PC Gaming is gone downhill, because gaming companies don't care about PC gaming.

Gaming industry is dominated by American companies.

American companies target American gamer audiences.

Let's look at American gamer profile,

what they play?

-NES: Mario, Megaman, Castlevania

-SNES: Donkey Kong, Zelda, Chrono Trigger

-PS: Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy

-XBOX360: Halo, Gears Of War, Mass Effect

American companies see this table, therefore they are making these kind of games, or remakes of them. That's why we see the 45612nd Mario game.

Doesn't PC have good games? Is the only good games are on consoles? No.

Sanitarium, Monkey Island, Dungeon Keeper, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake 1-2-3, Gods, Half-Life, Planescape Torment, Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines, Vampire The Masquerade Redemption, Unreal Tournament, Baldur's Gate 2, Theme Hospital, Starcraft etc...

PC Gamers have plenty of good games.

Even weirder Halo is the "best" game for XBOX gamers, however Halo is a "mediocre" game for PC FPS gamers. But you see, hear and read the praisings of Halo, but you never meet about Quake, Unreal Tournament or Duke Nukem 3D.

PC Gaming is not dead, but the industry never cares about PC Gamers. As I mentioned before, The Industry is centralized on America.

However in Europe people love to play PC Games. As I know (if I'm not wrong), Sweden gamers are very good Warcraft/Dota and Counter-Strike gamers. There are huge player communities in England, Germany, France also.

South Korean gamers are known for their love of Starcraft.

PC Gamers are more hardcore than console gamers. Huge population of us are coders and programmers. We love to mod and hack our games. There are many modders who made "high resolution packs" for old games. Quake and Half-Life modding community is crazy. For example, Left 4 Dead 2 is famous for console gamers, but the team made that was the developers of original Counter-Strike that was a Half-Life mod. Another Half-Life mod, Natural Selection became a full/seperated game with NS2 (coming very soon).

The main problem of PC Gamers is the lack of care from the gaming industry.

Nintendo does tons of Mario games, cause it is their icon character and they need to do new games in order to increase their profits.

However, icon characters of PC Gaming, like Caleb from Blood 1-2, Horned Reaper from Dungeon Keeper 1-2, Duke Nukem from Duke Nukem 1-2-3D, The hero from the Gods, and many others, can not find their new homes.

Lionhead (ex-Bullfrog) turned their back on PC Gaming, and made Fable 2 for only consoles. We wish to have a new Dungeon Keeper (it is like a Diablo-parody), but I don't have any hope and expectations after playing monotonous Black&White and The Movies (however Fable 1 was interesting).

Electronic Arts sucked up companies like Westwood, Bullfrog, Origin. We couldn't play a new Ultima Online 2 or Ultima X. New C&C games are interesting but C&C Generals was under the overall of C&C series.

Companies like Interplay, Troika, Sierra has been shut down.

Companies like EA, Ubisoft, Activision, insist on stupid copyrighting techniques that make the world as hell for PC Gamers. They are insist on stupid marketing techniques that result with mockery pictures for these companies.

Bioware consolize their RPG games and turn them into weird games.

Some say "PC gaming is at downfall due to pirates", but it is not true, is it because of companies and magazines of gaming industry.

However, all hope is not lost.

We have GOG like web sites.

Starcraft 2 is coming.

Telltale Games remakes old Amiga/PC games for the PC.

We have The Gamer's Bill of Rights (Stardock/Gas Powered Games).

And new informations keep on coming.

Most interesting thing is, Steam has more than 2 million players online at the same time.

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

I think total Steam account was more than 10 million.

World Of Warcraft accounts was also more than 10 million.

But I wish game companies and magazines focus more on PC Gamers.

I want to see the results of yesterday's gaming tournament on the magazine's or site's news.

Not the news of the new Mario game.

We really bored from that.

Wherever I look in the internet, I see only video console game reviews under the "gaming" name. No one cares PC, no one talks about PC. Main reason of this, gaming media and gaming industry is held by USA. And US gamers were mostly influenced by Japan gaming industry and their Nintendo consoles. Although most of the famous non-console game producers are from USA, they didn't reach most of the US gamers. However as an European gamer, I (or we) had the chance to play on lots of different gaming platform. For example, I played nearly all of the computer systems like Pong systems, Commodore 64, NES, Amiga, SNES, PC, Gameboy, Gamegear, Sega Saturn, PS 1-2-3, Xbox 1-360, N64, Gamecube, Wii and similar stuff. We call the games as "Computer games", because both PCs and Video Game Consoles are all Computers. But, as I see, US gamers call the games as "Video games" and address only console games as "games".
This is an awkward situation and can be seen especially on non-main, comparably small, a little bit amateur-ish game reviewer video or vlog makers.
They just talk about console games, console gaming, console game communities, but not about pc games, pc gaming or pc game communities.
You see they love Pacman, Mario, Megaman, Zelda, Halo and Portal games. A bit absurdly, Portal is a multiplatform game, but comes from the heart of PC FPS game community. You can see most of the "video game gamers" hype Portal like a madness, but I am sure they wouldn't even hear it if it was a PC specific game.

