Monday Update: New PC!

On 03/11/2013 at 08:39 AM by TheMart22

So it turns out my question to the masses last week about The Sims 3 for consoles was for nought. Over the weekend, my wife and I decided to buy a new PC (Yay!). We’d been deliberating for a while whether to purchase one or not as our previous PC had been a hand-me-down from her parents and was very veeeerrry slow causing a lot of frustration. So on Saturday, we were at Petco and decided to pop into Best Buy next door to have a quick look at some laptops (just for future reference mind). My wife was surprised at the cost of PC’s nowadays as she thought we’d have to go north of $1000 to get anything decent. This revelation in combination with our existing POS resulted in us scouring internet forums to decide what PC would suit our needs. We ruled out a laptop as I already have a work one for travel and could get better bang for our buck elsewhere. There was some all-in-one PC’s in store that were pretty neat so we were between those or a tower. Seeing as our existing monitor is pretty useless and we would eventually want to upgrade it, we decided on an all-in-one PC: the HP Envy 20-D034 Touchsmart. We collected the PC Sunday morning (see, we work quickly) from Best Buy and I gotta say I’m really liking it. Besides gaming, we only really need the PC to do word/excel documents and for internet so it’s perfect for us. Compared to our last PC, which took literally 10 minutes to get started, we’ve made a quantum leap forward. Yay for quick decision making!

The Sims 3

Time to lose myself in this again....

Ok, so on to the fun stuff: I got The Sims 3 working as we still had the disk and my wife put probably 4 hours into it while I played the PS3. This was an unforeseen perk or sorts for me as she now has something additional to do allowing me more time for gaming (always a good thing). The Sims 3 works perfectly which got me thinking about what other PC games I might be interested in. I was browsing Steam last night and saw that Age of Empires II HD is out in April. I loved that game back in the day so am definitely going to get that. Would anyone have game recommendations for me to add to the wishlist as i've been out of the PC gaming loop for a good while? I'm mainly looking for games that work best with the mouse/keyboard so was thinking RTS mainly. I was looking into getting Fallout: New Vegas but I think I’d rather play this on the couch in front of the TV. Streaming the PC on the TV is not an option for me unfortunately.

Oh, and a quick note about Steam: I'm amazed how cheap the games on Steam are. Sleeping Dogs was on sale for $10 yesterday. I was tempted of course but decided any additional expense so soon after the PC purchase might be a bit much.

Anyway, thanks as always for reading by rambling. Have a great Monday everyone!

Matt Snee Staff Writer

03/11/2013 at 09:06 AM

Nice, a new PC is a great thrill! I wish I could get one but I have other priorities.

I used to love Age of Empires as well. Very fun game.

TheMart22

03/11/2013 at 09:28 AM

Yeah it really is a great game. I'm looking forward to getting it. Very addicting...

Homelessrook

Congrats on the buy. We just upgraded our PC to. My daughter starts homeschool this year and the PC she was using for her Pre-school stuff was on its last leg. So We went to Best Buy and got her the Lenovo Bundle. I will make a couple of upgrades to it later but for now it does what it needs to do.

03/11/2013 at 09:47 AM

Thanks! On a side note, I do rather brick & mortar stores like Best Buy over say Amazon for big purchases just in case there's an issue. I know the customer service at Amazon is great for the most part but I like being able to speak to someone face to face. Oh, and good luck on homeschooling the little one

Super Step Contributing Writer

03/11/2013 at 11:55 AM

My laptop is a hand-me-down that takes AT LEAST ten minutes to get started, but until work starts hitting me with hours, I can't do much about it ... well, I COULD, but I need to pay down my student loans still.

I did just get Steam though, although I'm not sure how much I can use it for. haha

03/11/2013 at 01:17 PM

Yeah technology wise, there's not much worse than a slow PC, especially when trying to put together spreadsheets and whatnot. I'm not too sure how much I want to jump into Steam. There is a lot of content but I worry that I would never play it. Unlike the PS3, I really don't like the idea of having a backlog on the PC. I think i'm going be one at a time

03/11/2013 at 01:44 PM

Odd that you mention the PS3, as when I set up my account, there seemed to be messages for PS3 users everywhere.

03/11/2013 at 02:02 PM

I saw that also. Strange....

Aboboisdaman

03/11/2013 at 12:50 PM

That's awesome you got a new pc! Yay! If your looking for RTS there's always Warcraft 3 or maybe Starcraft 2 if your pc can handle it. Bastion is a fun and simple rpg with a lot of charm. There's a ton of great games on Steam for cheap!

I wouldn't recommend New Vegas on ps3 though. It's filled to the brim with bugs. My ps3 was crashing so much. Did you play Fallout 3? It's the same thing pretty much.

03/11/2013 at 01:31 PM

I borrowed Fallout 3 from a friend and thought is was ok. I'm at a different place mentally for it now though so I may go back and play that instead. Thanks for the tip!

Serraxor

03/11/2013 at 03:18 PM

I need a new loptop way too bad, but teh monies, They practically don't exist.

03/11/2013 at 03:28 PM

Yeah been there man. I feel your pain...

smartcelt

03/11/2013 at 03:34 PM

Congrats on your new PC. Ours is a Dell and we like it a lot. Has a 1 TB hard drive,which is nice. Plays most games with ease. Glad yours is doing so as well. My wife loves Sims 3. She's got all the add-on disks for it. And I am going to have to get on Steam. I feel I'm missing out on some great games there.

03/11/2013 at 03:39 PM

Some great games indeed and keeping an eye on the daily sales is kinda fun. Speaking of wives; mine texted me at lunch about how she can't wait to get home to play Sims; addicted already... haha

rmsk8r05

03/11/2013 at 04:59 PM

I need a dedicated gaming PC, my laptop is capable but it Can You Run it. Most of the games I would like to play run on mininum requirements.

03/11/2013 at 05:49 PM

Actually, thanks for posting that link. Really helpful!

Coolsetzer

03/11/2013 at 10:10 PM

Yeah, laptops have definitely come down in price in recent years. I got a decent Sony Vaio last year for $500. I used to have to pay $1,000 +. The mini ones without a disc drive go for a few hundred now.

03/12/2013 at 06:18 AM

Agreed, i paid 1300 euro for a laptop back in 2005. Never again...

PixlBit