This shot is taken from a demo video of an upcoming FPS called Cell Factor. The game serves primarily as a demonstration piece for Aegia, creators of the first PPU -- physics processing unit. Just as video cards were created to provide a dedicated piece of hardware to handle graphics, the PPU will come on a card dedicated solely to processing physics, which understandably takes a lot of calculation and has been a major stress on CPUs in games of late.

Aegia says the challenge will be with developers to use the capabilities of the chip, and I'd say that's about right because just watching the video I'm already bored with this game. The physics are indeed impressive from a technical standpoint, but as far as actual gameplay is concerned it's just a lot of junk flying around. When I kill someone in Oblivion and they slump back against a nearby dresser realistically, that adds to the feel of the game. But when you've got that much crap flying around constantly it somehow stops seeming like physics at all. It just becomes noise.

I'm not making any drastic judgements on Cell Factor based on this; for all I know they added in a bunch of extra crates and things just for the demo to prove the power of the card. And it does -- again, on a technical level. But beyond that, they've made it look like a hideously generic FPS (with Psi Ops' psychic powers thrown in). You know what video games need? More grey metal and crates. I'm not foretelling doom based on one tech demo, but I can't help but wonder if flying boxes are going to become the new colored lighting.

You can read a summary here of the recent Aegia press conference, where the demo was first shown, and find out more about their plans.