6) The Hardware

It’s an exciting time to buy a new PC. No matter what your budget is, you can find a rig that will play just about anything that you want.

If you have the cash, you can get a system capable of running three monitors in 3D at a 2560x1600 resolution. Consoles will never be able to do this. You can play games with stunning visuals that were not thought to be possible.

If you are just just picking up a low-end system, don’t worry. You can still play tons of games at 720p (1280x720) at good frame rates. Even laptops are competent enough gaming systems with new mobile graphics processing chips from Nvidia and ATI.

Any new system you buy will be capable of playing games. It’s no longer an issue of “can I run it?” -- it’s just whether you want to play it on a single screen at a good resolution or you want three gigantic monitors with abnormally high resolutions.

7) Star Wars: The Old Republic

SWTOR is the largest media project ever produced by mankind. It contains more recorded dialog than the entire 10-season run of The Sopranos. It has dozens of novels worth of story. This game is huge.

Other MMO games lack good stories. They simply tell you the quest, and once you return, you get your reward. Most players don’t even read the text quest. SWTOR makes conversation one of its major game mechanics. Every player gets a chance to be a part of the conversation because every player is fully voiced. This is a big step toward bringing the focus of storytelling to games.

8) Mods

Let’s face it, not every game is great right out of the box. Sometimes, you just wish it was a little different, or you had more maps. While the folks over in console land have to rely on developers to give them content, PC gamers can create their own and share it with the community.

Modding support is coming out for a lot of high-profile titles this year. Portal 2 and Super Meat Boy already have mod support. Call of Duty: Black Ops will be adding a mod tool set soon for PC, and later this year Skyrim will fully support modding with a brand new Creation toolset.

You will never run out of maps to play online with PC gaming. Every time I sit down to play Team Fortress 2, I play a new map. Game modes exist that are vastly different than the original release. You can play as cops and robbers in ARMA 2 or play an RPG in Starcraft 2. Mods give games years of additional life, and they keep the communities that play them going.

9) Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad

Shooters have become very set in their ways. Level up, capture the base, blah blah blah. How about something different? Every shooter these days has a modern setting and is just a copy of something else.

Red Orchestra 2 is a return to World War 2 shooters (which are the best type of shooters in my opinion) and slower-paced, tactical combat. It will offer first-person cover, so you’ll be shooting blind if you hide behind something. Tanks will be operated in first person  with fully detailed interiors. An entire crew of players (or bots if you're playing solo) will aim the cannon, fire, and reload shells.

Red Orchestra wants to keep you immersed in the game world and really try and make you feel like you are fighting in WW2. A multiplayer campaign will allow players to pick their next battle and determine the overall fate of Stalingrad over the course of several online matches.

10) The Unreal Development Kit

The UDK is an incredibly powerful toolset. It lets people make their own games of just about any style that they choose much easier than with purely raw programming. A team of four or five guys can make a game to rival anything being put out by Electronic Arts.

The UDK has a really awesome licensing system too, where you only have to pay $100 if your game makes less than $50,000. That’s a high milestone to hit, and once indie devs have hit that mark, they’ll have no issue paying the additional fees to Epic Games, the studio who licenses the tech. Steam is also really willing to sell these new games, so indie devs have an amazing opportunity to produce content and make money doing it.

This is great news for gamers because we’ll get to play games that big companies will never make. At PAX East, I had a chance to see two great games being made by guys using the UDK: Age of Chivalry (Torn Banner Studios) will let players engage in realistic medieval combat, and Primal Carnage (Lukewarm Media) will pit humans against dinosaurs in multiplayer battles. These games look great, and they will offer some very cool alternatives to playing Call of Duty-like games all day.