It’s updates to physics like these that give me the prepubescent squeaky hyperventilating voice. You may not have heard that the Euphoria engine is on a mission to belittle ragdoll physics and tell it that it really DOES look fat in that dress. Actually, it’s likely you haven’t heard that, because I fabricated the lie just now, but that’s the feeling I get after watching the following comparison video:

Go ahead, watch it I’ll be here waiting for you … done?

Okay, what should now be clear is that ragdolls are pretty boring, and their deaths could’ve been so much more meaningful had there been any character to them. Thankfully, all of that changes now. With the Euphoria engine, we get to see a lot more realism and variety to the pushing, shooting, and throwing of people.

Quite possibly one of the best games to help showcase this new engine is coming out in a couple days, GTA IV. This will be the first of many games to come that will use the new engine. This game will show off the physics in a variety of different ways; due to the large amount of innocent (or guilty if you prefer) pedestrians that are going to be shot at, run over, blown up, or kicked down a flight of stairs.

The Euphoria engine will be a very good step for enhancing that next-gen feel. Future games listed to include the Euphoria engine are LucasArts’ Indiana Jones (who cares) and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (better). The one that should be the most interesting is an American Football game that will house the engine. Making way for real-time tackles and hits that will get rid of that bad taste of scripted animation still lingering in our mouths.