I installed this pile of sh-tuff on an XP machine and had almost equal problems. DMoMM has a very poorly made installer.
The game itself runs fine once it is going… but I think we can all thank Valve for the Source engine for that.

>Re Brandon:
>I quit playing Fable when I noticed that the “Loading…” screen was shown almost as much as all others combined.

Fable for PC inherited that issue since it was a console-first title and suffers from portitis. Granted, the load times are faster on the PC, but there still should be far fewer than there are.

I’d like to echo the OP here. The most recent patch for BF2142 saw me uninstalling the game forever due to installation issues. It believed I had a modified game (I did not have a modified game) and so required a full re-install of the game. To which I said, no, it isn’t worth the effort (especially since the patch still failed to fix several quite visible gameplay bugs). EA lost some money there, if they had fixed the damn game and let me do it w/o reinstalling the game I probably would have purchased the expansion pack.

Now, the point of this blog post was not that all PC games suck (though the author did generalize to all PC games), but rather that the installers for most PC games suck. The Games for Windows initiative is trying to help this with 1-click installs, but it makes no comment on how much of a game should be installed or how long a game should take to install (it should only require the minimum to get the game going and then install the rest as the game is running, but that is not a deal breaker for GFW branding on the box).

Consoles, on the other hand, have their own problems, some of which are not fixable. For example, the limited hardware, the inability to directly access your saved games without extra equipment, and the locked down hardware that makes it difficult to upgrade, or to use the equipment for other purposes when it becomes obsolete. At their heart, consoles are just overpriced, obsolete, locked down hardware.

The thing that has kept me away from consoles, besides what I mentioned above, is their most popular screen. “Loading…”. I quit playing Fable when I noticed that the “Loading…” screen was shown almost as much as all others combined.

Welcome to Vista.

I’ve always seen the PC vs Console thing as a series of tradeoffs.

Consoles are:
-Easier to use
-Cheaper
-Same-screen multiplay
-More consistent experience

PCs are:
-Capable of better graphics, better performance, higher resolutions
-Often have better/more internet multiplayer support
-Lots of free 3rd party content/mods
-More flexibility in general, controls, game features, etc.

There are exceptions on both sides there, some console games can have major issues just like PC games can have major issues (usually more on the PC side, hence one of the reasons why consoles are easier to use.)

Basically my point is that I don’t think it’s fair to say PC Games suck because you had a crappy experience with one game. Heck, I just ordered Mass Effect for PC (from a GoGamer Madness sale, no less) knowing full-well all the DRM headaches I am about to endure. But I know the gaming experience will be better on my PC than it would be on my 360. (That’s right, I am not a mindless PC Zealot, I own a PC, 360, Wii, and DS)

To counter your three points, though, I’d like to present the following:

a) I doubt it, I wager it just separates levels into smaller chunks and loads more often
b) possibly, but at least it actually works
c) who cares? It actually works

Even if I concede all your points (I haven’t actually played the Xbox version), I’d much rather have a game with smaller levels, poor framerate, control issues, and “dumbed down” than a game that doesn’t even fucking work.

the xbox 360 version is

a) not the exact same game, as it shipped with smaller levels to fit into the 360’s pathetic ram
b) a bad port with poor framerate and control issues
c) dumbed down with fewer customization and play options

But maybe that is why the xbox 360 version gets about 1/2 the ratinge as the pc version.

go xbox.