We're always told that change is good. We're told it may seem hard at first but in the long run we'll be happy about it--and that's usually about the time you find out your dad met your new "mom" at the Bada Bing and he's putting the house in her name. Luckily, this line of reasoning is far easier to swallow when we're discussing video games, for which change typically means bigger explosions, better game design, faster machines and shinier worlds. Of course it also usually means plunking down a decent chunk of dough for a new console, peripherals and apps. (Hey, at least you don't end up with a 50-year-old bleached blonde named Trixie parked in your living room.)
The past 12 months have been the most radical period of change the industry has seen, with the launch of Microsoft's Xbox 360 in fall 2005, the upcoming debuts of Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii, and radical increases in processing power for PC gaming thanks to dual- and quad-core processors and souped-up video cards. These changes force game makers to stop patting themselves on the back for solving yesterday's problems and start running full speed on tomorrow's--and that's a good thing. Speaking of good things, if you look to the right, you'll see our third annual Women of Gaming spread, In years past we ran individual pictures of digital Delilahs; this year, however, we invited our favorite characters from 2006's top video games--God of War II, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Scarface: The World Is Yours and more--out to the Mansion for a private party. Didn't we tell you change is good?
