How to play games on your PC

Who needs an expensive Xbox or a pricey Playstation when you could have the best gaming device right there on your desktop?

Once regarded as something only for kids, video gaming is fast becoming a staple pastime in many households – and with good reason. Games have become more accessible, better looking and more fun to play, either on your own or with the whole family.

New motion-sensing controller technologies, such as Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Kinect and Sony’s Playstation Move, ensured big sales of video games consoles last Christmas. The trouble with console gaming is that it’s expensive.

The cheapest games system is the 4GB Xbox 360 at £150. Nintendo’s Wii costs around £180 and prices for the Playstation 3 (PS3) start at around £250. And that’s before you’ve even bought any games.

But there is an alternative. Your home computer may already have what it takes to play many of the latest releases, along with a rich back catalogue of classic titles and even free online games. And if it doesn’t, then it’s relatively cheap and easy to add accessories that will transform it into the ultimate games machine.

Playing games on a PC
If a younger family member has been pestering you for a console or if you’ve been thinking of getting into gaming yourself, it’s easy to feel that investing in an gaming system is your only option. But consoles aren’t the only way to play. PC gaming has been around for far longer than consoles; a computer version of noughts and crosses was playable as early as the 1950s.

Today, many of the big blockbuster titles released for consoles, such as Call of Duty: Black Ops or FIFA 11, are simultaneously released for PCs, often for a slightly cheaper price – as much as £10 or £15 less than the console editions in some cases.

There are also many great PC exclusives, such as recent strategy games Civilization V and Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty. Indeed, some of the world’s most popular games, such as the online role-playing game (RPG) World of Warcraft, are PC-only releases.

The PC games catalogue tends to be a little more diverse than the Xbox or PS3 equivalent too, with titles such as Farming Simulator 2011 sitting happily alongside more mainstream releases and kids’ titles, such as Postman Pat and Peppa Pig.

There is also a vast supply of cheaper, older games available for your PC, including some real gems – everything from the action adventures Halo and Half-Life to Virtual Chess 2.

Consoles may have recently caught onto online gaming but PC gamers have been playing online since the late 1970s. Multiplayer and co-op play is just the start. Established online games stores such as Steam and Direct2Drive provide a way to browse, buy and download new and classic games straight to your PC, often at discounted prices.

And if all you want to do is pass the occasional idle moment with a short burst of free entertainment, there are thousands of simple browser-based games to play online, such as those at Freeonlinegames. Even social-networking sites such as Facebook feature some addictive online games.

See our feature for Computeractive's round-up of our favourite PC games. 

How powerful does your PC have to be?
To play most casual games, including the few that come pre-installed with Windows (click Start, then All Programs, then Games), you almost certainly won’t need to make any changes to your PC. Browser games usually require an Adobe’s Flash Player plug-in to be installed, but the chances are you may already have this.

Older games will often play on most PCs without any additional enhancements though, in some cases, it may be necessary to run older games in Compatibility Mode (right-click on the game’s EXE file, select Properties, then click the Compatibility tab). Some old games may require the services of a Dos emulator, such as Dosbox.

To play the latest big-name releases, however, you will need to ensure your computer meets the technical requirements specified by the game’s manufacturer.

These are usually found in uncomfortably small print on the rear of the game’s box. Unfortunately, online retailers, such as Amazon and Play.com, rarely post the requirements on the product page for PC games, but it’s usually possible to check at the game’s own website (type the name of the game into Google) or at independent sites, such as Systemrequirements.