Since Ryan didn't read my email on the Bombcast, I'll ask this question around here.
 

Hi, GB-Crew

Talking 1 hour about MW2 plot line on a special podcast?? Here's the a question, if I may, Gents:

"Why does MW2 (actually ALL FPS) remind me of Space Invaders?" - Discuss ;) 


m m m m m
w w w w w

  ² 2 2 2 ² 2

   .
   .
   .  
 =. =  =  = 
  xx 


Cheers, duders:)

 
Ok. It was meant to be just a joke for Ryan while he's browsing the emails for the show, having to read often long and dreadful text-blocks, but there is a deeper question hidden behind the humor. In many FPS you have the shooting gallery stuff that actually really reminds me of Space Invaders!  Shooting dots from a distance 30+ years later.
 
Yes, Modern Warfare 2 Single-Player campaign is amongst the best you can get. The presentation is amazing. But this leaves the lingering question about the obvious limits of any shooter or any video game that goes to present itself as a narrow, well scripted roller coaster ride: looking at dots - shooting at dots (even if some dots are well animated). This goes back to a discussion with Jane Pinckard on 1UP a long time ago.
 
I am not bashing the game! I am asking the question, can there be anything more we can have or ask of future single player shooters? Is MW2 the pinnacle of the genre? Is the limited experience the one people want from First Person Shooters?

Yes, browsing this forums - obviously. But what else?
 
I just installed another Linux OS without any need.

Stupid, I know. Wasted precious hours configuring soundcards (on-board, hdmi-audio, regular soundcard), dvb-t tv-settings, etc etc... and managed to surf giantbomb.com with a text-browser from a console, the ominous w3m:
on the left you see the regular Firefox 3.5.5 and on the right there is the Giantbomb Off-Topic Forum looking pretty dark. Although I could not login. Damn you, Javascript!
 
All the minor and major-league Websites get to see who visited their Website from what IP address, with what Webbrowser, on what Operating System (unless you choose to hide some of this information). 
 
So if you have your Amiga or Commodores around connected to the interwebs, pay the site a visit and make Dave cringe or put a smile on his face. They see the stats in their log-files/Web-Analytics.

PC Specs: 
4 GB RAM 
2-core Athlon 4850e 
ATI Radeon 4670 
400 Watt Power Supply
 
Today I bought Dead Space via Direct2Drive for a couple bucks & started the game in 1440x900, specs high - no AA. I knew I was going for trouble but was confident nothing bad would happen. System heats up alright, but we live in modern times! Mainboards and videocards monitor temperatures & would shut down before something starts cooking or melting, right?
 
Maybe 15 minutes into the game, killed my first splicer-whats-his-name and was briefed by Capt'n Whatshisname & Sidekick chick via com, I turned around - yeah,yeah, the game character did. I saw them still standing in the hall we just entered and enjoyed the lightning effects when *clack* the system crashed into a hardlock. 
 
Hadn't that happening to me for quite some time at home. I started to smirk and actually laugh. Finally some hardware testing at home instead of work. Sunday evening (GMT+1 Timezone) - that's just awesome.
 
Now I am in the process of checking what's damaged and what's still working. I type this on the same system with a different CPU, no SATA or IDE harddrive (USB-Linux-Stick) working my way through everything: one component at a time. A different game then I wanted to play today but still kinda fun.
 
Sorry for stealing your time - whoever reads this.

endure first minute ... and you're in for a treat. wicked Duder. 

I just wrote a comment on DirectX 11 powered Dirt 2 video showing off the new DirectX features. I thought I blog this too.
 
DirectX11 is not a major leap forward like DirectX 10 (or previously 6, 7 and 9) have been, as all of you in this thread already know. 11 is a nice upgrade for 10 on the rendering side. Sound, etc ... no major changes as far as I see.
 
And here a summary of questions people might have, who are not familiar with DirectX (old Dudes, look away;)

• You need a DirectX 11 videocard for your PC to run DirectX 11 effects on the hardware. DirectX 10 or 10.1 chips won't do the trick.
  
• DirectX 11 is not supported by your XBOX360 - neither by a PS3 or Wii or your TV (seriously, don't laugh. I get those questions)
• You need Windows Vista or Windows 7 (not backwards compatible with XP or older OS versions!)
  
• You don't really need it. There are some nice cinematic effects as you see, but everybody can live without them and many new games will in fact be without them. The multi-threading features are supported already - yet not that many games are really using multi-threading to it's full advantage (because it's 1. hard as hell to programm and 2. limited by videogame design issues in general).
  
• Hardware Tessellation is something you have since the first AGP-graphics cards. Messiah was to my knowledge the first game that shipped offering this feature to gamers. (I could be wrong).