A dust-capped Alienware Aurora whirrs underneath my desk. It arrived with turquoise accents, onyx plates and an array of parts pre-assembled by the boutique manufacturer. I’ve never constructed my own machine by hand. For many years, I did the majority of my gaming on a laptop, which was packed with so much tech that it felt like hauling a cement block around in my backpack. But in 2020, I decided to take a formal jump into the hobby. The Aurora is a no-doubts-about-it gaming PC. At last, I had finally seen the way, the truth, and the light.
So why did I still feel like a bit of a fraud? Because I knew that the purest distillation of PC gaming – its Platonic Ideal – has nothing to do with the games themselves. To truly feel like I belonged I needed to piece together the guts of a machine like Lego blocks, snapping the graphics cards and RAM into place, before the moment of truth where I pressed the power button and hoped that everything fired without a hitch. A prebuilt, on the other hand, remains anathema to the lifers.
BATTLE LINES
Confirmation of this bias is everywhere. On the r/PCMasterRace subreddit you can watch ASMR-tinged videos of RAM installation. A meme on the forum claims that prebuilt machines are overpriced, and could burn down your house. This dynamic has persisted across generations of gamers, despite the fact that Alienware owners and Newegg snipers have almost everything else in common. How did they learn to resent each other?
Denne historien er fra August 2023-utgaven av PC Gamer US Edition.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra August 2023-utgaven av PC Gamer US Edition.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
YELLOW CARD
Flawed deckbuilder DUNGEONS AND DEGENERATE GAMBLERS rarely plays a winning hand
GODS AND MONSTERS
AGE OF MYTHOLOGY: RETOLD modernizes a classic RTS with care
SPACED OUT
After a strong first impression, WARHAMMER 40K: SPACE MARINE 2 runs out of steam
SLIDES RULE
Redeeming a hated puzzle mechanic with SLIDER
DINER HARD
Rewriting the rules of horror in ALAN WAKE
"Kay Vess, galactic tomb raider"
Feeling like Lara Croft in STAR WARS OUTLAWS
LETHAL COMPANY
A return to some explosive post-launch patches.
MARVEL: ULTIMATE ALLIANCE
Enter the multiverse of modness.
TRACK GPT
Al's teaching sim racers to improve-what about other games?
FINDING IMMORTALITY
Twenty-five years on, PLANESCAPE: TORMENT is still one of the most talked-about RPGs of all time. This is the story of how it was created as a 'stay-busy' project by a small team at Black Isle Studios
