I’ve seen all that I need to see.

Honestly, I wasn’t terribly excited for this year’s E3. Interestingly enough, last year had me covering E3 on a relatively daily basis. I called E3 the superbowl of the gaming industry. And honestly, I still think that’s the case. However, there wasn’t anything really driving me to this year’s E3. Yes, Nintendo is probably announcing their new console and Sony is announcing their handheld. Other than that, I foresee nothing but sequels.

The two things that I was most anxious about was Assassin’s Creed and Battlefield 3. Assassin’s Creed brought me a ton of excitement to see, as it’s now my favorite game series – having toppled CastleVania after its 20+ year streak. While the gameplay trailer looked very familiar, I did see some new things that have me excited to play this game. The trailer is also very interesting, which I’ve embedded below.

In all reality, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is my big game of the year. If it’s going to be one game that I preorder, this is going to be it. The question is whether or not I’m going to buy it on the PC or the PS3. And below is exactly why.

Incase you didn’t see the text in the lower-right hand corner, DICE is saying that all of this is 100% gameplay footage … and it’s pretty damn impressive. Maybe it’s because I’m tailored to console gaming or because my video card isn’t very high powered, but all of the trailers that Battlefield 3 has presented has been absolutely beautiful – down to every last detail. If DICE can really promise on this, then they have just taken the top spot of the FPS world, no questions asked.

But, on the other hand – it begs the question … exactly what do you NEED to have the game run like that? There are a lot of rumors floating about, and I’m hoping they release the specs soon because I think it’s going to be a hefty investment for a lot of people. First off, almost everyone is saying this is going to be a game that runs optimally on a quad-core processor. All of the rumors floating around say that it can run on a dual-core, but ideally you’re looking at a quad-core.

The kicker is going to be the video card. The rumors are more split on this one – some say that what DICE is demoing on is roughly a $500 video card, so if you’re wanting to run it smoothly, you may have to invest in a device that could probably buy you TWO consoles. However, other people are saying that because this is merely an improvement on the Frostbite engine, that all of the optimization is really done in the engine. If that’s true – then you can probably run it on a $150 to $200 video card as opposed to a $500 one.

In my previous blog post, I questioned whether or not I was going to give up on my PS3 and invest in PC gaming. And to be 100% honest – the result will come when I see the official specs for this game. If this game can be optimized to run smoothly (that being between 30 and 60FPS) at a decent resolution and my upgrade will cost, at most, $300 – then I am pretty much sold to the PC market.

However, if I have to invest in a $500 video card, then the winner goes to the PS3. I’ve long stated that my issue with PC gaming is that it requires frequent upgrades. And it’s not 2002 anymore where you can get hardware cheap – hardware is pretty expensive now and most people can’t afford to do yearly/bi-yearly upgrades.

I understand that DICE is pushing graphics to the next level. And that’s great – and it’s also why this game is the decision game in whether I move to PC gaming – but if that leap is going to cost me at least half a grand, then DICE is unfortunately doing a huge alienation of their fanbase, in my opinion. Am I going to want to run Battlefield 3 at 1920×1080 with every setting put to high and have it run smoothly? Yes, but I know it won’t happen, and don’t expect it … but if I’m going to have to dumb it down ridiculously low, then I probably would have a more enjoyable experience playing it on my PS3.

So, to wrap everything up – let me say firstoff that DICE has done a phenomenal job with Battlefield 3 – the graphics are simply amazing. Stunning. I’m really impressed with how the game works, sounds and runs. I’d even argue it’s damn near flawless for today’s gaming environment. Let’s just hope the everyday consumer can experience what they see on the trailers on their own personal rig that’s hooked up with some fairly decent hardware.