I haven’t played a game on a PC since I bought the Xbox (the first one). It really is so much better just to put the DVD in, wait a few seconds, grab a controller and start playing. There are no network issues either thanks to the Xbox Live service.

Still, gaming on a PC has its advantages. The resolution you play is up to you (and is often higher than the resolution on a console, especially close to the end of life of the console) and mouse is a lot better pointing device for FPS than the controller. On the other hand, controller is a much better solution than the keyboard, at least for me.

Just the other day Half-Life 2: Episode 2 came out, AKA The Orange Box. I bought the original game and Episode 1 and played them both on the PC (one of the last few games I played on a PC before switching). I planned to play the Episode 2 on my Xbox 360 for the reasons listed above, but realized I don’t need the extras on the orange box (even though they look cool and are a good value), plus I payed for the previous games already. On a whim, I decided to buy just the Episode 2 and play it on a PC.

The Episode 2 so far is great. I say “so far” because I started playing from the beginning and even though I didn’t plan to, I played through the whole Half-Life 2 and Episode 1 in succession and only then started playing Episode 2. Unfortunately, a year after Vista’s release, several driver revisions and despite the fact that I own previous generation video hardware (NVidia 7600GS), I had and still have graphics glitches in the game.

That said, Valve truly is a great company. Half-Life 2, three years old game, gave me (again) so much fun compared to all the other titles that I’m surprised why the other game designers do not copy more of the concepts from this successful game.

What do these guys do that’s so great?

• Excellent music that starts playing at the appropriate moment (usually just prior to a significant battle), sound design is also top notch, weapons sound great and the voice acting is superb
• Great graphics that run very well (minus driver issues) on a variety of hardware; yes, they are not the top dog in the 3D effects department, but the game looks and plays great while the content is more important anyway
• You are never ever out of the game – there are no cinematics and the story unfolds while you play; this is probably the biggest advantage to the other games
• Sidekick characters are likeable: Barney, Alyx, Vortigaunts, even temporary ones like Father Grigori… they all behave like real people (or aliens); I chuckled several times during Episode 2, there are many times more jokes coming from the sidekicks this time
• Physics puzzles – no other game has physics integrated in the way that Half-Life 2 does

I could go on and on I guess. If you haven’t played Half-Life 2 yet and are even remotely interested in gaming, do yourself a favor and buy this game. Thanks to the Steam content delivery platform, you don’t need to order and keep CDs or DVDs. The games are always just a download away, and Orange box is a great value.