Nvidia today announced the release of the Geforce FX 5801 Extreme Insane Machine, to be released soon after the 5800. When asked what improvements this would carry over the regular 5800, a spokesman replied that it would be much better than the 5800, and only the shiniest and bestest FX cores would be marked with the sought-after 5801 EIM logo. In addition, rather than the 5801 will feature a larger, more powerful cooling solution that "really unlocks the potential of the Geforce FX core". When a clerk in the local COmpUSA was asked by a spoiled rich kid what was better about the 5801 than the 5800, the reply was (of course), "well, its one higher, isn't it."
The main advantage of jet engines over piston engines for aircraft is the immens amount of power they produce, so yes, it is the power to weight ratio taht makes them superior. While it may not seem like this would matter much for boats (since weight generally isn't much of a consideration for ships), many ships are currently being built with gas turbine engines. Why? Lower maintenance, more efficient at sustained RPM's (though horribly innefficient at low power/RPM), and they take up relatively little space compared to a conventional diesel engine. Whether this water jet would be useful to ships probably depends on whether they scale up well (300 hp isn't much when you are trying to move thousands of tonnes of ship through the water) and how reliable the equipment to produce the steam and pump the air is. ONe thing that isn't mentioned in the article is where the water necessary to produce the steam comes from; if it is running in fresh water it probably wouldn't be a problem, just suck up some of the water you are running through, but it may be a problem in salt water, especially with a large ship taking large amounts of water for steam. It isn't like a nuclear reactor that only uses a set amount of water (it is a closed system), but rather it expels water in the form of steam for propulsion. Boiling salt water (or even freshwater for that matter) would leave behind all kinds of solid waste, including salts and mud, which might increase maintenance costs or reduce reliability. THis might be a factor that limits the water jets use in recreational boats; how much space does the fuel and support systems of the water engine take up (I know the article talks about a 20cm one, but this is most likely just referring tot he size of the engine itself)?
I definitely second this, and third, fourth, etc.. Not hard SF, but more sheer enjoyment than anything else I can think of. Read them, and you ewon't be sorry. Personally, for maximum enjoyment, I would suggest starting with The Warrior's Apprentice and go through some or all of the Miles books before going back to the first ones (actually one now, two books were combined to create Cordelia's Honor, which deals with Miles' parents). Really really recommened for anyone.
Jordan, Robert Wheel of Time Series Books: Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn, The Shadows Rising, The Fires of Heaven, Lord of Chaos, A Crown of Swords
I would hold off on this series until it is done, which should be another two books or so. The tenth one just came out, and no doubt it will just piss you off if you read it. The first five or six books in this series are excellent, some of the best I have ever read (especially the first three, imo), but after that it takes a SERIOUS plunge down the toilet. So, wait until the series is done, and at least for the first 3 or 4 thousand pages you will be in for a real treat.
I agree, Iain M. Banks is pretty awesome. I was introduced to him by my first year roommate in college, who insisted I read Consider Phlebas, which is an awesome book. Unfortunately it is difficult to find more than his three most recent books in the U.S. (Excession, Inversions, and Look to Windward). Definitely highly recommended. The ship names alone show more creativity and talent than most other authors manage in their entire books.
as for the segway, i think they should wait for it to be a problem before wasting their time banning it....i mean, how many of these things did they anticipate being on the sidewalks anyway?
The trouble with this is that if they don't ban the things from sidewalks, when (yes when, you know some idiot will manage it at some point) some old granny (or young, yuppy lawyer with nothing better to do)gets hit by one of the things going down the sidewalk. They did exactly what they should have done; they limited the city's liability by banning these motorized vehicles from sidewalks.
I live in CA, which should stand as a dire warning to the rest of the country: They limit their property taxes, their schools go underfunded, and as a result California natives largely end up working to repair the cars and wash the floors of the well-educated from elsewhere.
