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I once had a dream that I looked in a computer magazine and all the latest PCs were slow, graphics card-less monsters that looked (and performed) very much like Apple PCs. I woke up and was relieved to know that there would always be progress and that there would always be people like me to moan when performance is sacrificed for a pretty shade of green or what ever. However, what if our moaning achieves nothing? What if they just... ignore us? Oh no! read on to find out what's going on.

For years I've heard people screaming out 'OH THE PC'S DEAD!' when ever a console port to the PC lacks the quality people expected, *cough Deus Ex Invisible War* but now I'm inclined to believe them. It didn't used to be a problem. We PC gamers had the internet in all its multiplayer glory. We could use a mouse and keyboard. We could do more creative stuff than our less intelligent console counterparts. I'd rely on games like the Total War series, Crysis and Half Life to power the PCs on. Things have begun changing. Actually, they started changing a long time ago.

Remember Halo? You're probably immediately thinking 'Xbox game'. Well, it was originally for the PC, but was then stolen from us by MICROSOFT to put on their new consoles. I see the logic- they're releasing a competitor to the PlayStation, they need a brilliant game to power the platform along. However, it started happening more and more. Worse still, games were being made for the console then were released on the PC several months later with very little care (Press the A button now! NO, not the one on your keyboard!). Perhaps the biggest insult was when games would be released which would slow down PCs but not consoles. I wouldn't mind if consoles were in fact more powerful than PCs, but the truth is that they're not. Developers are just plain lazy when it comes to releasing games on the PC, relying on the latest graphics cards to practically emulate the games. Look at GTA 4. It's the first game I've ever bought which has come holding the proud banner of 'Games for Windows'. Looking at their site, it's apparent that Microsoft feels pity on all those loyal Windows users and they've decided to release some kind of united PC force, dedicated to bringing us the latest games in a compatible, playable format. Quoting from their site,

1) Quality. Games for Windows branded titles undergo extensive testing, and not just by the publisher. Microsoft also invests in quality checking each title to ensure they meet performance and reliability standards.

2) Compatibility. Games for Windows branded titles work on Windows XP and Windows Vista based PCs, including both 32- and 64- bit editions. Games for Windows titles that support controllers are also compatible with the Microsoft XBOX 360 controller for Windows, including the Xbox 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver for Windows. They even support widescreen resolutions and more.

3) Safety features. You can be confident that any title carrying the Games for Windows brand will support the new parental controls and family settings features in Windows Vista.

4) Easy to Play. Games for Windows branded titles are easy to install, find and remove, especially in Windows Vista. Every Games for Windows title appears in the new Windows Vista Games Explorer (no more hunting around the start menu for that game you just installed). And Games for Windows branded titles all offer some form of “easy install”, putting you in the game more quickly.

Pity GTA 4 is the buggiest, least optimised and most problematic game I have ever played. I'm still wondering how they're going to implement a 'family setting' into it.

I buy computers around the same time as the new consoles come out. Why bother waiting longer? I mean, when most games are made to run on both consoles and PCs, surely a PC released at the same time as consoles would be powerful enough to run most of the games? Sadly, this isn't always the case, but when the occasional PC only game does come out it always wipes the floor with the consoles in terms of how good it looks. Let me give you some examples; Empire: Total War, Crysis and Doom 3 and Armed Assault. I can't think of many more because there aren't many more. We're left with the latest demos released by Nvidia and ATI to show us what our hardware's capable of if developers were kind enough to sit down and give it a bit of love and attention.

There's a sequel to Crysis coming out. I was very excited about it. I downloaded the sneak preview and to my horror it looked EXACTLY like Crysis. Sure, it's the best looking game released (Better than Far Cry 2, just drop it), but when the sequel looks the SAME... oh dear. You know what they've done? They've got the engine and have made it for the consoles. That's right, even the makers of Far Cry have moved over to the console scene. They promise that it'll be good news for PC gamers, with cross platform developments leading to lower prices and better support but we all know that's a lie. The best we can hope for is that it'll lower the requirements needed to run Crysis, but by the time it comes out we'll be able to do it any way.

