A new game engine is coming out for Codename: Panzers in the Cold War series, the Gepard3 engine. Evidently it features pools of water reflecting the sky, rain, glistening ice on aircraft, and overall a much more graphical experience, combined with visibility effects. I guess this means a single cloud could slightly decrease the brightness of the HUD. It will also affect weapon speeds and ranges, etc. 

“Developers continue to squeeze more and more out of PCs, Xbox 360s, and PS3s. Games like Crysis and Call of Duty 4 look to make every detail look as life-like as possible. And on the Wii, although the graphics aren’t always top-notch, there are real weather effects; at least, you can set games such as Madden NFL 08 can have snow or sunshine based on real-world conditions.”

We don’t really notice the weather much in video games, but I suppose we will soon. I notice the skyboxes, though. We really need more graphics for skies, most of them really suck and then when you stick birds in they suck too. Suck on that.