If you say so. I am a native Californian, and have yet to see this phenomenon. I don't know anyone that repairs cars (besides my mechanic, who is an immigrant from I forget where) or washes floors; most everyone I knew growing up is an artist (which doesn'treally have much to dowith education) or scientist or engineer who have a good education from schools all across California and the U.S. I think you are thinking of the non-native Californians; various immigrant groups make up the vast majority of menial or uneducated work in California. Our education budget does rather suck big time, though. Not sure that it is because of limited property taxes, though - in the city where I live (and many, if not most, others) there is a considerable property tax levied for education. For various reasons, I have found California tobe a mix of highly educated natives (of course, this has a lot to do with where I live) and immigrants from many other countries that tend to be poorly educated (yes, there are also many well-educated immigrants; just not nearly as many as are poorly-educated). Part of my view of native Californians may also be because I come from one of the most highly educated cities in the country (I think 2nd or so, behind Chapel Hill, N.C. - I think based on # of advanced degrees/population)with a correspondingly excellent public school system.
The sales of his Mario series alone has done $7billion. Comparison in the article to the Star Wars movies doing only $3.5billion.
Oh, so how good a game designer someone is depends on the sales of their games? Popularity != quality. I'm not trying to say that his games are poor quality (they aren't), but using sales numbers to justify naming someone the greatest designer in the world seems a little silly. I doubt anyone would say Stephen King is the best writer in the world just because he sells more books than anyone else (no idea if this is true, just trying to make a point).
I would say there isn't a single god of games. Zelda was pretty good, though too consoley for me (i.e., too shallow). Same with Mario. But I'll admit they were very good games. However, I would certainly put at least Sid Meier, Richard Garriot, and Chris Sawyer at the same level as Miyamoto. Carmack maybe, but not really for games; he is incredible more for the game engines he deveolops than for the games. There are probably a dozen more that could go in here. Miyamoto is very good, but he is not far and away better than a dozen or more others; from my enjoyment of games I have played, I woiuld rate him significantly below several others.
Re:One major DSL problem
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DSL Rising
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· Score: 1
For me it is the opposite. I live in Northern California as well, about 60 miles east of SF. Our cable ALWAYS goes out when there is bad weather (I think more because of the wind than the rain, but I could be wrong), but the phone (and my DSL) almost never does.
DSL is much better in my area...
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DSL Rising
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· Score: 2, Informative
Mostly because Comcast or whoever it is that does cable here these days doesn't offer internet serrvice. So I enjoy my relatively problem-free DSL, which is just as fast downloading as the cable modem I had when living in another city (150 KB/sec, same for both of them). Of course it is PPoE, so no web hosting or anything, but then DSL is too slow upstream to be of much use for this anyway (aside from an email server, anyway). It was much easier to install than Cable was, for me anyway; I don't know about most people, but I have only one cable outlet in my house (nowhere near my computers), but many phone outlets. Makes it much easier for installing the modem where I want it. And I have a nice 10bT modem, as I recall SBC offerred a choice between that and a USB one. And who was complaining about the little line filters? Dude, it takes like two minutes total to put one in every phone jack in the house, and they don't cause any problems whatsoever - faxes, phones, even regular modems work fine through them. Cable would be nice if I wanted to do some hosting, but it isn't available in my area (the cable co. claims they would need to install all new equipment, which they are apparently unwilling to do, never mind the fact that I live in a college town of about 60,000 that would probably have a rather high demand for this sort of thing) so I am more than happy with my DSL. It is certainly enough to download things at high speeds, play games, and do work on the internet, and since this is 99% of what I want to do, it is perfect for me. Sure, it goes down for a couple hours every other month or so, but that really isn't too much of a problem.
PC games aren't dying. Your national chain that you work for is probably losing slaes because they overcharge for everything. Most people who play games on PC are generally smart enough to look around for decent prices; and the "major software chain stores" tend to have the worst prices on everything, from hardware to games. I can't remember the last time I went into a store and bought a game (although it usually doens't matter too much for the actual games; still, every store seems to charge the normal 49.99 when a new game comes out, while they can be had for $5 less including s&H). And where do you get this slow graphics thing from? The graphics in PC games kick the ass of anything on console. Console games generally have fewer polys, lower resolution (of course), and generally less detail. Compare Halo to even a last-generation PC game like Unreal or Quake 2; the older PC games still look MUCH better than the newer console games. I think so, anyway.
Probably the one thing the consoles do better than PC's (besides ease of use, which personally I don't think they are - maybe a little quicker to turn on, but not any easier to use) is single-console multiplayer. There is nothing on PC quite like getting a bunch of friends together and playing hours of Mario Kart 64, unless you go through all the trouble of getting a bunch of PC's together in one place.
