8 votes

Who do you go to to learn about the state of PC ports?

I used to watch TotalBiscuit's videos to learn about PC ports of games, to see if they were any good. Obviously I can't do that anymore, and the best replacement I've found so far is looking at PCGamingWiki. If a game has a long page with a lot of issues and workarounds, it is probably a bad port.

But that doesn't really help if I want to know if a game has improved a lot since launch. Does anyone do a good "state of game x a few years later" series?

4 comments

  1. Deimos
    Link
    PCGamingWiki is usually pretty good for explaining issues and linking to patches/workarounds/etc. They focus pretty heavily on graphics, but Digital Foundry does some insanely in-depth analysis of...

    PCGamingWiki is usually pretty good for explaining issues and linking to patches/workarounds/etc.

    They focus pretty heavily on graphics, but Digital Foundry does some insanely in-depth analysis of some PC ports (mostly the really big-name games): https://www.eurogamer.net/archive/digitalfoundry

    Their YouTube channel might be better to follow, because they don't always post articles on Eurogamer for everything. For example, here's their analysis of the PC version of Anthem, which they just put out today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xrt8DJ9G-dk

    5 votes
  2. FTL
    Link
    I don't know about actual journalistic sources for PC port quality assessment, but honestly, Steam reviews can be a decent way to determine the quality of a port on a surface level. And Steam now...

    I don't know about actual journalistic sources for PC port quality assessment, but honestly, Steam reviews can be a decent way to determine the quality of a port on a surface level. And Steam now tracks positive vs. negative reviews over time, and I think you can filter reviews by date.

    4 votes
  3. KapteinB
    Link
    Steam's user reviews aren't perfect, but by comparing Recent Reviews with All Reviews, you can get an indication of how the game is developing lately. Also make sure to read a few of the reviews,...

    Steam's user reviews aren't perfect, but by comparing Recent Reviews with All Reviews, you can get an indication of how the game is developing lately. Also make sure to read a few of the reviews, to make sure the game isn't getting review bombed or anything dumb like that.

    4 votes
  4. cfabbro
    (edited )
    Link
    Similar to PCGamingWiki, which you and Deimos already mentioned, Widescreen Gaming Forum is also a great resource for determining the quality of PC ports too, IMO. Even if you don't have an...

    Similar to PCGamingWiki, which you and Deimos already mentioned, Widescreen Gaming Forum is also a great resource for determining the quality of PC ports too, IMO. Even if you don't have an ultra/super/widescreen monitor or multi-monitor setup yourself, if a modern game doesn't have decent native support for them (which there really isn't any excuse for not having in this day and age) and requires a bunch of workarounds/hacks to get functioning, it's usually a bad sign about the overall quality of the display settings in the game, PC port or otherwise.

    2 votes