There seems to be a growing trend to ignore the PC altogether, blaming piracy for everything. Mirrors Edge was a game I was really looking forward to, but looking on Amazon, the PC version is twice the price of the console version which was released a good 6 months earlier. If anybody's seen my Half Life 3 speculation video, you'll know that I like physics. I've just downloaded the Cryostatis demo, which promised real time water and other things my PhysX capable Geforce 8800 has been longing for for years. Shame the demo's only available on Vista, and my Vista license is currently limited to just my ATI 4850 setup which doesn't support PhysX. Grrr. Never mind- how about Red Faction: Guerilla? Oh wait- PC gamers have been shunned again. The demo's only available for our console 'friends'. The newest Starwars game included DMM, allowing you to bend metal, poke jelly and snap wood realistically. Guess what- it's a console game only. This is apparently because some PCs aren't capable of running it. What a great excuse. You might have a console as well as a PC. In fact, your console might be faster than your 4 year old Dell PC. I can see the appeal of a console. You can run any game you like at decent framerates and with minimal fuss. But I'm not going to use one. I like to think of myself as the constructive type. The sort who enjoys tweaking games, making maps and other things which are still pretty much impossible to do on the console, although there are rumours of a kind of game making utility for the consoles. Once you can do what ever you can do on the PC on a console, I'll switch. Until then I'd rather keep my current set-up.

I've saved the largest nail in the coffin for this final paragraph. Even with the situation as it is at the moment, PC gaming will continue to hobble along with a couple of dedicated souls behind it. Valve is doing a good job and even though I loathe the way you have to install Steam and get advertisements for the latest popcap game in your face every time you try to load up a game of Left 4 Dead, it's the one company that favours and supports their PC fans just as much as their console ones. The have the wonderful Hammer editor for people to make their own maps. They keep the games up to date and working (with the exception of that damn GTA 4 game I bought off it) and there's always something new to see and do on the Steam program. In the hardware scene, however, things aren't quite as rosy. ATI and Nvidia have been at each other's throats for years. They're always releasing new, faster cards (though you have to wonder how they're always so close to each other in terms of performance). The problem lies in the Physics. They know that graphics will no longer lure people in. After Crysis, how can you improve? Nobody CARES any more about the number of polygons that go into making a good looking palm tree.

Nvidia did the right thing by buying PhysX. With it, half the gamers on the PC would be able to run real time water and stuff at reasonable frame rates. The problem lies with the other half. Those poor souls following ATI are in a bit of trouble. Why have more powerful cards if it can't run games as fast as Nvidia's cards can? ATI have gone their own way, supporting Havok as they always have. Just to complicate matters, Intel is looking to enter the graphics card market as well and will probably take up the same technology as ATI are using for their physics. There's a huge divide, and although I reckon PhysX will finally lose, the ones who really lose out will be the entire PC scene. If everybody could just work together to make a universal physics engine, we'd see some new and interesting games coming out. For the time being, we've got games with PhysX features, though they're not compulsory since if they were, then half the PC market wouldn't be able to use them. Physics is stuck as being a cheap gimmick instead of a proper gameplay tool and while it's like that, PC gaming will continue to drop in popularity against the consoles. It's bad enough that the dark forces of CON-SOLE are kicking the PC's ass- in the face- but the fact that the PC market remains segmented just makes the situation even more dire.

I see PC gaming becoming less and less popular as time goes on. As consoles become more and more like PCs, the PCs will either go back to being the Microsoft Office work horses, or they'll become the 'messy consoles' and one day, everybody will take a long hard look at them, ask what's the point, and will ditch them in favour of a nice, shiny, all-in-one console package. What ever's going to happen, please make it quick, this mess is killing me.