If you intended this as sarcasm, then you probably haven't played many good console games. Have you played Super Mario Sunshine? But have you actually played it, or are you answering based on your preconceptions of what a "Mario" game is like? There's more depth in Sunshine than in some of the more mindless FPS games.
Hmm, somehow I don't think you quite got the point across that you wanted to. Comparing Mario Sunshine, which you apparently think is one of the deeper console games, to "some of the more midless FPS games" is supposed to show that console games are as deep as PC games? I don't think so. Maybe it is as deep as the shallowest PC games, as you claim, but console games come nowhere near the level of PC games (at least, none that I have played). This is why we dedicated PC gamers could care less about the sales figures of consoles vs. PC; there are a lot of idiots out there, hence a lot of sales of console games, but it really doesn't matter to the P.C. market. Maybe we will get fewer games from companies like EA, but their games are generally crap anyway. Of course, I still own a PS2, but I only play GT3 on it. Pretty much every other game I have tried on it has sucked, or become boring within 2 hours.
Did any of you upeople see Insurrection? Because if you had, there wouldn't be an argument about "worst Trek movie ever". Insurrection was like a $50 million episode that sucked.
In life there are the foundation disciplines, such as logic, reading, music appreciation;
Music appreciation? WHile in general I agree wiht your post, you can't be serious about this. I'm sorry, but music appreciation was one fo the most useless classes I took in college. To say it is one of the "foundation disciplines" is ludicrous. Now, if you were to say the arts in general, I would agree with you. Music appreciation, however, is not one of the basic disciplines that everyone needs to take. I agree, though, that the purpose of a college education should be to produce a person who is well-rounded, with specialized knowledge in a certain area but also enough broader knowledge that they aren't totally dependent on their area of specialization.
If you want some really excellent SF, I'd suggest checking out Lois McMaster Bujold (well, not really checking her out, but try reading her books). She has won multiple Hugos and Nebulas. Her characters are about the best I have ever read, bar none. The stories are basically space opera, but so well written that I bet anyone who gets around to reading them will love them.
As far as hard SF goes, there aren't really any worlds that I find consistently good. Dune is incredible, but I thought the later books in the series were pretty bad. Starting with about the second one. Ender's Game is another excellent book, but again, the later books in the series don't do it justice. They were still pretty good, but just nowhere near the level of the first. The Star Wars books by Timothy Zahn are very enjoyable, and the universe is fairly well fleshed-out and familiar, but practically every book in the universe besides Zahn's are trash.
Another universe I have enjoyed a lot is that created by Iain M. Banks. It is sort of hard to describe, but if you haven't read Consider Phlebas, you haven't read SF.
Nitpick: the world-record was made by a souped-up perfectly normal beas^h^h^h^h TGV fitted with a bigger transformer, bigger wheels, a smaller gearing ratio, 7 less cars than normal, various aerodynamic optimizations and a stiffer-than-normal catenary.
Picknit: In what way is that a perfectly normal TGV? Thats like saying I am going to go get a Chevy Monte Carlo, because the stock-car version, which is a PERFECTLY NORMAL Monte Carlo (with the exdception of body, engine, wheels, frame, etc., etc.) can go in excess of 200 mph. Or was this your point? Were you just being sarcastic or something? I can't even tell.
Oh, and speed isn't the only measure of performance. To get a more complete picture, you would have to look at energy required to get this kind of performance, the effect on the track (how much maintenance you have to do when traveling at these speeds), and many other factors. So saying that the TGV is better because it once went faster on special track with heaveily modified power units is pointless. This isn't to say that the TGV isn't better, just that there are more things to look at than the speed of a specially modified version.
Look at companies like IBM and Dell.. would you call them mainstream ?.. most likely.. So if they offer PDAs/Servers/Workstations with Linux or any other OSS product on.. then it is mainstream already.
I have to disagree with this. Just because these "mainstream" companies offer a product, it does not make that product mainstream. General Electric makes a lot of refrigerators, lightbulbs etc., which are mainstream, but I don't think you can claim that a 480Mw gas turbine is mainstream. It is mainstream if a large portion of everyday (i.e., non-expert - this means non-programmers/sysadmins/etc. for software) users actually use it.
Heh, I thought so to. I tried out the beta, and my first two sims were Hiroaki Protagonist and YT Snowcrash (couldn't remember her real name in the book).
