For years I’ve been an adamant console-only gamer. For me the very thought of PC gaming was linked to the smell of sweat emanating from a LAN party: The very words LAN and party muddled together makes me sick. Who would consider a gathering of fully-grown men as a party? It seems a little inept. A little Peter Pan.For the first time ever I’ve need a state-of-the-art PC. I need something tasty for 3ds max, the 3D design package that is used industry-wide and PC exclusive. And so I had to purchase a new machine, one that wasn’t a Mac, and of course the obligatory graphics card update. I’ve opted for a Raedon 9550 with 256MB - if that means nothing to you then you’re lucky.It’s made me realise that there is a whole slew of games out there, the likes of which I’ve never tasted. Entirely new flavours of video – no, computer games.The last games I bought for a PC was way back in 1995 - Magic Carpet and Theme Park with some Christmas money. But, since then, my only other contact was a brief brush with Doom III, when a friend tried to impress a disinterested me with the specs on his new laptop. I couldn’t have given less of a toss; I had a paused game of Burnout 3 on the Xbox downstairs.PC gaming seems a very murky world to me. To start with it’s very expensive: a gaming machine can set you back as much as all the current consoles, with enough left over for a plasma screen TV and surround kit. Also, you don’t have nearly enough life out of a machine as you would a console – PCs outdate in a matter of months, rather than years. And that’s not even mentioning compatibility.I’m excited about all the kit I’ve got coming in the post: My nice new e Machines tower, a 2.6Ghz beast kicking it with half a gig RAM and DVD burner, the ATI graphics card and, thank heavens, the Apple studio display – I’ve not lost all sense. And I’m willing to give PC gaming a go.I’ve got ten years of back catalogue to get through, good and bad, and hopefully with PC games being so much cheaper than their video equivalent, I may just be able to save some pennies. But, I think that may just be wishful thinking.