While the reviews of Vista’s increased functionality have been vaguely interesting, the talk hasn’t exactly been gripping for gamers, until now.

How do the words six to eight times the graphics performance make you feel?

Before I go into this too much, I should add the caveat that this information is from gamespot and while they’re not as bad as some, I try to take everything with a grain of salt.

Unlike the gamespot article, I’ll give you the bad news up front. Current cards aren’t going to be compatible with the new features. So we’ll need to buy new cards to take advantage of the improvements, and I can’t see Nvidia and Ati offering budget cards for at least six months after launch.

But for those lucky enough to get new cards (and a copy of Vista, since the new Direct X10 isn’t going to be compatible with XP), it should be all good.

I’ll leave the gamespot article to talk about the specifics, but in summary it looks like those gains are based on better management of data requirements and the processor and memory resources available to process those requirements.

Reviews on actual improved performance could be quite some time in coming. We don’t have any full DirectX10 games or hardware, and the developers are only just coming up to speed with the technology.

Also, given that ATI and Nvidia are unlikely to come out with DX10 cards with the same specs as their DX9 cards, how is anyone going to be able to baseline the performance?

There are lots of questions to be asked and very few answers. If it was in my head to buy a new card, I’d either buy one right now (i.e. not six months from now) or be prepared to wait at least twelve months to see if there really is any value in the new combination of Vista, DX10 and DX10 hardware.

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I had some downtime in the city on Thursday (Xbox release day) and happened to wander into Bond & Bond.

I was stoked to see a pretty white Xbox and LCD staring at me.

I’m not usually one of those guys that plays on consoles in electronics stores, but it was the blimmin Xbox 360.

There’s a lot of talk that Project Gotham Racing 3 (PGR3) is the only game worth playing on the 360. I can’t confirm or deny this, but I can confirm that PGR3 was pretty awesome.

It seems to me that I’m turning into a sceptical old man, as I seem to constantly theorise that my enjoyment of games comes from peripherals (usually sound or graphics) rather than the gameplay. This continues, I actually decided the reason I enjoyed the experience was the controller.

After some seconds of confusion I realised that acceleration and braking was controlled by buttons on the front of the controller (analogous with L2 and R2) rather than any of the standard buttons on the top of the controller. Also, the buttons weren’t standard, they were angled, kind of like spring loaded light switches, and felt great. The acceleration and deceleration with these buttons was much more gratuitous than with normal buttons.

So I left thinking, “if only I could have a controller like that for my PC, I’d be as happy as if I had a 360″. Now it turns out I can.

I’m not an impulse buyer, but an Xbox 360 controller is definitely on my wish list.

On another note, is the question of the PS3. Remember that?

They’re launching in November. I heard somewhere that if the Xbox 360 gets to 10 million sales, they will have taken the market. Some are saying that this could occur by year end. So if the PS3 slips again, it could be bad news for that console.

It would seem that there are other arguments however. It is an interesting point that Sony may be willing to take a hit on the consoles to support their side in the Blu-ray war.

I guess we just have to wait and see.

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Quake IV.

I don’t know if I can be bothered explaining what Quake IV is, as anyone who cares already knows. I’ll give it a few words.

Futuristic FPS. Aliens are trying to wipe out the human race and it’s up to YOU to save the world. One bleeding, collapsed alien at a time. I think it’s supposed to be a bit more realistic and gory than UT 2004, so probably appeals to a slightly different demographic.

I downloaded the demo with mixed ideas about what it was going to be like.

I had been told it had “cool surround sound” (I don’t personally think this should be a selling point) and that it had great graphics. On the other hand, I had heard somewhere that it sucked. So being the intrepid explorer I am, I decided to venture into the unknown to see for myself.

I was remarkably unimpressed by the opening cinematics, but then the game isn’t the newest game on the block.

Once in the game though, I was impressed by the graphics. The shot below is one of the first in game shots in the demo, and impressed me enough to agree with the friend who had complemented it’s graphics.

Opening View

The interaction with your team was pretty cool (they had left me for dead). To detect the surround sound I had to turn around when someone was speaking to me, but yes, it was pretty good.

The game was intense and I’m sure the sound added to this. The sound QUALITY was also excellent, when I was firing the nail gun, I FELT like I was firing a nail gun.

I got to the end of the demo half wanting it to continue and half glad that it was over.

There’s no way I would buy a game that left me feeling half glad that I didn’t have to play it anymore. But like I said, different demographic (read: teenagers who get their jollies from blood and gore).

Graphics were good, gameplay was ok, and sound was excellent. Solid 7/10.

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Yes, you heard correct. 2142.

Those in the know will be surprised that some of us haven’t heard of 2142, but that what marketing’s for.

I have to admit I couldn’t believe my eyes that EA’s next step in the BF franchise is futuristic. I thought they were all about realism, so came at this video pretty sceptically.

The video wasn’t overly exciting, it introduced the plot, and showed a few action shots (similar in cinematography to BF2). I hear there are factions who are pretty excited about the existence of ‘mechs’ but other than that, it doesn’t look overly revolutionary.

It is interesting however, given their release period. They’re aiming for Autumn (Northern Hemisphere), which to me reads October – December.

UT2007 had been due to release late 2006, but may now slip into early 2007 given their “winter” targets.

It would seem that these two are gearing up to be new adversaries. I guess when EA spends so much of their time making war games, they must hanker for some real battles to fight.

It’s my opinion however that this one is one they’re destined to lose. If Midway’s marketing department does their job right, they should be able to convince the hard-core FPS market to hold out a couple of months for their release. They’re a vastly superior gaming firm, and the UT franchise deserves to have a chokehold on the sci-fi FPS market.

I guess only time will tell.

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