The Cheezy Blog

I’ve recently seen two screenshots perporting to show the differences between Crysis running under DirectX 9 and Crysis running under DirectX 10. The screenshots look markedly different, with the DirectX 10 screenshot looking far better lit and more moody, but they fail to take into account one key thing. Crysis features a dynamic day/night cycle, this means that as you play, the time will slowly progress and dusk will fall, followed by night. The DirectX 9 screenshot appears to have been taken during a “midday” time, while the DirectX 10 screenshot appears to have been taken at sunset, looking into the sun. The shadow detail, what little shadow there is appears to be just as good as the supposed DirectX 10 shot, and the detail on the models seems to be pretty much identical, so where are all these advances from DirectX 10 we’re supposed to be seeing? Still, either way it still looks like one impressive game. Lets hope that, like FarCry, it has the gameplay to go with it!

Yet another reason to sit on the fence when it comes to the next gen consoles.

US Horde guild Overrated have been permabanned for hacking in WoW. Overrated isn’t just a clever name it seems.

This is a rather neat little app by MC Hot Software, it sits in your menu bar and updates you on the status of your favorite World of Warcraft realms. It supports US and EU realms, and the free version can track up to 2 servers at once. The full version ($5.99 - I’ll let you work out what that is in a real currency by yourself) offers unlimited servers, various kinds of alerts and that warm happy feeling that you get from knowing you’ve paid for the developer to buy another couple of beers.

Go take a peek at the WoW Status site.

Despite my dear hope that Square would return to the Nintendo fold and release the next Final Fantasy installment on the Wii, it would seem that they are sticking to a PS3 release for Final Fantasy XIII. This could do something to bolster Sony’s somewhat precarious position in the next gen console war, but only time will tell on this front.

Gamers Report have some fairly high resolution scans of a 10 page spread in a Japanese magazine showing screenshots of the upcoming game. It also rather comicly has screenshots of Final Fantasy VI along side to compare how far along the graphics have come, and boy have they come a long way!

In Final Fantasy VII on the Playstation, we were treated to reasonably detailed pre-rendered scenery, stunning (for the time) full motion video cutscenes, but rather blocky and undetailed characters. The battle sections were rather higher detailed of course, with especially nice effects for magical attacks. From the screenshots of the 13th installment it’s hard to tell which parts are pre-rendered cutscenes and which parts are actual in game shots! The battle sections look truly fantastic, with a combat interface that appears reminiscent of Final Fantasy X.

I’m not sure if it’s enough to make me change my mind from a Nintendo Wii to a Sony Playstation 3 at potentially over twice the price, but it’s certainly something to make me consider it.

Go gawp at the scans.

Thus reads the title of Nintendo’s Revolution Website and just what is this new name? Well, the name is “wii”. WTF I hear you ask, are Nintendo all on crack? Well, I couldn’t say, but the name is certainly garnering talk across the gaming spectrum.

It’s certainly looking like an interesting console, a lot of innovation is going into it instead of the sheer grunt going into it’s rivals the Xbox 360 and Sony’s Playstation 3. Whether or not this will translate to decent sales in Europe and the States only time will tell, but Nintendo only really needs to be competitive in the Japanese market, where they have a huge following.

We all know that Valve recreated Half Life using the source engine, we also know that this remake was little more than the same tired old textures and models reused, much to the disappointment of many. It would seem that a community mod is attempting to do what Valve never bothered to do, completely recreate the original Half Life, crowbar and all, in the source engine.They’ve only got a few screenshots up so far, but what they have done is very very impressive. Their ETAs are as bad as Valves, saying “It’ll be done when it’s done”, but as it’s a community driven mod I think I can forgive them, they roughly estimate it will be somewhere between a year and 2 years until it’s finished. I personally can’t wait.

Check it out.