Just back from a Microsoft Vista/Live event held to show off Vista's gaming features. The highlight was undoubtedly playable code of Crysis - the Vista only shooter from the guys who made original tropical FPS, Far Cry. Wow. Photo realism can't be that far off - you barely had to squint to think the environments were "real". To be honest it's a shame such lush graphics are wasted on a shooter - albeit one that certainly seemed enjoyable enough in the brief demo available. The real next-gen will occur when games that look as good as this offer more than just shooting. But for now at least Crysis is the best looking game on Earth.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, Crysis overshadowed everything else. Halo 2 on Vista looked bland in comparison - I can't get excited about this at all. Shadowrun - the first joint PC/Xbox title - lacked visual sparkle and felt unnecessarily complicated, with far too much button assigning and faff for such a fast paced shooter. World in Conflict and Company of Heroes were doing their RTS thing - but both were far less interesting than Geometry Wars on Vista. But Crysis was the star and is likely to be the main reason most gamers finally upgrade to Vista.
