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March 15, 2013 11:56 AM   Subscribe

XCOM: Enemy Unknown- PC or Console?

I'm not really a turn-based strategy kind of guy, but I played the demo for XCOM: Enemy Unknown on my Xbox enjoyed it enough to consider purchasing. Here's the question: will my experience be significantly improved if I play on PC vs. continuing on a console? For the record, I would be using an Xbox controller either way, and my current PC is running a 3.4 GHz i7 3770, 16GB RAM, with a 2GB Geforce GT 620 card (is this even sufficient to play XCOM at med/high settings?).

Or should I just buy Anno 2070 on sale this weekend?
posted by TheWhiteSkull to Computers & Internet (9 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
PC in a heartbeat.

Mouse and keyboard is much, much more natural for TBS games, not to mention modding down the road and better textures and graphics overall. Your GT 620 should be fine.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 12:17 PM on March 15, 2013


Best answer: You should be fine with those PC specs. I played it on medium settings on a four-year-old Core2 Duo with 4GB RAM on a 32-bit Windows (so, 3.25GB available). Don't recall what the graphics card is, but it sure as hell isn't a GT620.
posted by chengjih at 12:27 PM on March 15, 2013


Either is fine, really, but you'll want to use your controller on the pc: certain aimed attacks (rockets, grenades, etc) are impossible to pull off with a mouse. This game was clearly designed from the ground up for consoles. I recently finished it on PS3, it's easily one of the best games of last year.
posted by Oktober at 12:38 PM on March 15, 2013 [1 favorite]


There's a demo on Steam if you want to check if it will run on your PC.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 12:57 PM on March 15, 2013


I'm a much more comfortable gamer on console than PC, but I got XCOM for PC, and play it with mouse and keyboard and love it. Winnipeg gives the reason that swayed me to PC - the mod potential for this game is off the charts. If that interests you at all, I'd go with PC.

Oktober: certain aimed attacks (rockets, grenades, etc) are impossible to pull off with a mouse.

Could you elaborate here? I have had zero issues using mouse and keyboard with this game, including rocket and grenade attacks - I can't even imagine what you are alluding to. I would think mouse would be easier to fine-tune your aim with, not harder.
posted by Roommate at 1:35 PM on March 15, 2013


Yeah, I disagree with oktober's assessment of aiming rockets/grenades requiring a controller. I found it quite easy to do with the mouse, and in fact ended the game (classic/hardcore) with two such projectiles.

Although I own 2070 I haven't played it, but that series of game is pretty popular, and 2070 was well-received, so it might be worth picking it up anyway, what with it being half off.
posted by kavasa at 1:51 PM on March 15, 2013


The Xbox didn't have the PC bug with UFO ceilings blocking your view, although they might have fixed that since I played. I finished the game with both versions and preferred the Xbox version because it was less buggy and the controller seemed to work better than mouse/keyboard (which was a surprise). It's much easier to rename your guys on the PC version, however.
posted by L. Ron McKenzie at 2:37 PM on March 15, 2013 [1 favorite]


Ok, "impossible" was a little hyperbolic. I tried the demo on PC, and found aiming the grenade arc to be overly fiddly with the mouse. I was then given a copy for PS3, which I enjoyed immensely. Either way, have fun.
posted by Oktober at 3:11 PM on March 15, 2013


Best answer: Now that I'm home, I just looked up the graphics card I have. It's a GTX 560, which is a couple years old, but mid-range at the time (it's a bit overpowered for the rest of the machine). The specs are actually better than the GT620, which is new but low-range. So there's that caveat: I have a much slower PC than you but with a better graphics card, and run the game in medium without difficulty. If there are issues, the graphics card would be the first thing to look at.
posted by chengjih at 5:08 PM on March 15, 2013


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