Gaming on computers

WORLD OF WARCRAFT: For those with addictive personalities.

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Someone recently accused me of having a console bias when it came to playing games, which is untrue.

Just because I spend a lot of time playing console games and not as much time playing PC games doesn't mean I prefer console games over PC games. I love them both, but for very different reasons. In fact, I'm playing through the PC version of Bioware's DragonAge Origins at the moment.

Many people proclaim that PC gaming is on the decline, but it's not true. Indeed, a computer offers numerous advantages over console gaming.

Pros of computer gaming

A console game will never be able to match a computer for precision and movement when it comes to first-person shooters. A mouse and keyboard always trump a game console's joypad.

The PC version of a game will generally look better than the same game on a console. It's a fact. Take a console version and PC versions of the same game and in some cases the graphical differences will be as stark as night and day. A high-end gaming computer has a graphics card with a powerful chipset that gives crisper and more detailed graphics and higher screen resolutions. Some games, such as recently released Batman Arkham Asylum, make the most of a special physics chipset from nVidia that makes cloth and smoke act more realistically.

A lot of online games for a PC are free for players to play. There are a lot of PC games for which you have to pay a monthly subscription fee, such as World of Warcraft, but for the most part, a huge number of PC games are free to play.

A lot of PC games have their own level-making software that let users make their own levels or modifications and share them with a game's online community. Very few console games give gamers that much freedom.

Cons of PC gaming

PCs get obsolete - quickly. See that PC you bought two years ago? It's now old. Technology moves at an alarming rate and what was superfast once will creak to a grinding halt under some of today's graphically challenging games. If you're serious about gaming on a PC, be prepared to upgrade components every 18 months or so just to keep things up to speed.

PCs come in a variety of configurations (different CPU speeds, different size hard drives, different amounts of memory, different graphics cards). So, just because that game your friend has plays well on his computer, doesn't mean it will play well on yours. My rule of thumb is to always check the recommended system specs on the game box, not the minimum system specs. There's nothing worse than having a game run like a slide show because your computer's graphics chip can't keep up.

Talking about graphics cards, to play a lot of PC games with all the graphical bells and whistles turned on, you'll need a high-end graphics card. Graphics cards range from as little as $100 to right up to $1000, but if you're committed to PC gaming, buy the best graphics card you can afford.

Popular PC games

Apologies if I've missed your favourite game, but this is not an exhaustive list of all the good PC games available.

If you like virtual people and managing a virtual world, you can't go past any of The Sims games from EA.

If you're a fan of shooting and action games, try Half Life 2, the sequel to Half Life, a game that is considered by many to have reinvented the first-person shooter game. Other action games worth looking at are Far Cry, Crysis, although you'll need a supercomputer to run it properly, Bioshock and GTA: San Andreas.

If you like strategy games, try Starcraft, the Total War series, or Company of Heroes and games such as Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion from Bethesda are well worth a look, too.

For those with an addictive personality, you can't go past Diablo and World of Warcraft, but be prepared for World of Warcraft to take up a big part of your spare time.

Recently released DragonAge Origins, from Bioware, is well worth a look if you're a fan of classic role- playing games, and a little downloadable gem I discovered recently, Torchlight, is well worth your time.

- © Fairfax NZ News