Games are a big part of the Vertigo culture. Nearly all our developers play some kind of game every once in a while. Just taking a look at some of our gaming posts we've done probably shows this. ;)
With Vista, games are getting high priority as well with a top level Start Menu shortcut. Here's a peak at the Games Start Menu item in Vista RC1.
Once you open the Games folder, you see all the games on your system. Looks like Windows comes with some new games now.
If you hit the Tools button, all the important Game-related functions and settings are located here. Very useful.
Finally you can customize the Game folder by clicking on the Options button, which brings up this dialog.
I'm assuming future games with the Games for Windows logo will automatically add game shortcuts directly in the Games folder.
What's new with these games?
- Chess takes 15 seconds to load on my Thinkpad T60. While it takes forever to load, it looks very pretty with real time reflections of the pieces on the board and free rotation.
- Minesweeper has some really nice animations now. Make sure you make the window larger if you have a high resolution monitor. Otherwise you won't be able to see all the graphical details.
- Solitaire has updated cards and nice transition animations (flipping cards, moving cards).
Also, you might notice your game icons shuffling around the Game folder once you start playing games. They are moving around because by default the icons are sorted by Last played, so as you play the games, the icons are resorting themselves.
Update 9/19/2006 1:03 pm
Jeff sent me a screenshot of a new game he installed on his Vista machine. Looks like I was right in thinking games would install a shortcut in the Games folder. Although the WEI score requirement looks fishy.. only a 1.0?
