Editor's Note: This piece was guest written by the Editor In Chief of DPAD, Mike Antebi. He visited AGEIA at the 2007 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and this is what he learned.

It is not easy convincing people to change. Cassettes, wind up film cameras, clunky CRT monitors and the Zack Morris cell phone are not always easy to put down - it takes us some time. What is especially difficult is to get someone to change from something that seems to be functioning pretty well. Even worse, change to something that’ll cost them some extra money. The team at AGEIA thinks it is worth the time to convince people that their PhysX card is the real deal and they are going all out to get their message heard.

I had the pleasure of viewing a demo of what AGEIA is up to while discussing some of their goals for the upcoming year. In hopes of building some excitement around their product, AGEIA plans to launch a 5 level FREE game titled CellFactor. You may recall the CellFactor demo being released during E3 last year, sparking some buzz on several popular gaming sites. Even better news is that they have partnered with Artificial Studios to bring you this game gratis (free). Launching at the end of March and into April, the game will be downloadable from www.cellfactorgame.com. You can choose from several different characters, each wielding a specialty in mind power and weapons, amongst other things, to control their surroundings. Imagine thrusting your hands at spewing lava, spraying it on your opponents. Perhaps grabbing together barrels of water and fuel and crushing them together and having them land on your foes! With the PhysX card, you’ll see fine detail with high FPS power to keep you right in the game.

The next game I was previewed to is Warmonger. The levels in this game are almost completely interactive. Brought to you by NetDevil, from the structures of buildings, to the trash barrels in an alley, you can pound your weapons into just about anything and watch it react. With fiery explosions sending a rain of embers pattering down on the dusty ground of a destroyed town, every fine detail stood out.

I was shown a few cool ways to use your environment to help you succeed in a game. For instance, if you are sniping, you can take position in a tall building for the best view possible. If you worry about people coming up behind you (in CS or DoD for example), worry no more. Using your advanced weaponry, simply blow away the staircase which you game up, making it impossible for someone to creep up behind you. Don’t get too cocky though, you can still get picked off from your firing location. These subtle extras are what, in my opinion, make this game stand out not only for AGEIA, but for games overall. Warmonger is planned to hit shelves in May or June of 2007.

Luckily for AGEIA, their thought process has caught on to some major players in the computer industry. Heavy weights such as Dell, ASUS, BFG and Falcon Northwest all seem to be riding the PhysX train by boosting sales for the new product.

Looking ahead, AGEIA plans to launch between 3 and 4 more titles this year. Unfortunately the names of those titles are hush-hush, with the exception of GRAW 2. Sources say that an entire level will be PhysX enabled to give gamers a taste of its power and clarity.

One strong message that I received is it would behoove publishers and developers alike to pick up this sort of technology. With PhysX available, I will find it hard if developers turn away when they have the opportunity to make games more interactive than they ever have been. However, as we have seen in the past, big changes like this take time but typically work out just fine. Until then I’ll be sure to keep my fingers crossed.