A program that seems to be designed around playing games with your friends, and putting all of your games together in one place. Sounds amazing right? Well I'm going to figure out exactly how awesome this program is in this review.
There is a lot to go over so I'll start with its basic functionality. It allows the purchase and download of thousands of games directly to your computer, along with some free games and free demos. They have offers and specials that include lowered prices, bundles, or limited time demos. You can even buy games in stores and put in the installation code into your steam game manager. Why download all of these games and put the codes for already purchased games in here you might ask. Well here's your answer, it allows you to use your account to play your purchased games anywhere on any computer capable of doing so. That means you can never lose your CD or DVD to install your game, and will never have to be worried about scratching or damaging your game again. Some newer games even have achievements through steam, just like the 360 and ps3 have on their systems. It also has a chat client that allows chat in or out of games, Steam also allows people to send a gift of a game, which is simply a second copy of a game you have purchased that you can send to someone else. With all of this in one place, with no monthly fee, I have to say I support it.
Steam was created by a company called Valve which has produced games which have been very successful and odds are you have heard of at least one of them. The most popular titles include; Portal (series), Half-Life (series), and the Left 4 Dead series. These games were all pretty creative and at the time they were created were thought to be revolutionary and unique in a fantastic kind of way. It is another reason to support their company and use their services for your gaming needs. I am so sorry I'm starting to sound like a commercial... Anyway point being in my opinion these are reasons to use Steam to manage your PC gaming library.
Not to say their aren't reasons you shouldn't use it. Some games don't cooperate with Steams interface and can lag more under steam than not, and some games crash if steam is not up to date. Honestly, I have never had a problem where a game crashed due to lack of steam updates but that's just me. The chat won't completely interrupt your game but because you have to pause the game if your going into the chat screen, it is a bit troublesome, that and if your friends do anything Steam will display a notification in the upper right corner of the screen. Lets just say I'm glad I don't have any FPS's or I'd probably want to kill someone about that little problem. Even with these minor distractions, it has never made a game unplayable for me, and has always ran perfectly well in my experience.
In the end its up to the individual experience and how they use the client that will determine if they like it or not. I would recommend anyone who is into PC gaming to give it a whirl though, I mean they even have some free to play full-version games in their library of 1800+ games. So even if your broke you should make an account and give some of those games a try.
Please leave comments if you can and I look forward to any feedback I can get. Ill post again soon, and I hope to make it a good one.
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