PC is finally here!

That's right, it finally arrived.  My long overdue entry into PC gaming is manifest.  To celebrate, the first thing I did after all the preliminary setup was to go and download Steam, and promptly pick up the Half-Life series, specifically the Source engine remake of the original, and The Orange Box, which of course has the sequel and all of it's....quasi-sequels.

Interestingly enough, on the PC the box comes with a couple of things not in the console versions: Lost Coast, another add-on to HL2, and Peggle Extreme, a Valve-themed version of the popular Pop Cap game.  And so the first game I played on my new machine was Peggle.  The second was Portal; I just played through the whole thing again (for the fourth time, if I remember right) before writing this.  I figured it was a good "training session" to get me re-acclimated to the first-person mouse & keyboard scheme.

I can never get enough Oblivion, so I picked up the full box version, featuring both expansions, as well.  And this is just the beginning.  I've got a lot of catching up to do!

Before the arrival of my new machine, and in the post-Killzone interim, I want back to GTA IV.  I'm somewhere in the middle of the game, and apparently doing things backwards, somewhat.  Most accounts I've heard of people playing the game, they've gotten to the point where they have to choose to kill either Playboy X or Dwayne and then later gone on to do the big bank robbery straight-out-of-the-movie-Heat mission.  Either way, I've past both of those now and have finally opened up the last island.

When I first started playing these games, with GTA III, I used to ignore the missions and such for hours and just go blow stuff up and see how long I could survive with a full wanted level.  That's not where GTA IV shines, though.  If I want to do that I'll go play Crackdown.  I find GTA IV is best when I'm moving swiftly from mission to mission, and not just the main plotline ones, but including the side activities like helping the random people around the city or stealing rare cars for Brucie, or just doing the social activities with Niko's friends and girlfriends (though these get tiresome).

Lastly, Necovia/Lonesteban and I finished up Gears of War on Hardcore last night, getting the A Dish Best Served Cold achivement to unlock RAAM in Gears 2.  That was a lot of fun, and I think it's really telling that the parts we had the most trouble with in the game were the parts where we were forced to go separate ways and couldn't watch each other's back so well.  Still a great game, though.  Gears 2 Horde Mode soon!