Introduction

I still remember when Steam was first teased, everyone thought it would fail - then it launched, and the Internet was set alight with people bagging it left, right and center. There were jokes made out of the steam picture and the back side of a person - and that it would see a timely death. Well, they were wrong.

Steam is the powerhouse of PC gaming, and one of the only reasons PC gaming is as serious as it is now. Valve has used Steam to launch some fantastic games such as Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2 and the newer CounterStrike games. Not only that, they allow other developers and companies to release their games on its software, giving them the ultimate power against consoles.

Steam has slowly had its feature set increased, with new features being baked in every few months, but we're here to talk about the latest feature - Big Picture. Big Picture provides a TV-capable user interface that looks great when upscaled on a large TV.

All it requires is for your PC to be hooked up to a TV (or just your normal monitor) and to click Big Picture in the top right hand corner of the Steam window. From here you receive a large UI, capable of looking quite good on a huge TV - a foray into the lounge room, Valve's next logical step.

I used a Samsung 55-inch Smart LED TV and my PC of which parts have been provided by Corsair, Sapphire and ASRock. Let's take a look at what Big Picture is all about.