Making peace with your outdated computer

Sometimes an upgrade's just not worth it. Maybe you just don't have the money, or maybe (god forbid) you have other priorities. Here's how to have fun even with your low end gaming PC:

First thing's first, here are my specs: Nvidia 560Ti GPU, Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and 4GB DDR2 RAM. While this isn't as bad as some people have it, it's still pretty terrible. It can't run recent AAA games at high graphics and in my opinion playing these games at anything lower detracts too much from the overall experience to be fun. 

Playing older games: Unless they spend every waking moment of their lives gaming away, everyone has that one game or franchise that they've missed out on. Everything new isn't necessarily good and with so many new releases it's hard to keep track of that old game you were supposed to try out. For me it was the Bioshock games. It's been 8 years since the first Bioshock was released and it's still beautiful and brilliant. SHOUT has an Overclock series called "Worth a Reinstall" that reviews older games worth your time. So check it out for recommendations!

Indie Games: Not everything's about guns and blowing things up. Playing a platformer with expressive visuals and an enchanting score might be a million times better than playing some run-of-the-mill AAA FPS. Delving into the world of indie games is another article in itself, so elaborating is hard, but it's amazing how creative indie game developers can be when they don't have the safety net of next generation graphics to fall back on. The huge selection of indie games means you'll always find something suited to your taste and their relatively short runtime and low prices makes it an easy investment on your part to play them.

Browser Games: Browsers games get no love. It's a shame they don't because the developers put as much work into them as they would with any other game. As you can guess, they're not graphically intensive and more often than not the good ones are worth your time. Have a look at SHOUT's article on 5 beautiful browser games.(http://www.thedailystar.net/beautiful-browser-games-that-dont-require-magic-coins-to-buy-more-magic-coins-52143)
Another type of browser game worth pointing out is the choose-you-own-adventure style games like "Fallen London" featuring a subterranean Victorian London. These are particularly recommended to writers and readers who have a special place in their heart for detailed world-building and meticulously crafted characters.

Online Games: Generally, eSports games don't require expensive rigs and anyone with a laptop and a decent internet connection can run them (although the last part might be a problem because this is Bangladesh.) FPS games like Counter Strike and ARTS/MOBAs like DOTA2 and League of Legends are immensely popular throughout the world and have a huge player base. They're either completely free or require little to no money and are constantly updated, so gameplay never gets dull. Plus playing with your friends is always more fun than playing a story mode solo. General warning though, these games can get addictive, so a little moderation is needed when playing them.

Bonus Content: Check out the Low End Gaming subreddit (www.reddit.com/r/lowendgaming) for more content and resources so that you never feel depressed about your outdated PC ever again. 

Shuprovo Arko copes with the soul-crushing amount of studying he has to do by trying to be funny. He writes about movies, video games and music normal people don't listen to. This generic blurb was brought to you by facebook.com/shupro.arko