games on your HTPC?

[toomanyhandles]

I've never been much into gaming, but here I have this 23" LCD "monitor", nice surround system, and a remote keyboard/mouse.

What do you guys put onto your systems for casual gaming?

What are suggestions for remote controllers?

I'm not super into gaming but a cheap remote controller and one or two commercial titles (or freebies or demos) could be fun. Heck, could be I can't finish a demo of some of the modern games, who knows.

Thanks for thoughts--

EDIT: oh, my setup isn't super fancy, Asus K8NE-dlx, 1.8MHz, 1 gig RAM, GeForce4 MX 440 AGP 8X, Realtek AC97.

[Deusxmachina]

Pretty much the only games I have fun with anymore are multiplayer games. Mainly MMOs like World of Warcraft, Dungeons and Dragons Online, etc. There's something for everybody. Playing those with a monthly charge can make it a bit less of a casual experience though, since it seems like no matter what the price is people tend to "try to get enough hours in to get their money's worth." When I do play, I tend to play in bursts anyway and then don't play games for months at a time.

There's plenty of free multiplayer games if you look around. Even something like CounterStrike is fun and pretty easy on the hardware requirements.

Remote controller? It's hard to beat a mouse and keyboard for any game that's not merely button-smashing.

[reboot]

Doom 3 is great on the big screen

[stustunz]

used to play counter strike that was pretty cool

[dvasco]

FIFA and Need for Speed

[Modular]

On that hardware, you will be limited as to what you can play at a reasonable framerate. Try some older titles that can be had for cheap. If you like First Person Shooters, then Deus Ex and Half Life are fun.

[Carlito]

The only game I play through my HTPC machine is 'Guitar Zero', a Guitar Hero clone for the pc. Just plug in my guitar to a PS->USB converter and away I go

[Torque]

I have about 100 old Nintendo ROMs that are on the PVR that can be played thru a Nintendo emulator and a Logitech gamepad. Wife will play Dr. Mario (tetris type game) and I'll play Super Mario bros. That's about all the gaming we do on the PVR.

[reven]

the xbox 360 controllers are nice and work with a pc. i would go for one of those, lots of buttons (more than most pc controllers)