One racetrack, one car, one game, two years apart. From the foliage to the road textures and the overall colours, the changes are quite noticeable.

Back when new-gen was known as next-gen, gamers and critics alike pondered and daydreamed about the kinds of experiences we'd get with new hardware and promises of impressive power. And a lot of that anticipation has been squarely on the topic of shiny visuals. But there's more to the look of a game than just pretty cars and pretty skies.

At the start of this new generation of consoles the debate of framerate and resolution importance still wages on. The gold standard to live by is a solid 60 fps and 1080p. If those numbers aren't on a bullet-pointed press release somewhere, eyebrows and questions are raised. But what if hitting 30fps is intentional and defensible?

Now that the PS4, Xbox One and Wii U are all out, you'd think it's the perfect time to dive into games on the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii. Games on those systems are typically cheaper and there are a ton of worthwhile titles released for them already, many of which are already in our backlogs, just waiting for us to tackle them. It's the sort of situation that should make waiting for the PS4 and Xbox One to fill up with must-buy titles less painful for all of us early adopters... except that's not actually what is happening.

Today, Warner Bros. announced a new Batman game, called Arkham Knight . It's got some exciting features: An open-world Gotham City! A drivable Batmobile! And equally exciting, it's only coming out on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

Sony announced this morning in an official release that it has sold more than 5.3 million PS4 units worldwide as of February 8, 2014. That's quite impressive if you consider it's still not out yet in Japan for four days, and only three months have passed since it's November launch.

Airtight just confirmed an Xbox One version of its upcoming detective game. It will also be on 360, PS3 and PC. No word on PS4 yet (but that's likely coming, or else Microsoft would be touting the exclusivity).

I can understand why game developers working on next-gen games might be psyched to play around with voice commands. They represent an interesting and relatively new way to let players interact with games. But there's at least one next-gen voice command I can happily do without.

Stun_gravy and his friends prove stingers don't need to be in Battlefield 4. The only things you need are a buggy, some C4 planted on its bottom, the mindset of John McClane and patience until an attack helicopter and the perfect moment turn up.

Oxide Games, a group composed of industry veterans from Microsoft and Firaxis, are currently working on Nitrous, which is gonna be a next-generation engine for strategy games. Calling it impressive, honestly, is a bit of an understatement.

One of Sony's hottest video game drawcards is the new cloud streaming service dubbed PS Now. The Gaikai-based platform will allow gamers to access classic PlayStation titles on their tablets and smartphones, including recent titles such as The Last of Us and Beyond: Two Souls. It sounds quite nifty on paper but anything touted as 'game-changing' often turns into little more than a gimmick. Here's our two cents' worth.

The next-gen dust has settled enough to begin to get a sense of just who picked up which new console. So, we thought we'd just ask.

Locate target. Eject. Deploy package. Return to your vehicle. Sounds easy, but if your vehicle is a moving jet, and the target is a chopper high above you, things get hard. Even if it's in Battlefield 4. Here's YouTuber ponylion pulling off this pretty cool manoeuvre like it's the easiest thing out there.

That reason is the Far Cry 3 "best villain ever" Vaas-skinned Globox that's exclusive to the PS4 and Xbox One release on February 25. And, yeah, an Assassin's Ray costume is pretty neat too.

You might be thrilled with next gen — er, current gen. But John Carmack, ex-id Software star programmer and Oculus Rift guru, isn't yet. He thinks we can still do more with last gen.

The graphics battle between the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 has been raging for months. Here at the start of December, with the consoles finally loose in the wild, one thing is certain: several big games run at a higher resolution on PS4 than on Xbox One. And although it's easy to downplay the significance of that disparity, I've found that it really does make a difference.

Having a good time in Battlefield 4 in an unconventional way doesn't always mean stacking 64 players into an elevator or changing pilot seats mid-air. There's jet ski jousting! Jackfrags and his crew show us how to play this grand sporting spectacle.

Now, that is one impressive Battlefield 4 moment right there. One guy comes in low with his jet and jumps out while his teammate jumps into the abandoned plane and moves on (the GIF shows both players' view). Switching jets like this really requires superb skills and teamwork.

You put in a disc or launch a game from the hard drive. The title screen glows in front of you, beckoning. Time to press the start button, like you've done thousands of times before. Not anymore though. Start's gone, shown the door by both the PS4 and Xbox One.