If your heading toward games programming, then firstly this is the wrong place to be posting asking questions about programming related tasks (unless it involves using the MAX script). If you really are just starting out I recommend that you go for Game Maker 6 (type it into google and u will find where to get it). It is quite a simple game dev tool to use however it is quite difficult to build 3D games if that is what you are wanting. I have currently been working on a 3D RTS game completey using C++ code all coded by myself, but this kind of thing takes a lot longer to learn what your doing. So Game Maker is a good starting point with which you can build some intertesting games.

Hope you have fun with developing some games. :)