Ok, I can understand of being very popular of only one of the gaming platforms in a country. But US is the heart of whole computer gaming industry - and the most important part - a "game reviewer" should not be stucked only one part of the gaming if he claims to do a "main gaming show".
For example, If he talks about "famous FPS games", I (as a gamer) expect from him to talk also about games like Blood, Redneck Rampage, Duke Nukem 3D, Counter Strike Source, Kingpin, Shogo, not just console games like Portal, Halo, Bioshock, Haze, Goldeneye, Red Faction.

Let me to quickly compare two platform best games (ok you may disagree some games here and there, but that is not the point). Let's look:

( Genre ) - ( Console ) - ( PC )
Fighting Based Platform: Castlevania - Gods
Cartoony Platform: Megaman - Superfrog
Timely Jump Platform: Mario - Prince Of Persia
Epic Story RPG: Final Fantasy VII - Baldur's Gate 2
Clasic RPG: Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past & Ocarina of Time - Fallout 1 & 2
Interesting Story RPG: Chrono Trigger - Planescape: Torment
Alternative Gameplay RPG: Super Mario RPG - TES 3: Morrowind
Funny Adventure: Ace Attorney - Monkey Island
Horror Adventure: Silent Hill - Phantasmagoria
Survival Horror Adventure: Resident Evil - Alone in the Dark
Badass Character FPS: Gears Of War - Blood
Clasic FPS: Goldeneye - Quake
Current FPS: Halo - Half-Life
I think you got the point.

I become sad when people play that weak versions of Doom and Wolfenstein in SNES, but not the unedited versions of PC.

On the main Gaming media, everybody talks about Halo Tournaments, future Mario games, oldschool NES nostalgia, but I don't hear anything about Quake tournaments, Half-Life mods, Commodore 64 Nostalgia (except that PC-specific communities).

I think these are related with big budget game companies and main gaming media. Game companies find it to make and sell games for consoles than PCs. So they focus on console gamers and disregard PC gamers. Even PC gamers are hardcore RPG and FPS gamers, even some of the companies were very famous while they were making PC games, they turned back on PC gamers, like Lionhead in Fable 2 example and Epic Games in Gears Of War 2 example.
There is a strange connection with main gaming media and big gaming companies. The producers try to pamper video reviewers and vloggers by giving them bonuses and early access to their games, and the video reviewers try to favor those companies with overrated reviews.

In written or video reviews, I just see the reviewer exaggerate the game with words like "wonderful game", "best game I've ever played", "awesome experience", "gamers will love this", "perfect gameplay" etc... They also give the games very weird ratings. The rating system is like this: "98 : Clasic game of the era, 95 : Game of the year, 90 : Hit game of the month, 85 : Good enought to buy, 80 : Above average game, 75 : Average game, 70 : Has many problems, 70- Bad game". So, what is the purpose of squeeze? If you want a tight scale, use 5 star rating? No, they don't do that either.

I bored from these kind of imaginary reviewing. In a game review, I don't want to hear just praise. Because of that, I like to follow only GameTrailers and Yahtzee's video reviews. They are good at showing both bad and good aspects of the game. They point out both the crappy and wonderful things of the games, and this makes their reviews more balanced. There are few written review sites that have this.

I will not talk about just L4D2, but I will talk in general situation.

I hate when the game media become liar and the gamers become uninformed. And the L4D2 Boycott process showed how badly this situation can be.

Game media:
They get money and special bonuses from game companies while reviewing the games.
They get the games way earlier than normal gamers.
Also, game companies postpone their publish dates to give time for hired media. You wait for nothing to read the "full detail" game reviews before even seeing the game in your stores.

One example, Oblivion. Ok I love Elder Scrolls series, I can even say Fallout 3 is not bad as NMA web site continously told. But Oblivion was a very bad game.
There were lots of trouble especially for old Elder Scrolls gamers.
First, it was using level-scaling crap to soften the game for console gamers. But this was very bad system for people who played TES series before.
Second, the graphic optimization was bad. Outdoor area fps were %20 of the indoor fps. I played many games and I didn't see such a thing. Even Morrowind were using big maps but hadn't such a huge change between zones.
Third, the AI was a lie. They showed us a great AI video before the game. Ok this video was believable, cause you can do such a thing if you work hard. It was not impossible in that era. Unfortunately, they produced an AI that makes very laughable and sadly repetitive things.
Fourth, the graphics were very bad. They decreased the graphics quality before publishing the game. Also Range Of Sight quality was bad too. You need to improve the range of sight and terrain quality.
Fifth, the story was awkward and insufficient compared to Morrowind and Daggerfall.

