Most urban South Koreans live in apartments the size of a walk-in closet, and some may eat nothing but 200 kinds of kimch'i, but they are truly, deeply wired. They don't use the term "broadband" because there is nothing else. They can get a 100-megabit DSL line for $20 a month. The internet streams glass-smooth HDTV and better-than-MP3 music on demand. Korea's Daum.net, a hydra-headed Yahoo!/eBay/Amazon/PayPal/Blogger/ Skype monster, is one of the world's most popular sites, despite accessibility limited only to those who understand the Korean language. The online community Cyworld.com (sort of a Friendster/MySpace/Blogger/ IRC/Flickr) has pulled in a fifth of all South Koreans, including 90 percent of all Internet users aged 20-29.

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How has the landscape of Korean gaming developed so differently from our own? The Korean government has gotten involved. Not like in America, where grandstanding Senators bluster about restricting videogame sales. No, the Republic of Korea promotes gaming.

UPDATE: Also via PA, hizzoly crizzap. So this is what all that "next-generation" talk is about. Games like this, with realistic physics models informing every part of the world, are as big a step up from the now-traditional 3D stuff as 3D was from 2D.