argument with a friend. He says that the consoles (mainly the PS2) Is a far better gaming platform. I disagree. Speaking in just technical terms...how does the specs of a PS2 compare to the specs of an average PC? (How can the PS2 be better when PC graphics cards upgrades nearly every couple months?) The PS2 has more games granted but when I play a game thats made for both PC and PS2 the grapics and enviroments are way more interactive on the PC.

Anyhow my personal order of gaming platforms:

PC (with a good video card)
Xbox
PS2

Edited to add: Why get a console and add the hard drive/modem/link sys/keyboard/mouse? Isnt that a PC in the end pretty much?

Halo and Xbox seem to go hand and hand. It seems a lot of people are buying a Xbox just for Halo? Ouch, thats like $150 + the game $35?

I vote XBOX. DOOM3 isn't going to look quite as good, but you never have to worry about your PC being too outdated or having incompatible hardware. The PC route will give you the prettiest games, but it'll be a LOT more expensive.

Quoted: Years ago, when I was a "gamer" I would have said PC.  Now that I have played games like Halo on Xbox, I would say Xbox.  I like the fun of playing with other people in person.  It is fun to play on line, but there is nothing like having four-16 of your family and friends playing together, either with linked systems, or on one.  It is much more fun than sitting at a PC.  Just my opinion. Occasionally, I set up a Halo game in my high school classroom after school.  We set up four TVs, with four systems, and sixteen people.  What a rush.  Trash talk.....kidding around.....bravado....it's all good.  There are usually about 30 students just watching and having fun making fun of the newest to get killed.  For some reason they love "killing" their teacher.

Wish school was so cool when I was in, 'back in the day'.

The PC always has the higher-end hardware, but I don't think the price is worth it for PC gaming anymore. What most people don't realize is that PC games can't always be optimized for top performance because there are so many possible hardware configurations for the developers to contend with. Though the Xbox hardware isn't as ultra-fast as a high-end PC, because it exists as a unique configuration, games for it can be coded more specifically to the hardware, which is one of the reasons why games such as "HALO" look as good as they do - the developer can code to take advantage of the specific features in the hardware w/o worrying about multiple hardware configurations that are the dearth of development (& costly) in the PC-genre. The Xbox has the added advantage of being practically PC in its architecture so that PC games are easier to translate across to it, as is the case w/ "Doom 3", "Half-Life 2", & the "Jedi Knight" series, among others.

If I hadn't tried it, I couldn't say it. But it's true. With "HALO 2" coming out in 5 weeks, plus other titles (see above), there's a lot to like about the system. One of the few things MSFT does well.

Im running an Athlon 2100+ with 768MB RAM and have NO problems playing all the first person shooters. Both online and single player. You should be able to piece one together for less than $700.
if not lots less.
I got mine from www.viciouspc.com

Here's an example. Price includes shipping.

PROCESSOR AMD Athlon XP Processor 2200+ operates at 1.80GHz, 266MHz FSB, 256K Cache
SYSTEM COLOR Jet Black
MAIN BOARD MSI KT6V-LSR VIA KT600 DDR400 8X AGP SATA RAID & 5.1 Sound
MEMORY 512MB PC-2700 DDR 333MHz Memory
HARD DRIVE 1 80GB Ultra DMA 100 7200RPM Hard Drive
HARD DRIVE 2 None.
RAID SETTING None.
VIDEO New nVidia GeForce FX 5500 128MB DDR w/8X AGP, DVI and TV Out
CD/DVD/RW 1 Internal CD Rewrittable 52X32X52
CD/DVD/RW 2 None.
RECORDING SOFTWARE None or Bundled CDRW Software w/CDRW Purchase Only
SOUND Onboard 3D Digital 5.1 Channel Sound
MODEM None.
NETWORK CARD Onboard 10/100 PCI Network Card (MSI MB Only)
FLOPPY DRIVE 1.44MB 3 1/2 Floppy Disk Drive
CASE Medium Tower AMD/Intel Certified 400W ATX Case w/Lockable Door
CASE MOD None.
CASE COOLING MediumTower Cooling system w/Dual (front and back) 80MM Case Fan
KEYBOARD Internet Multimedia Keyboard
MOUSE Optical Mouse with Hardware Scrolling Button PS/2
SPEAKERS None.
MONITOR None.
OS Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
SERVICE Standard 3 Year Limited Parts and Labor Warranty
ZIP DRIVE None.
STORAGE MEDIA None.
SOFTWARE BUNDLE None.
ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE None.
Price: $746.00

