Upgrading to a faster 45MPS internet connection or picking up a 2GB AMD Radeon R9 270X graphics card was supposed to be a preemptive attack towards the power hungry 2014-2015 PC online game releases. I don’t need some gaming monstrosity that NORAD would endorse. Dreaming a PC build with an NVidia GeForce GTX 690 will never guarantee multiplayer superiority. I just want multiplayer consistency, or at least believable propaganda that multiplayer consistency is possible.

After noticing GameSpot’s February 4, 2014 specs reveal for Titanfall, an assessment on how much gaming power my PC can optimize during multiplayer became important. I’m nerdy in the D&D/video game/magic/anime persuasion and I played sports like ice hockey. So my meager hippocampus really couldn’t absorb all the decade’s worth of PC specifications I’ve looked over. Not until I started thinking about all the old graphic cards that I’ve played great games on.

Some of 2008’s best games were: Grand Theft Auto 4, Left 4 Dead, Fallout 3, Audiosurf, and Gears of War 2. Wonderful nostalgia for those years came back to me. The graphical technology that ran those games is now committed to cater the innovative and creative PC version of Titanfall. I say PC only because the minimum PC graphical power isn’t equivalent to a mightier XBOX One.

Here’s the lowdown. The minimum specs for Titanfall include a Radeon HD 4000 series graphics card that released in 2008 (Radeon HD 4770). So I then used a Gamespot forum. The XBOX Ones GPU equivalent is an AMD Radeon HD 7770 that came out in 2012. The tera flop capacity of the 2012 AMD Radeon HD 7770 is worlds away from the minimum spec Radeon HD 4770, that’s rolling in at a whopping 960 Gigaflops. PC games being played and tested at the time the 2008 Radeon HD 4770 came out were: COD4 (73.5 FPS), Unreal Tournament 3 (38.7FPS), Left 4 Dead (55.7 FPS). All sick games that I enjoyed playing.

Is the new savior Titanfall a fare comparison in innovation to the 2008 games I’ve mentioned? FLOPS measure PC performance. The minimum specs to play Titanfall are going to affect every player’s PC gaming performance in one way or another. Maybe this is the reason why the 6v6/bots play is justified? PC lag is inevitable, but tsunamis of lag will not be accepted by the PC gaming community. Not every issue can be resolved with patches.

I want to avoid getting ripped off, in an expectation sort of way. Titanfall may only be entertaining to me on the XBOX one. Buying a game system for one game seems like the common theme towards console or game maker divorce. When has EA and Microsoft shown consumer empathy to online PC gaming? There are no lemon laws when you open up Titanfall and find out that your six year old graphics cards needs to be put down. Then, you’re purchasing upgrades equivalent to an XB1. This is a great business model, with the emphasis on the word “business”. I’ve never noticed until now that being really liberal on minimum PC specifications can be more of a liability than a fare accommodation. Like most, Titanfall was supposed to be my main kemo sabe of 2014 for that genre (could be Loadout now).

If I did play Titanfall on the PC, I hoped to feel the competitive nature that the developers intended. I didn’t want to beat up on lame gamers (killing a defenseless bambi). I want to Mech with the best. I wanted to slip a lot in Titanfall. PC players may have no way to quantify their skill. Increasing your kill death ratio from bots, lagging players, or knifing dudes/dudettes who are away from their keyboard is a lottery take down. If you don’t agree with this theory you must beat up kindergarteners.

The point here is a sense of deception. In the financial sense, I’m not going to be affected by this. But, it’s been emotional. The stigma for hijacking the little guy seems significant. Are there any EA games you can think of where this has happened? Maybe some of those games you can buy for much less than $60. No one likes a smash and grad on their wallet. Bruce Wayne’s father was loaded, and he ate some lead for pocket change. On another note, Lego batman should have his own movie (talk about arrested development).

Gamers growl with certain console games that can’t run at 60fps or true HD. I’ve had to drop my PC settings in the past, but where do PC players go when they’ve already hit rock bottom? Rodeo drive style gaming rigs will never be optimized if you’re online with half a decade old machines. Slapping on a Razer style keyboard and mouse to a console may help the PC market make the console transition. Or, massive SteamBox purchases should help remove some of those 2008 graphic cards that sold when: The Shield, Lost, and The Wire were still pumping out new episodes.