The elderly statesmen amongst you might remember TosspoT's drunken scrawls as to why Alcohol Is Better Than BiO. It wasn't his greatest column, in fact, it's arguably one of his worse - a vitriolic attack on the ET community as a whole. But it's from his column I take inspiration, and recent events that set the scene.

You see you guys know me on here, I've been around for years. ET's in my blood, coursing through my veins (much like alcohol is to Stu). I've never played at the highest level, nor even a high level, my highest achievement barring mixes was reaching the playoffs of the ClanBase OpenCup Third League. However; I'm a competent player. I can aim, when playing consistently, at a reasonable standard. I know the camps, can read the game. Have an understanding of who does what where and why. This skill set obviously transfers across to publics, for which we can all compete. My point? I'm not a complete ignoramous. But every once in a while you've to take a step back from BiO and sample some of TosspoT's moonshine.

The catalyst for this betrayal was the destruction of my harddrive. The fan went, the pc made some crazy noises and I panicked. I raced down to my nearest PC world with what I thought was my harddrive (turned out to be the Floppy Disc Drive - oops!), raced back grabbed the correct hardware and bought an external usb connector. Why am I telling you this? Because when I finally made it home I tripped on the stairs and dropped the f%%king harddrive down the stairs!

My harddrive, my virtual life - like the virginity of Vanessa George's students, gone for good. I pined over the usual things, the photos, the videos, the goofy stuff - and then it hit me, the configs! Try as I might I just couldn't replicate the feeling of my old ET config.

So with a heavy heart I cast ET aside like a second rate manager (poor big Sam)and moved on. Life changed, got a new place a new job a better income, things were good - but there was still this nagging itch at the back of my mind - TV is dull, there's a better solution. So enthused I jumped onto Amazon and bought myself a shiny new Xbox 360. It's slimline, sleek, sexy - all those buzzwords, all that good shit.

And so I booted up and got to it. FIFA 11 my first purchase, free with the console. It played exactly as you'd expect it to, like every other FIFA title since 95. The latest feature playing as part of an 11 man team was fun but the repetitive and monosyllabic gameplay left me bored. Perhaps it's the genre not the console - so I scoured the second hand shops for a copy of Battlefield Bad Company 2.

That was it. I'm hooked. The gameplay is somewhat innovative. It's easy to pick up, easy to rack up the kills - you earn rewards the more you play unlocking increasingly cool shit. Wow I can zoom with a tank, awesome! Nice one my UAV can now fire a machine gun. Hours and hours of fun raging the multiplayer. Camping out choke points, utilising mines, mastering helicopters - even becoming competent at the twitchy aim system.

Around a week later, and getting increasingly confident at the game I started to notice something - I was slowly, gradually sneaking up the scoreboard. I'd gone from complete newb to best on the server, any server, in a week, having never really played any console shoot em up before.

The more invested I become the more undynamic the gameplay appears. The aim is erratic as you've only a sensory control over the cursor - it's clunky. You can adjust to this and learn to aim but it'll never achieve the accuracy of a mouse.

The movement is basic. No sorry, that's an understatement, the movement isn't movement as such, in that movement would require a skill - it's press down a button to sprint and point in the direction you want to go. The limitations this creates are immense. In one foul swoop they've eliminated a massively complex skill from any FPS.

And don't get me started on the hermaphroditic spawning system.

But that in essence is the point of console gaming. You can't shoot when you run. Can't aim when you walk. Can't estimate spawn times. Can't multitask at all. The game is based around doing one thing at once, and then moving on to another. There's zero multitasking, zero learning curve.

When you enter Enemy Territory you enter a complex world combining many skillsets. You've to master the art of movement, become adept at aiming, understand the gamestyle, utilise the spawns. Any and all of these qualities are a basic requirement for even fragging in Enemy Territory. This was hammered home hard tonight when I jumped on HBC server for half an hour this evening. I was destroyed. Not through lack of skill, but through having taught myself to do one thing at a time.

Admittedly the fundamentals are fundamentally the same. And the potential is there. But for as long as PC gaming remains more precise and allows for more variables it'll continue to be superior. Cheap cider is fun, it'll get you pissed but it'll never match up to the complex flavours fermenting amongst a good real ale. This is why PC gaming will always be superior to consoles (that is, of course, until Xbox release a sexy keyboard / mouse and make it standard).

/end preaching to the converted

Ps back up your configs!