The Three Methods of PC Gaming

Computer gaming has been around since the early 1950’s and has steadily become more and more popular until today millions of people will list it in their top favorite pastimes.

There are three main ways in which you can game: Single-player (just yourself against bots), over the internet (with people you may or may not know), and via a LAN (local area connection). I am going to endeavor to explain some of the pro and cons of each method.

Gaming by yourself: Single-player games generally follow a story line in which you play as the hero following the plot of the story. While single player games are fun the majority of them have very little replay value as once you complete them you have little desire to go through the story again. There are always exceptions to this, some games such as Mass Effect, and Dragon Age, which are RPG (role playing games), provide multiple story lines and paths that you can choose from. These take several play-throughs to complete all the content within the game. Single player games are fun but they are my least favorite method of gaming, after a while most FPS (first person shooters) start to feel the same and playing RTS’s (real time strategy) games against bots gets downright predictable and boring. Everyone’s tastes are different but I would suggest RPG games most as they generally offer more play time and replay value then other genres.

Gaming over the internet: This is the most popular type of gaming as you generally play with real people in real time which is almost always more fun then simply playing against bots. While many primarily single-player games have online multi-player options it is generally games that are crafted specifically for online gaming that become most popular (WOW, The Battlefield series, COD etc.). Online gaming stretches across every type of game but the most common are FPS’s and MMORPG’s (massively multi-player online role playing games). If you plan on trying online gaming I highly suggest purchasing a headset with a microphone as your experience will be greatly increased if you are able to communicate with the people you are playing with over VIOP (voice over IP). VOIP is often built into multi-player games as it helps to emphasize the importance of teamwork and I can speak from personal experience when I say that winning or losing is directly related to how much you communicate with your team. If VOIP is not built into the  game you are playing there are program such as Teamspeak that allow you to communicate with the people you are playing with/against.

The key to being able to really enjoy online gaming is that you have to find a game you like, and people you like playing it with. I played Battlefield 2142 for over 4 years because I found a group of people, none of whom I knew outside of the game, that I enjoyed playing it with. Finding those people takes time but it is well worth it, without them online gaming can be completely hit or miss depending on who ends up on your team. Having said that I would urge you to be very careful who you choose as your “friends”, the internet is not a safe place and there is a plethora of people out there who want to take advantage of you. Never EVER give out any personal information (address, phone number, any sort of bank or credit card information, etc.) including your email address.

Gaming over a LAN: This means everyone who is playing the game is connected to the same network. You can do this with one other person or you can do it with 20 other people, depending upon your equipment of course. This is most people’s, including my, favorite type of gaming, unfortunately it takes a large amount of planning effort to put together as it requires you to all be in one location at the same time to put it simply people are busy. That being said this type of gaming offers an element that neither of the other two do and that is actually contact with the people you are playing with. While doing something awesome while playing an online game is great it is not nearly as satisfying as being able to actually see the person you just shot in the face from way across the map. Its always loads of fun and generally involves consuming large amounts caffeine and junk food. If you would like to plan a LAN party there are some great hints from Ben Horning here /blog/2011/11/throwing-a-lan-party-lpiw-style/comment-page-1/#comment-1828

Well now  you should have a better understanding of the different ways in which you can game and hopefully learned a few tips to maximize your enjoyment. I will add a quick disclaimer here, gaming can be quite addicting as well as extremely expensive. I urge you to be wise in how much time and money you invest into gaming as your life will be much more productive if you invest your energy into other things such as education and family.