PC gaming is not dead

Over the past two months I have been reacquainting myself with playing games on a computer. And so far, gaming on a pc, is the most fun I've had since playing games on a Sega Dreamcast.

Why do I think playing games on a computer is awesome?

• Lots and lots of games - A huge catalog of titles.
  
• Cheaper games - Usually $10 cheaper than the console version. Also, most big releases get a pc version, or eventually come out for with enhanced content and higher quality graphics; for example, Halo and Gears of War. Also the bargain bin is great with games like Age of Empires, Peggle, Call of Duty, Starcraft, Deus Ex for $20 or less.
  
• Better graphics - playing Bioshock with all setting crank up to high on a good monitor leaves the console version on an HDTV in the dust.
• Full versions of games - Team Fortress 2 is not limited to fewer players as in the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.
  
• Extra content - mods, fixes to errors, and free content from the developers themselves.
• Free multiplayer - no need to pay an annual fee to play with friends or other people with easy to use interfaces through services like Steam or GameSpy Arcade.
• You can use a controller - If you have a wired Xbox 360 controller, Windows will recognize it and all the games that have the "Games For Windows" label will change their interface to look almost like the Xbox version.
• Computers do more - A computer can do many more things than just playing games: programming, picture and video editing, keeping your life in order, manage your media library, etc.
  

The games I'm playing or have played so far are:

• The Orange Box - The best collection of games I have ever played. Nothing even comes close to Half-Life 2, and its episodes. Portal is amazing. Team Fortress 2 is suberb. And the short demo of peggle is the cherry on this amazing cake (No lie!). And the music...
  
• Bioshock - An extremely immersive experience with a great story. However, I completely disagree that it was voted as "Game of the year." Its good, but not as good as so many people claim.
• Civilization IV - What I imagine crack cocaine would be if it was a game. Do not play this game during your work days or if you have homework or a project to finish. The hours will pass and you will still want to play one more turn.

But as good as these past two months have been, there have been problems along the way. And this the only part where I can clearly see why most people prefer to play video games on consoles. First of all, you need a newer computer. Anything less than a multicore processor such a Core 2, an Nvida 8800GT, and 2 GB of RAM will not suffice to play the latest games.

And perhaps the most important thing you need to play games on a computer is an incredible amount of patience for unexpected problems. Searching for and installing the newest drivers for the different components takes time. Also, some games will simply not like your configuration no matter how powerful it is. In my case the Orange Box was the game with the least problems, but Bioshock did have issues with the sound card. Civilization IV was the worst in this respect as it crashed a few times.

Thus, if you spend a lot of time in front of your computer why not bring the games to you instead of you going to the games. If you have the computing power to handle pc games and don't mind troubleshooting every now and then, playing games on a computer is an excellent alternative to consoles.