Gaming Platform

I am about to get into pc gaming again and the one thing I really liked about Xbox360 was the community. I do not mean the actual people but the set up. I like having one common friends list and and one "gamertag" for everything. I have found that Steam offers what I am looking for. Is there somthing that is better then steam out there?

 

windows live lol it xbox live but for PC but its only on windows live games. Like gears of war, halo 2 vista, and any windows live game.

 

Get a PS3.... Better experience, same / better options, doesn't cost anything.

 

Xfire is the best program for that as it works for most/all games. If you play Steam games, the Steam Community is very robust.

 

+1.

Not to mention that the community is much more mature.

But as for PC gaming there is xFire - what counts your gaming hours, adds voice chat, text-messages, photo & video capture, clan-system, live-video and in-game web browsing options.

 

Steam is my choice, as most games are available through Steam for purchase, but any game can be played through the software, meaning friends lists, etc, all still work. It's a fantastic platform in my opinion.

 

+2

Alot of the people on xbox live are 12 year old kids who are extremely annoying.

 

dude thats true

but the worst part are those 7 years old British kids with that accent.... they pisses me off and never shut up...

 

Steam does offer the single account through all games thing, but I can't see why anyone would like it. It really ruins clan support since you have to change your main name every time you load up a different game if your a member of different clans in different games.

Both Xbox Live and PSN have the little kids on the mic, far more so on the Xbox360, but it's a problem on anything. At least on PC you always can mute them, or elect to kick them.

People on PC will always be better skilled than on consoles in FPS's though because of the far more accurate controls, and wide range of input devices you can use, so if your unskilled it will be much more challenging. Most people I've played with on console FPS's are terrible and miss 95% of their shots.

All of that aside though, Xfire is FAR more expansive than xbox live's friends list, and much easier and quicker to use due to the fact that it won't take you an hour to type something, or initiate a voice chat, or browse through your friends list while in game since you can set up hotkeys on the keyboard and switch to certain people or services of Xfire, like voice chat, with a simple keypress. Steam is pretty good too, while it's simple and fast to use, since by default you press shift+tab to type to people and view the friends list, or browse the internet in game, it's no where near as robust as Xfire.

Lastly I'd personally never recommend any console to anyone, there's too many limitations with them, and I personally think a gamepad is only good for racing games, and fighting style games, and should never be used in any other kind of game.

 

I must admit that I do enjoy playing online with the Xbox 360, but I do understand you points. The only problem I have is the poor construction, quality and cooling behind the Xbox. I bought the Elite last year and it crapped out on me a few weeks ago. Piece of crap haha.

 

I consider Steam to be my favorite online PC gaming platform. The all-in-one interface is very nice, as is the fact that you have your games permanently linked to your account for download anywhere you like. The integrated friends and community system is excellent.

Xfire is an excellent alternative for games that aren't natively supported by Steam. It has a similar in-game interface and messaging system, and takes care of downloading patches for games that it recognizes as installed on your system.

I've played a few Games for Windows Live titles, and while I like the theory, it's rather clunky in practice. The interface could use a little streamlining, and also, the activation key to bring up the Live menu in game is "Home". If your keyboard doesn't have a Home key (like my old keyboard, pre-G15), then there's no other option; you can't re-map this function for whatever bizarre reason.

I also own an Xbox 360 and have an Xbox Live Gold subscription. While it's unfortunately true that a large portion of the community tends to be very young and immature, especially in particular titles, it's a good system. The player base can't really be helped. I've had plenty of experience with the Playstation Network on the PS3 as well, and it's honestly not too different from Xbox Live. Some aspects of the community are more mature, some are just as bad as on Xbox Live. It really depends on what games are being played.

 

I've gotten into a habit of muting everyone every time I enter a game while playing cod4 on my ps3. Most of the people on PSN are mature enough but the few of them who aren't or the people who play music in the background get really annoying.

 

Oh god, that's the one reason I ever resort to the voice mute button, in any game on any platform. Whiny 12-year kids I can take...it's actually rather amusing if you don't let them get to you. It's like they're just asking to be trolled.

But music...that's the one thing I cannot stand in online games. I don't know why people feel the need to blast their crappy musical tastes at 8kbps supercompressed (aka supercrappy) bitrate.