Flight Simulator enthusiasts and new comers alike have voiced their opinons on several forums regarding the latest release in Microsoft's 20 year franchise. Unfortunately the overall concensus has been a tad disappointing primarily due to the need of state of the art pc requirements in order to achieve framerates sufficient enough to provide a believable sense of flight along with the newest eye-candy that makes FSX worth the upgrade from any previous version.

The good news is, Microsoft (more specifically the ACES team), has heard the moans and groans and are actually doing something about it! In what is a rare move for Microsoft's flight simmulations division, a significant patch, known as FSX SP1, is currently in beta. With a scheduled release date of April 30th (yes...this year), SP1 promises to bring about some significant improvements in the way graphics and CPUs, especially multi-core CPU's, handle FSX. As a beta tester, under a NDA, I can't say much, but I will say that the improvements are significant enough to allow me to load and run FSX with believability on my two year old laptop sporting an Intel Centrino and ATI X700...something I couldn't do before the SP1 beta.

Bottom line, anybody with a pc or laptop with decent gadgets from the past two years ought to be able to fly Microsoft's latest, greatest simulator with a whole lot more thrills than spills. Keep up to date at www.fsinsider.com

If you ever wondered why the Internet was created, this WOW movie might just clear a few things up. The internet is for porn! Watch out for the catchy tune - you'll be humming it for weeks.

If you can't decide whether to buy a Sony Playstation 3 or Nintendo Wii, this advert might just help you make up your mind. Apple and Nintendo recently merged their marketing departments and so far we are very impressed with the results. We've already decided which one we'd like to take home and it rhymes with pee. How about you - Wii or PS3 girl? And if anybody knows who the Wii girl is or if you have her cellphone number, please let us know.

Wii girl 

As strange as it may sound, the people at Phoronix have assembled a system were Microsoft Windows (both XP and Vista) gets wiped out by Fedora Core 6.

Granted, the use integrated graphics doesn't exploit the full potential of this title, but both the Linux version as well as the Windows-on-Linux one (with Cedega) take quite a lead.

It's only one game, it's not DirectX (the main goal behind Cedega) and this emulator it's not open source or even free. Nevertheless, I would keep an eye on this program if I were you. Maybe sooner than later professional gamers will need to install a Linux distribution on their machines to be at the top of the performance curve.

Add to that the option of running a 3D game inside a window and we're talking about a lot of possibilities.

Gamespot reports: "Valve's quirky student-inspired first-person puzzle game was playable for the first time at a GDC event, and we were first in line to try it."

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More new screenshots from the upcoming PC Vista port of Halo 2.

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Valve's Kim Swift, one of the designers of Portal, talked about the challenges of creating a first-person mind-screw puzzler, which is packaged with the oft-delayed Half-Life: :Episode 2, Black, and Orange sets, and concluded with a video demonstration solving one of Portal's crazy door-opening puzzles.

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Gamesradar's experience with EA's SKATE:

"It's only been a few days since we had our first Skate experience. But we are still thinking about it, still hearing the clack-clack-clack of wheels on concrete, even as we sit here attempting to forge words into meaningful sentences. Activision's venerable Tony Hawk's pro skater series certainly pushed its own boundaries with the enjoyable Project 8, but Skate is something altogether different.

In fact, Tony's button mashing franchise isn't even on the same map as Electronic Art's fresh new rider, as it streaks in from leftfield to reinvent the genre and show us just how monotonous Tony Hawk has become. So, while we struggle through a serious case of craving for another hands-on session, we'll explain to you how Skate is destined to become the new king of videogame skateboarding..."

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"Timing will be confirmed in the coming weeks," says Microsoft.

Following a week of rumours regarding a Forza playable demo hitting Marketplace soon, Microsoft has coughed up some official details.

A recent advert for the Xbox 360 was pulled for glamourising street car racing, says Advertising Standards Authority.

The TV commercial showed - shock and horror - a car weaving through traffic during a chase scene in a busy city. How will our kids get through this without realizing that it's JUST A GAME?

"We concluded that the ad glamourised street car racing and could be seen to condone dangerous driving," said a statement from the ASA.

Microsoft said they were committed to responsible console behaviour and advised people not to try driving while playing with their Xbox 360.