It's funny to see people arguing that PC gaming costs more. I play my games on a 600€ laptop from 1.5 year ago, and have better performances than both consoles. And it's a laptop. For 400€, you can build your own PC and have better performances than any console, if you know where to buy the components. And it's a PC, you can do many other things than gaming with a PC. Also, games can be up to 15€ cheaper on PC (although I admit it's usually between 5 and 10€). And even though it's illegal and so maybe I shouldn't mention it, you can test the games before buying them with illegal downloading. People saying PC gaming is expensive just get ripped off by big distribution systems when it comes to buying their computer.

Some people here are blaming Gamespot for this, saying they could wait for a bit before reviewing and so on, but really, the problem here are game studios, that admittedly release unfinished products. The best excuse they usually can come up with is that they test their game on a very small scale, so that makes it impossible to predict how it will end up when you play. Obviously, this is a very poor argument. Games released on consoles end up running on the exact same thing they were tested on, and as for computer games, it's not like they release Linux games, having to be compatible with hundreds of different environments (most of them don't even release games for Macs !). With Windows on most computers, with a standardized DirectX, they could really correctly test their games. Then, for the multiplayer component of the game, it's different, since scale actually really matters. But the solution already exists : the open beta phase. Let people play your game for free a few days before release, and you can avoid the kind of problems Brink is currently having. I believe Age of Conan did something quite good too, that was letting people that preordered a premium version play first. That way, they fixed a lot of issues before everyone else started playing. I miss the good old days when developers were more cautious with the things they released, because releasing broken games implied a huge loss patches would only come in CDs

Great article. The impact of the soundtrack is sometime underestimated by some developers, which is a huge mistake. I still vividly remember the themes in the menus of Deus Ex and Baldur's Gate 2, and it makes for two of the longest lasting impressions of my gaming life. Same with Heart of Darkness, that hired the London symphonic orchestra for its musical score, it helps the game being great however short and easy it might be.

@Poidad I have an Android phone, I downloaded a GBC and a Nes emulator for free, and now I play great games such as Metroid, Zelda : Oracle of Ages/Seasons, the original Pokemon games, Metal Gear Solid ... which are better than all the games made for IOS, Windows Mobile and Android. Just take the old school gaming road, you'll be more than satisfied. And these emulators also exist on Iphone (dunno with W7).