Eve Online is a game I desperately want to love: an MMOG that doesn't involve playing a bearded midget dressed only in his Underoos. I gave the two week trial a shot: I loved the imagination behind the universe and my Shodan-like ship A.I. But after the initial novelty wore off, I realized that most of my time was playing Eve Online was actually spent in another room entirely, reading a book. I guess that's swell for multitaskers, but I like games that actually require me to be around to play them.

Still, a lot of Eve Online fans should be interested by this Firing Squad interview with senior producer Nathan Richardson. One of the subjects touched upon are details about the upcoming expansion for Eve, including a slew of graphics improvements, better management of corporations, more organization tools for combat and better situational awareness. A lot of spreadsheet stuff, in other words. There's also going to be a Direct X 10 Version of Eve, called Eve Vista... you know. Eventually. Florian Eckhardt

EVE Online Interview [Firing Squad]

During a DirectX 10-related event in London, UK, Richard Huddy, ATI Technologies' software developers relations chief, said that Microsoft's Vista will integrate DirectX 10 and DirectX 9 APIs for different types of hardware, but the current Windows XP will not get DirectX 10 support, as suggested some rumours earlier. For end users this means that to get the most advantages of the new-generation graphics processing units (GPUs), the new OS will be required.

Microsoft is really trying to push Vista down the craws of gamers. Fair enough — those who can afford top-of-the-line, Direct X 10 capable video cards will certainly have beefy enough systems to run Vista anyway. Let's hope Vista is enough of an improvement over XP to justify the move.FLORIAN ECKHARDT

Direct X 10 Vista Only [XBitLabs]