Things have change now, I have finally god bored of them and started to look around for other games. At the moment the PS3 is not a real option as it is on the main TV, which is always in use. Also PS3 games tend to be pretty expensive.
I started by looking at steam again due to rumors of it's Linux support and a game console. I have been playing also rats of games. Quite a few of these were from humble indie bundles. Others were big name games. All of these we're pretty cheap. While the humble indie games might not be the most advance, they have great game play! They also work on Linux.
One great thing about steam is the wish list. If you add games to your wish list, then you are notified when they go on sale. This is great and has allowed me to get a number of games for very cheap. I also have the mobile app for steam on my iPhone and iPad, so I get.a notification on their when things go on sale.
Interestingly I have been buying a lot of windows only games. My hope is that one day they will be updated to run on Linux. If the game console takes off, then I suspect their will be a lot of pressure to have games running on Linux. People looking of stats of game use on Linux via steam might want to consider that I now by much more windows games because of Linux gaming. At the moment I can't see my buying any games for the PS3 or non steam desktop games.
The other thing I really like about steam is that is a App Store. Once you have bought a game, it's yours. So I can uninstall it and reinstall it as I like. Also I have been able to use the codes off my half life 1 CD to activate all the half life 1 based games in steam! One of the things I used to hate with PC gaming was that once something was uninstalled I would never play it again. Also most my old CD games no longer work. Steam keeps older games playable, and I can install them on other machines like my laptop when traveling.
I have been giving big picture mode a go, which will be the console interface. It is pretty good. I think I like,the PS3 interface better, but suspect that is just because I am more familiar with it. I want to use a controller with some of the games. Since I had a PS3 controller I connected this to my windows machine via a driver called MotionJoy. MotionJoy had a horrible user interface, but once it working it's great. Somes games were just meant to be played with a controller ( street fighter for example ). However like been able to use mouse and keyboard for other games. Steam gaming gives the best of both worlds. Very much looking forward to their new controller.