I vote Xbox, and I own both the 'box and a PS2.  I'm only hanging onto my PS2 'cause there's a new Grand Theft Auto coming and it will be on PS 2 first.

Between work and arfcom I spend enough time in front of a computer.  Plus it's just plain lame to try and have people over to sit around your desk trying to play a game together.

Quoted: gotta get an xbox Halo   need i say more oh yah    Halo 2! in november.

+1...I got enough use out of the first Halo to justify the XBox at 200 bucks...besides the DVD feature.

Quoted: Thread Drift: I dont mean to try and hijack the thread. But I have this continuing argument with a friend. He says that the consoles (mainly the PS2) Is a far better gaming platform. I disagree. Speaking in just technical terms...how does the specs of a PS2 compare to the specs of an average PC? (How can the PS2 be better when PC graphics cards upgrades nearly every couple months?) The PS2 has more games granted but when I play a game thats made for both PC and PS2 the grapics and enviroments are way more interactive on the PC. Anyhow my personal order of gaming platforms: PC (with a good video card) Xbox PS2 Edited to add: Why get a console and add the hard drive/modem/link sys/keyboard/mouse? Isnt that a PC in the end pretty much? Halo and Xbox seem to go hand and hand. It seems a lot of people are buying a Xbox just for Halo? Ouch, thats like $150 + the game $35?

Read my previous post, but in short, it's not just about the hardware. Software has to interact w/ hardware (of course), & the best way to get the most from the hardware is to code to the specific architecture (CISC, v. RISC issues, pipelining, floating-point arithmetics, branching, etc. - could go on & on...). Since PC architecture is varied in certain aspects, code optimization is sometimes not possible. Consider this: why does "Doom 3" look as good as it does on the Xbox compared to contemporary PC's which are ~2 years along in development? The answer lies in the ability of the developer (or translator, in the case of "Doom 3") to adapt the game code more specifically to the Xbox's architecture, rather than relying on brute-force power to run through certain, less efficient sections of code that the programmers had to implement due to varied hardware configurations. Creating code that makes for a "best fit" for the hardware architecture (in addition to practicing good code writing techniques) is the most effective method of performance optimzation.

With a single configuration platform (ie. consoles like the Xbox), code can be optimized to "best fit" the hardware. In the case of PC's, where architecture is commonly shared, optimization is also possible. However, in other areas, where a plethera of configurations are possible (Video & sound cards, mouse devices, etc.), the development must be more generalized, & therefore not necessarily as efficient.

Even if I buy every Xbox game NIB, I'm still saving $$$ compare to the hardware upgrade + software costs I'd incur trying to keep up w/ the latest, greatest new game on the PC. Granted, developers are recognizing this & scalability is a feature of the "Half-Life 2" engine, for example. Yet, the hardware segment of the PC industry is still driven almost exclusively by gamers' willingness to shell out more $$$ for faster hardware. The Xbox 2 will certainly benefit from all this, albeit at significantly lower cost, which just leaves more $$ for games & black-rifle goodies.

Quoted: Quoted: gotta get an xbox Halo   need i say more oh yah    Halo 2! in november. +1...I got enough use out of the first Halo to justify the XBox at 200 bucks...besides the DVD feature.

thats what i tell every one nothing compares   can't wait for H2 on xbox live its gunna ge nuts

PC. The consoles might be cheaper, but a PC is much more flexible. THere's more you can do. Keyboard + Mouse > analog controller.

has anyone else heard abou the xbox dropping to $100, or did i dream it up?