Which Console for You?

With a teenager in our house, gaming is a very sensitive subject. While it can be a loads of fun, it can turn into an avenue to waste a lot of time in a completely unrewarding manner. A gaming system can be potetially used as a simulator that trains the user for real world situation such as flying a plane or driving a car, but the law of diminishing returns kicks in very quickly.

The biggest question to answer while choosing a gaming system is whether you want to opt for a dedicated system such as Nintendo, Wii PS3 or thier ilk or you want to go for a powerful PC with all the necessary bells and whistles. The advntage of a dedicated system is superior performance for the given task and availability of popular software specifically designed for a certain platform. The advantage of a gaming computer is better performance for a given price and ability to use the same system to run payrolls (or anything you may want to do with it) when not being used for playing games. Upgrade cost of a gaming computer is likely to be smaller than the cost associated with a dedicated gaming console.

As a dedicated system, I would prefer PS3. It has excellent graphics, a variety of games spanning different genres. The feature which I like the best is its ability to connect to internet to allow you to play multiplayer games with complete strangers. The system comes with a reasonably large hard drive which let it becom a part of a LAN.

Among PC games, my favorites are Flight Simulator, SimCity and Chess. These games go way beyond fine-tuning your motor skills; they actually make you think about the real world situations. Flight simulator teaches you a lot about flying planes without jeopardizing an actual plane or real living people. SimCity is a simulator for real world that trains you for decision making. Internet chess allows you to hone your skills by playing against people with different playing styles and temperaments.