But, most of the gaming media gave this game 10 over 10.
WTF?
10 over 10 or 100 over 100 means a perfect game. It should be timeless, bugless, glitchless, lagless, magnifienct story, smooth gameplay, innovative story. Even the great games like Quake II, Starcraft, Sanitarium, Monkey Island or Diablo can not get 100 over 100 because they have a few problems over or there, and get 99,98,97 or a similar point.

But game media lies. They just pretend that reviewing the game, instead they tell what game companies wants.

If a game has big budget and called to be "AAA game", game media give that game a 95+ point.
But if the game has very small budget and don't called to be "AAA game", game media give that game a 70- point.

They also love to tell gamers lies.

For example in this L4D2 Boycott process.
They told to general public, that some jerk gamers boycotted L4D2 because they think L4D2 will be a bad game.

I am remembering even before the L4D2 Boycott group formed, we protested Valve because they deserted L4D game by starting L4D2 game process. L4D game was a good game and could be improved more, also there were many problems in the L4D game.
Also, buy starting L4D2 game, they seemed mock with L4D game players that play an "unfinished" game.

In this process, Game Media translated those gamers wrong and showed us just a bunch of kids who "don't think L4D2 will be good".

Ok, first of all, no one were telling "L4D2 won't be good", they were telling "L4D is banished". And we, gamers, protested the Valve to banish L4D gamers buy starting L4D2 and not completing the L4D.

I am sure no one would think L4D2 could be a good game. Because the second game was being developed by the team of first. So, at the worst scenario, It would have the average quality of first one.
But, the game media choosed to show the events as they like, not the real events.

Even the Boycott group cited some sentences in their pages, the game media didn't care them.

They've chosen to give wrong informations to gamers and blamed gamers who want good games.

What? Wanting good games is a crime? WTF. This was the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
There is also a Gamer's Bill of Rights that leaded by Stardock and Gas Powered Games.
Still, they choosed to pretend that events were different.

At the end, there become lots of uninformed gamers who choosed to believe this kind of lies and started to blame us.
They blamed us because we didn't want good games.
They blamed us because we didn't want L4D2.
They blamed us because we thought L4D2 would be a bad game.
They blamed us because we stopped the developing L4D2.

So the uninformed gamers started to target us and attack us.

As a gamer who protested L4D2 even before the Boycott group formed, these things worried me.
Worried me, because It had showned like defending your gamer rights a disgraceful thing and a crime.

I remember the days a company had a motto "From Gamers To Gamers".
I want the new game companies also follow that motto.
Do I want a very big thing?
For the game media, yes. I am a criminal.

Even some uninformed gamers told "to stop publishing L4D2 is a stupid thing and L4D2 boycotters are stupid".

Ok, I (or we) am not against developing new games.
But everything should be in order.
Interestingly, the people who strongly defended L4D2 and attacked boycotters, were usually Xbox gamers.
They may be used to buy new games instead of patches, expansion packs and similer improvements.
But PC gamers are people who constantly get new improvements.
We frequently get new sequels or expansion pack to buy.
But some people showed us like a freeloader who don't want to buy a new game.
We are not wanting to not buy a new game, but we want good and quality games.
I (or we) am not against new games. But you need to improve a game up to a degree before starting a new game.
For example Quake 1, Quake 2, Quake 3, Half-Life 1, Diablo 1, Diablo 2, Warcraft 1, Warcraft 2, Warcraft 3, Starcraft 1, Dungeon Keeper... They are all examples for games that been finalized and completed before going to the second game.

Defending the other thing is just like a -if the phrase is right- bringing new wine in old bottles.

Let's leave the L4D2 to a side.
This L4D2 Boycott process get me fear and doubt for the future.
When the game media insulted L4D gamers and defended the L4D2 decision, they showed a condition that they will agree every thing game companies do.

Does the everything the game companies do is a right thing?
Do the gamers are a bunch of stupids?
Is the real target game media, but not the gamers?

What will be the news, I wonder?
Defending that SOE did the right thing in SWG and NGE criticizers are a bunch of over-entitled babies?
Explaining Doom 3 was a better game than Half-Life 2, provided a better success at the end, and when people tell other will Sessler say Quit Yer B***in?
Telling Planescape Torment was a very bad game with the worst story in the entire gaming history, and thankfully, game companies isn't listening to Planescape fans, and we're all going to be better off for it?
Quoting that still playing Starcraft after 10 years makes a person self-entitled idiot?

