53Tabsa personal weblog, or “blog,” by William Shank and friends

If you’ve been anxious to see the difference between DirectX 9 and DirectX 10, we don’t really blame you. The tech demos have been great, but they don’t really show us what is “live” gameplay…at least not in a way we can double-check. But now, there are some videos of some real-world differences in Crysis.

Two HD videos were released from the guys over at Crytek, illustrating two different areas of actual gameplay inside the hotly anticipated title. Each of these videos has two versions in it – the DX9 version and the DX10 version, so you can make an easy comparison.

The differences aren’t exactly a reason to buy the game, or Vista for that matter. The DX9 code path is still one of the most attractive games I’ve seen – but DX10 does have quite a few improvements. You can really see the particle effects and volumetric lighting, providing an almost cinematic experience to the DX10 version. In comparison, the DX9 version looks like you’re playing with the gamma cranked and detail way down.

Each video is only about 50MB, so there’s little reason not to grab them. If you’d like to take a look yourself, here are the links:

• Video 1
• Video 2

IGN recently managed to get a preview of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and came back with some interesting news, which may or may not be true.

While they obviously reported that they loved the game and that Valve were doing the usually excellent job of continuing the adventures of everybody’s favourite crowbar wielding mute, they had some less impressive news regarding the PS3 release;

“All that remains now is the long wait for October when Half-Life 2: Orange Box (hopefully) sees release on PC and 360. For PS3 owners, the wait will be even longer and possibly into 2008.”

Kotaku soon picked up on the story and contacted Doug Lombardi of Valve to confirm IGN’s bombshell.

“I’m not sure why the IGN guys have that listed. Right now, we’re targeting early October for release of The Orange Box on all three platforms – PS3, PC, and 360,” Doug Lombardi told reporters.

We’re taking that news with a pinch of salt though because, while Valve is known for its top-quality games, its reputation for keeping to release dates isn’t so good.