Re:self cleaning windows
on
Lotus Nanotech
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· Score: 2, Funny
Forget self cleaning windows, how about self cleaning self? Just spray this stuff on myself, and no more showers! I bet chicks dig the waxy coating, too.
Compared to even Unreal or Quake 2, the graphics in halo are butt-ugly. Low polys, few colors, poor resolution (okay, that isn't the fault of the game, but still). Yeah, the fireworks are a little better than Goldeneye, but I came away from the game with the same impression as I did from Goldeneye way back when; it's pretty good for a console game, but it has worse graphics, worse sound, and worse gameplay than PC games that have been around for years.
Slashdot Mirror
Nvidia today announced the release of the Geforce FX 5801 Extreme Insane Machine, to be released soon after the 5800. When asked what improvements this would carry over the regular 5800, a spokesman replied that it would be much better than the 5800, and only the shiniest and bestest FX cores would be marked with the sought-after 5801 EIM logo. In addition, rather than the 5801 will feature a larger, more powerful cooling solution that "really unlocks the potential of the Geforce FX core". When a clerk in the local COmpUSA was asked by a spoiled rich kid what was better about the 5801 than the 5800, the reply was (of course), "well, its one higher, isn't it."
The main advantage of jet engines over piston engines for aircraft is the immens amount of power they produce, so yes, it is the power to weight ratio taht makes them superior. While it may not seem like this would matter much for boats (since weight generally isn't much of a consideration for ships), many ships are currently being built with gas turbine engines. Why? Lower maintenance, more efficient at sustained RPM's (though horribly innefficient at low power/RPM), and they take up relatively little space compared to a conventional diesel engine. Whether this water jet would be useful to ships probably depends on whether they scale up well (300 hp isn't much when you are trying to move thousands of tonnes of ship through the water) and how reliable the equipment to produce the steam and pump the air is. ONe thing that isn't mentioned in the article is where the water necessary to produce the steam comes from; if it is running in fresh water it probably wouldn't be a problem, just suck up some of the water you are running through, but it may be a problem in salt water, especially with a large ship taking large amounts of water for steam. It isn't like a nuclear reactor that only uses a set amount of water (it is a closed system), but rather it expels water in the form of steam for propulsion. Boiling salt water (or even freshwater for that matter) would leave behind all kinds of solid waste, including salts and mud, which might increase maintenance costs or reduce reliability. THis might be a factor that limits the water jets use in recreational boats; how much space does the fuel and support systems of the water engine take up (I know the article talks about a 20cm one, but this is most likely just referring tot he size of the engine itself)?
I definitely second this, and third, fourth, etc..
Not hard SF, but more sheer enjoyment than anything else I can think of. Read them, and you ewon't be sorry. Personally, for maximum enjoyment, I would suggest starting with The Warrior's Apprentice and go through some or all of the Miles books before going back to the first ones (actually one now, two books were combined to create Cordelia's Honor, which deals with Miles' parents). Really really recommened for anyone.
Wheel of Time Series
Books: Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn, The Shadows Rising, The Fires of Heaven, Lord of Chaos, A Crown of Swords
I would hold off on this series until it is done, which should be another two books or so. The tenth one just came out, and no doubt it will just piss you off if you read it. The first five or six books in this series are excellent, some of the best I have ever read (especially the first three, imo), but after that it takes a SERIOUS plunge down the toilet. So, wait until the series is done, and at least for the first 3 or 4 thousand pages you will be in for a real treat.
I agree, Iain M. Banks is pretty awesome. I was introduced to him by my first year roommate in college, who insisted I read Consider Phlebas, which is an awesome book. Unfortunately it is difficult to find more than his three most recent books in the U.S. (Excession, Inversions, and Look to Windward). Definitely highly recommended. The ship names alone show more creativity and talent than most other authors manage in their entire books.
You have it backwards. Iain M. Banks does Sci-Fi, Iain Banks does other stuff. (Well, really they are the same person, but whatever.)
The trouble with this is that if they don't ban the things from sidewalks, when (yes when, you know some idiot will manage it at some point) some old granny (or young, yuppy lawyer with nothing better to do)gets hit by one of the things going down the sidewalk. They did exactly what they should have done; they limited the city's liability by banning these motorized vehicles from sidewalks.