I am bored of recent events in the gaming world.
And sometimes I become worry in this conflict.

1) Doom 1/2

http://risen3d.drdteam.org/
Risen3D has very good graphics with modern FPS features like mouselook.
With "Sitters and Abbs enhanced model pack", "Chilvence's alternative soldier models", "High Resolution Patch/Texture", the game turns into a total mayhem. You get 3D models for everything, with different skyboxes and special effects. Don't stuck with old 640x400 Doom, download and install Risen3D.
http://dengine.net/
You can also try Doomsday mod. It is better than Risen3D in some ways. I liked it's fog effects and monster animations. You can download it from the main page.
http://files.dengine.net/index.php
And you can download Doomdsay addons from this page. I suggest you to download jDRP, jDUI, jDTP and Enviroment Pack from there. To install them, you just put the pk3 and extract the zip files into Snowberry addon folder and activate them from the launcher.

2) Duke Nukem 3D

http://hrp.duke4.net/
HRP is one of the best mods I've ever played. It is a complete pack and changes entire DN3D graphics. Every item and monster turns into 3D models, you also get new resolution options.
I heavily suggest this mod.

3) Quake II

Quake II Evolved improves graphics, effects, lightning and gameplay and carries Quake 2 into the future. You will like it if you are a Q2 fan like me.
For installing Quake II Evolved mod, you first need to download Buzzard Enhancemented zip file from:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jimw/q2/index.htm
Extract it to Quake 2 folder, edit q2econfig.cfg for desired resolution, an play from q2e.exe.
If you get OpenGL error from the console, you need to change seta r_mode "8" into -1 inside the q2econfig.cfg file.
If you get OpenAL problem, download and install the OpenAL from:
http://www.teamblurgames.com/q2e/files.htm

4) Deus Ex Invisible War

http://www.john-p.com/textures/DX-IW/index.shtml
I love this mod. Just look at the screenshots. Installation is easy and the graphics are very good.

5) Thief Deadly Shadows

http://www.john-p.com/textures/Thief-DS/index.shtml
From the same guy above. Compare screenshots in the page and you will be amazed how a simple mod changes the graphics of Thief 3.

6) Thief 1/2

There are some good graphics mods for Thief 1 and 2. Look at TTLG forums and download them:
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118999
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119451
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=113126
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110378

7) System Shock 2

To install mods, first we need some process, everything is explained here:
http://www.strangebedfellows.de/index.php/topic,106.0.html
After that, we will install SHTUP:
http://shtup.home.att.net/
And for the Rebirth:
http://www.strangebedfellows.de/index.php/topic,8.0.html
These are like a High Resolution pack and improves many blurry graphics..

8 ) Descent 3

http://www.gameupdates.org/details.php?id=1670
This pack has many graphic change mods but I had no chance to try it.

9) Baldur's Gate 1

BG1Tutu is a mod for playing BG1 with BG2 graphics.
Installing is a long procedure but there is a tutorial for it:
http://mods.pocketplane.net/bg1tutu/BG1Tutu_Readme.htm
a) Install BG1 and BG2 as full installation.
b) Download and install latest official patches. Also unofficial patches from baldurdash.org (BG1TOSCGameTextUpdate11, BG2FixPack361, BG2ThroneOfBhaalFixPack112).
c) Download and extract Bg1tutu_v4 into BG1 folder. open the configuration file inside Bg1tutu folder with a text editor. Check the source (BG1) and target (BG2) paths and edit if necessary.
d) Install any other mods if you want to use with BG1, now.
e) Run BG1tutu_v4.exe and wait for the long convert process.
f) Download and install tutufix_v4.exe.
g) Play the game with the BG2.exe
Or use EasyTutu for an easier BG1Tutu installation.

10) Oblivion

Some graphics improvements for Oblivion. Especially Natural Environments is a suggested mod, it changes the atmosphere of outdoors. Qarl's mod is good too, it improves most of the textures.
Real Lava:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6854
Natural Environments:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2536
Qarl's Texture Pack III:
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=2363
Vagabond's Better Gold:
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=49
Improved Signs Complete:
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=3015

11) ENBSeries

ENBSeries is a mod series for many games. It strengthens the light effects in game:
http://boris-vorontsov.narod.ru/download_en.htm
This mod is famous especially for GTA San Andreas.

12) Widescreen games

Tutorials for playing every games with widescreen support:
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

13) Scaler and 2xsai

http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Scaler
DOSbox has feature for scaling to achieve smoother graphics.