Which Language to Choose?

Hey guys, I haven't programmed in a while now and I'd like to get back into it. I've used VB6 at school for a year and then C on my own for a month or two. So what I mostly want to do is program for fun, both visual and software kind of things. I'd like to start more with gaming programming to eventually move on to (when i get more advanced) things that can interact with the OS, etc more core programming. So which is best for this?

bonus: I don't mind how hard the language is to learn.