Over the weekend I settled down to play a little bit ofAnger Footon myPC. The game’s quirky blend of shooting and kicking always held some appeal, but I was fearful it might be a cheap gimmick, a joke that went on too long. Butafter my colleague Andrew King’s glowing review, I decided to dive in. As I booted up my PC, I reached for myXbox Series X/Scontroller. As I scrambled under the desk for a wire to connect it, I noticed that I had grabbed aPS5USB-C cable.
As I sat with my Xbox controller plugged into my PC with a PlayStation cable and rested my wrists on myPokemonwrist rest, I thought to myself ‘how evolved you are’. Above the console war am I, not concerned with the branding war of mere mortals but instead floating beyond it, carefree and wise. Then I played a level of Anger Foot and my thought became ‘dang I wish this was on PlayStation’.
What Makes A Great Console Game?
This is not really an argument that Anger Foot would be better on console. It’s just that the console experience - big TV, comfy sofa, not in the room I associate with work - is vastly superior to the PC experience for me. I rarely play games on PC at all unless I have to, but as Anger Foot is a PC exclusive, I have to.
I know some games are better on PC, with the extra control afforded by the mouse and the superior graphics extremely high-end units are capable of. I also understand what it means to be a ‘Switchgame’ and to a lesser extent, a ‘Steam Deckgame’. The portability means you may take games on the road, where some thrive, or can snuggle up close to them on the sofa, feeling their heat against your body andtaking in its muskas you explore all of its untouched secrets and make their fans whine…. wait, I’m being told that last part is just me being a weirdo.
The point is, I agree some games are better on PC. And I agree some games are better on Switch. I’m not sure I can make much of an argument that any given game is better on a dedicated home console. All I know is I would rather play any game in the world on console. Like I say, my point isn’t really about Anger Foot at all. It’s about the nature of the console war.
I do not have a side in the console war. I have so little skin in the game I lose a little respect for people who care which colour console sold more units in New Zealand in March 2023 as if that statistic justifies their purchase, their many tattoos of corporate logos, and their decision to name their children Joel and Ellie. In playing a PC game with accessories from all three major consoles on hand, I had a little smirk to myself about how silly people are for caring about this.
The Console War Makes Sense, Even If We Don’t Like It
And yet, after just a short while after I started playing, I wished I was playing differently. Not even because of anything the game did. Just because. I cared, even though it was silly. Ultimately, that’s what a lot of this comes down to. There’s no real reason I wanted to play on console, I just enjoy it more. It’s the same reason I prefer the colour orange to the colour yellow, beef to lamb, action to comedy, cats to dogs. I just do.
I understand that by owning a decent enough PC that can play most games, a PS5, an Xbox Series S, and a Switch, I’m not getting the typical gamer experience. Most people have to choose, as I had to all my life prior to taking up this career. I missed out on the Xbox, PS3, GameCube, Wii U (bullet dodged), and had to sell my Xbox 360 to buy a PS4 when I realised the Xbox One was the wrong horse to bet on. When you have to make that choice, you want to feel like you made therightchoice, and soTeam Green versus Team Blue becomes part of your identity.
In the last generation, PlayStation won at a canter. It made exclusives the battleground and Xbox had no answer. This generation, Xbox seemed to be leading the charge with ease of access as Sony’s games seemed to dry up, but the death rattle of Game Pass echoes louder in the still-mostly-empty void where Xbox should have crammed its good exclusives by now. It feels like neither console is really dominating, and it will be interesting to see how that shapes the console war moving forward.
The ideal hope is everyone downs tools and hugs each other - a hug so hot and loud like when you hold your Switch close to your chest at night and feel it purr against your fingertips… fine I’ll stop. But the point is, we’ll always have favourites. People will always be drawn to a preference, and will always defend that preference, because that’s how people work. There is no avoiding the console war. Not until we join forces to defeat the evils of PC gaming, at least…
Anger Foot
WHERE TO PLAY
Anger Foot is a riotous first-person action game where you kick and shoot your way through a city full of gangsters and cool beats. It has a fast pace, with plenty of footwear and secrets to be found.