If you say so. I am a native Californian, and have yet to see this phenomenon. I don't know anyone that repairs cars (besides my mechanic, who is an immigrant from I forget where) or washes floors; most everyone I knew growing up is an artist (which doesn'treally have much to dowith education) or scientist or engineer who have a good education from schools all across California and the U.S. I think you are thinking of the non-native Californians; various immigrant groups make up the vast majority of menial or uneducated work in California.
Our education budget does rather suck big time, though. Not sure that it is because of limited property taxes, though - in the city where I live (and many, if not most, others) there is a considerable property tax levied for education. For various reasons, I have found California tobe a mix of highly educated natives (of course, this has a lot to do with where I live) and immigrants from many other countries that tend to be poorly educated (yes, there are also many well-educated immigrants; just not nearly as many as are poorly-educated).
Part of my view of native Californians may also be because I come from one of the most highly educated cities in the country (I think 2nd or so, behind Chapel Hill, N.C. - I think based on # of advanced degrees/population)with a correspondingly excellent public school system.
That I think I can agree with. But wait, who was it that did Gran Turismo (hey, I liked it way more than any of the Mario or Zelda games)?
Oh, so how good a game designer someone is depends on the sales of their games? Popularity != quality. I'm not trying to say that his games are poor quality (they aren't), but using sales numbers to justify naming someone the greatest designer in the world seems a little silly. I doubt anyone would say Stephen King is the best writer in the world just because he sells more books than anyone else (no idea if this is true, just trying to make a point).
I would say there isn't a single god of games. Zelda was pretty good, though too consoley for me (i.e., too shallow). Same with Mario. But I'll admit they were very good games. However, I would certainly put at least Sid Meier, Richard Garriot, and Chris Sawyer at the same level as Miyamoto. Carmack maybe, but not really for games; he is incredible more for the game engines he deveolops than for the games. There are probably a dozen more that could go in here. Miyamoto is very good, but he is not far and away better than a dozen or more others; from my enjoyment of games I have played, I woiuld rate him significantly below several others.
For me it is the opposite. I live in Northern California as well, about 60 miles east of SF.
Our cable ALWAYS goes out when there is bad weather (I think more because of the wind than the rain, but I could be wrong), but the phone (and my DSL) almost never does.
Mostly because Comcast or whoever it is that does cable here these days doesn't offer internet serrvice. So I enjoy my relatively problem-free DSL, which is just as fast downloading as the cable modem I had when living in another city (150 KB/sec, same for both of them). Of course it is PPoE, so no web hosting or anything, but then DSL is too slow upstream to be of much use for this anyway (aside from an email server, anyway).
It was much easier to install than Cable was, for me anyway; I don't know about most people, but I have only one cable outlet in my house (nowhere near my computers), but many phone outlets. Makes it much easier for installing the modem where I want it. And I have a nice 10bT modem, as I recall SBC offerred a choice between that and a USB one.
And who was complaining about the little line filters? Dude, it takes like two minutes total to put one in every phone jack in the house, and they don't cause any problems whatsoever - faxes, phones, even regular modems work fine through them.
Cable would be nice if I wanted to do some hosting, but it isn't available in my area (the cable co. claims they would need to install all new equipment, which they are apparently unwilling to do, never mind the fact that I live in a college town of about 60,000 that would probably have a rather high demand for this sort of thing) so I am more than happy with my DSL. It is certainly enough to download things at high speeds, play games, and do work on the internet, and since this is 99% of what I want to do, it is perfect for me. Sure, it goes down for a couple hours every other month or so, but that really isn't too much of a problem.
Yeah, okay, some of his games are good. But to call him the God of games? I don't think so.
PC games aren't dying. Your national chain that you work for is probably losing slaes because they overcharge for everything. Most people who play games on PC are generally smart enough to look around for decent prices; and the "major software chain stores" tend to have the worst prices on everything, from hardware to games. I can't remember the last time I went into a store and bought a game (although it usually doens't matter too much for the actual games; still, every store seems to charge the normal 49.99 when a new game comes out, while they can be had for $5 less including s&H). And where do you get this slow graphics thing from? The graphics in PC games kick the ass of anything on console. Console games generally have fewer polys, lower resolution (of course), and generally less detail. Compare Halo to even a last-generation PC game like Unreal or Quake 2; the older PC games still look MUCH better than the newer console games. I think so, anyway.
