A few weeks ago, in what quickly became a hotly discussed piece of news around the internet, Microsoft sent out Microsoft Windows Vista-loaded Acer Ferrari 5000 laptops to several dozen online tech writers. I was a recipient of one of these computers on behalf of Shacknews. Though the expectations on Microsoft's part were explicitly left open, the most obvious and straightforward thing to do would be to write on my impressions using Vista, so here are my thoughts after having used the operating system on a secondary machine for a couple of weeks. I will not be writing on things like increased security measures (or decreased for that matter, I don't know--not my department), rather I will be giving my thoughts on the parts of the experience that stuck out to me, with a particular emphasis on the game explorer, the element of Vista that relates most directly to this site.

The game explorer

As a lifelong PC gamer, the single most anticipated element of Windows Vista has been the apparent renewed emphasis on gaming that Microsoft has been trumpeting alongside the operating system. It is long overdue at this point--even Microsoft admitted fairly recently that it had neglected PC gaming in recent years as it put billions of dollars into its Xbox brand. With Windows being an open platform and having no clear stewards like the consoles do, Microsoft is really the only company that could reasonably serve as its de facto gaming coordinator, and that is what it plans to do with Games for Windows. Of course, it is difficult to gauge just yet how effective the initiative will be, as DirectX 10 has yet to arrive in full force, and only a few official Games for Windows titles have been released, while Vista itself is only just being released this week.

Vista's game explorer is the operating system's built in effort to centralize game organization on the PC. Microsoft is instituting a series of recommendations and requirements to which publishers must adhere if they want their games to bear the universal Games for Windows branding and gain the full benefit of Microsoft's considerable marketing dollars. Among these is support for the game explorer, a standard Windows folder that attempts to act in similar fashion to a music browser, displaying game information such as developer and publisher names, ESRB (or local content board) rating and content descriptors, genre, and optional additional information such as install location and product version.

From the game explorer, one can also access various game-related functions. Parental controls allow specific user accounts to be limited to games of specific ratings, and parents can also track activity from specified accounts. The explorer has quick links to game-related information, such as the add/remove program application, audio and video devices, hardware lists, the Windows firewall, and so on. It is also possible to jump straight to a given game's save game folder.

I applaud the intention and inclusion of Vista's game explorer, and I appreciate its simplicity of use--new and many older games appear there automatically, and other games can be added simply by dragging them in. That said, it feels like it could be improved. Like other Windows folders, its contents can be viewed in a variety of formats, such as with large or small thumbnails, in a list, or in a detailed list with columns for all of the various pieces of information corresponding to each game. The "Details" mode is really the only one that sets the game explorer apart from any other folder, as it is the only one that shows information beyond publisher identification.

It seems that, if Microsoft would like to create an attractive and inviting centralized front end for Windows gaming, the game explorer should feel more like browsing a music collection in Microsoft's own Windows Media Player. Why not allow sorting by release date? Why not have an expandable tree of categories such as developer name, genre, or even content rating? It's nice to be able to sort by those criteria in a vertical list, but it also can get cluttered once there are a high number of games in the list; being able to collapse and expand categories would be a nice addition.

Another unfortunate aspect is that, as far as I can tell, there is no way for an end user to add missing information to a game. Official Games for Windows releases such as Relic's Company of Heroes have all of the appropriate information filled out, and Microsoft (or somebody contracted by Microsoft, perhaps) has gone to the effort of adding a great deal of older games to an online database so that their various descriptors are filled out as well (the inclusion of their content ratings also allows them to be managed in the Parental Controls menu). This is highly appreciated, but the problem is, when you come across a game that isn't supported, while you can still create a shortcut to it in the menu, you can't add additional meta-data like you would be able to with a music track in Windows Media Player. As a long time PC gamer, I--like many readers of this site, no doubt--have some two decades' worth of PC games, and the thought of being able to organize my entire PC game library on my computer and sort or prioritize it by a number of different criteria is, in a very dorky sort of way, an enticing idea.

I tested a few PC games from across roughly the last decade to check for their inclusion in the service. Valve's Half-Life (an original CD version, not a Steam release) and Blizzard's Diablo II both installed and automatically appeared in the game explorer with all of their stats. The folder even specifically noted that Half-Life has "Animated Blood" and "Violence," while Diablo II has both of those as well as "Blood and Gore." (Come to think of it, I'd like to be able to sort by number of content descriptors, not just alphabetically by first word. That would be fun.) Galactic Civilizations II, from indie developer Stardock, also showed up fine with all of its

Black Isle's Planescape: Torment didn't fare so well. The software installed, but didn't show up in the game explorer; when I dragged it in and it showed up as merely "Torment," no information of any kind was added or downloaded. This is where it would be nice to be able to add my own information or download some kind of user-created info file such as the ones developers include with their own Games for Windows titles.

I was unable to install LucasArts' Grim Fandango at all, as the 64-bit edition of Windows is not compatible with the game's installer; this problem cropped up with Windows XP as well. None of Vista's compatibility modes seemed to help at all here.

All in all, the game explorer is definitely a step in the right direction; it's certainly preferable to simply having a variety of publisher folders scattered across the Start menu. It also feels like a missed opportunity in many ways. While the now-integrated Windows Media Center has a slick, attractive appearance, and the latest edition of Windows Media Player is a surprisingly agreeable media player, the game explorer feels essentially like a folder with some gadgets--which it is. There's more going on under the hood than meets the eye, but there really isn't any reason why that shouldn't be more apparent. Hopefully, in future updates or service packs, Microsoft takes the seed that has been planted and expands the functionality of the explorer.

Turn the page for impressions of other Vista features.