Probably the one thing the consoles do better than PC's (besides ease of use, which personally I don't think they are - maybe a little quicker to turn on, but not any easier to use) is single-console multiplayer. There is nothing on PC quite like getting a bunch of friends together and playing hours of Mario Kart 64, unless you go through all the trouble of getting a bunch of PC's together in one place.
Hmm, somehow I don't think you quite got the point across that you wanted to. Comparing Mario Sunshine, which you apparently think is one of the deeper console games, to "some of the more midless FPS games" is supposed to show that console games are as deep as PC games? I don't think so. Maybe it is as deep as the shallowest PC games, as you claim, but console games come nowhere near the level of PC games (at least, none that I have played). This is why we dedicated PC gamers could care less about the sales figures of consoles vs. PC; there are a lot of idiots out there, hence a lot of sales of console games, but it really doesn't matter to the P.C. market. Maybe we will get fewer games from companies like EA, but their games are generally crap anyway. Of course, I still own a PS2, but I only play GT3 on it. Pretty much every other game I have tried on it has sucked, or become boring within 2 hours.
Did any of you upeople see Insurrection? Because if you had, there wouldn't be an argument about "worst Trek movie ever". Insurrection was like a $50 million episode that sucked.
Turn that fridge down!
Music appreciation? WHile in general I agree wiht your post, you can't be serious about this. I'm sorry, but music appreciation was one fo the most useless classes I took in college. To say it is one of the "foundation disciplines" is ludicrous. Now, if you were to say the arts in general, I would agree with you. Music appreciation, however, is not one of the basic disciplines that everyone needs to take.
I agree, though, that the purpose of a college education should be to produce a person who is well-rounded, with specialized knowledge in a certain area but also enough broader knowledge that they aren't totally dependent on their area of specialization.
If you want some really excellent SF, I'd suggest checking out Lois McMaster Bujold (well, not really checking her out, but try reading her books). She has won multiple Hugos and Nebulas. Her characters are about the best I have ever read, bar none. The stories are basically space opera, but so well written that I bet anyone who gets around to reading them will love them.
As far as hard SF goes, there aren't really any worlds that I find consistently good. Dune is incredible, but I thought the later books in the series were pretty bad. Starting with about the second one.
Ender's Game is another excellent book, but again, the later books in the series don't do it justice. They were still pretty good, but just nowhere near the level of the first.
The Star Wars books by Timothy Zahn are very enjoyable, and the universe is fairly well fleshed-out and familiar, but practically every book in the universe besides Zahn's are trash.
Another universe I have enjoyed a lot is that created by Iain M. Banks. It is sort of hard to describe, but if you haven't read Consider Phlebas, you haven't read SF.
Just my $.03
Picknit: In what way is that a perfectly normal TGV? Thats like saying I am going to go get a Chevy Monte Carlo, because the stock-car version, which is a PERFECTLY NORMAL Monte Carlo (with the exdception of body, engine, wheels, frame, etc., etc.) can go in excess of 200 mph. Or was this your point? Were you just being sarcastic or something? I can't even tell.
Oh, and speed isn't the only measure of performance. To get a more complete picture, you would have to look at energy required to get this kind of performance, the effect on the track (how much maintenance you have to do when traveling at these speeds), and many other factors. So saying that the TGV is better because it once went faster on special track with heaveily modified power units is pointless. This isn't to say that the TGV isn't better, just that there are more things to look at than the speed of a specially modified version.
I have to disagree with this. Just because these "mainstream" companies offer a product, it does not make that product mainstream. General Electric makes a lot of refrigerators, lightbulbs etc., which are mainstream, but I don't think you can claim that a 480Mw gas turbine is mainstream. It is mainstream if a large portion of everyday (i.e., non-expert - this means non-programmers/sysadmins/etc. for software) users actually use it.
Heh, I thought so to. I tried out the beta, and my first two sims were Hiroaki Protagonist and YT Snowcrash (couldn't remember her real name in the book).
Forget self cleaning windows, how about self cleaning self? Just spray this stuff on myself, and no more showers! I bet chicks dig the waxy coating, too.
Compared to even Unreal or Quake 2, the graphics in halo are butt-ugly. Low polys, few colors, poor resolution (okay, that isn't the fault of the game, but still). Yeah, the fireworks are a little better than Goldeneye, but I came away from the game with the same impression as I did from Goldeneye way back when; it's pretty good for a console game, but it has worse graphics, worse sound, and worse gameplay than PC games that have been around for years.