Playback: The Week in Review

It's been a big week for news. The gaming world has kicked up its heels and started running full throttle - from promoting product to laying off staff. It's been nonstop fun.

The biggest news in upcoming games comes from Microsoft. This week, the company invited gaming journalists to its Redmond, Washington, headquarters for its gaming showcase, Gamestock.

One unexpected announcement at the love, peace, and games showing was that Chris Roberts is getting back into game design with Freelancer. Many have suspected that Roberts has been working solely on the upcoming Wing Commander movie, putting game designing on the back burner. We're glad that he's come back to his roots. From what Elliott Chin and Ron Dulin saw of the game, Roberts may save face again after the last Wing Commander fiasco. Digital Anvil, the company founded by Roberts, isn't just focused around the man that made Wing Commander though. At Gamestock the company showed off its Homeworld competitor Conquest: Frontier Wars; a prequel of sorts to Roberts' Freelancer, called Starlancer; and a future driving and shooting title called Loose Cannon. Interesting that there hasn't been any word about any game supporting the Wing Commander movie, eh? Word out of Gamestock was that the crowd was shown a long trailer of the movie and wasn't all that enthusiastic about it.

Earlier in the week, we heard a rumor that Microsoft was going to take another big swing at golf by acquiring (others may use the term "assimilating") Links LS maker Access Software. The rumor also claims that Microsoft made the move after pulling a half-completed Microsoft Golf 2000 title from the developers at Eclipse Entertainment. So far MS Golf 2000 has already cost US$2.2 million. When we went to talk to Eclipse, a spokesperson said, " not in the position to confirm or deny what you've heard." In other golfing news, EA is looking at seniors as the next big thing, golf pro seniors that is. Senior PGA Tour will be released next month. Gamers will also be able to download players and courses from the new game to be played with Tiger Woods 99 PGA Tour Golf.

At long last, actual Voodoo3 benchmarks were allowed to be posted on the Net, and the numbers were pretty impressive. With a GameGauge score of 578.3, the Voodoo3 beat out the nVidia TNT processor (462.82). When the Voodoo3 does release it should be interesting to see how real-world tests run since the drivers used in the benchmark were still in beta. Final drivers could push that output even higher. Stay tuned.

The recent announcement of Sierra's reorganization came as quite a surprise. Many of Sierra's developers outside of Washington state will now be relocating to Sierra's HQ in the Seattle area. Apparently, the workers at Yosemite Entertainment, one of the developers, aren't all that happy with the decision, and very few of the workers are opting for relocation up north. Also, we've heard that Dynamix, another of Sierra's developers in Eugene, Oregon, is laying off a hefty number of artists and designers instead of moving them. It should be interesting to see what Sierra looks like at the end of this reorganization.

Earlier in the week, Valve stopped by to show off Team Fortress Classic in a much more interesting way than most other developers. Instead of just showing us the latest build, they had us play against them. While we got some good shots at a trigger-happy Gabe Newell, he equally gained some frags and flag possessions. With all the playability gamers have come to expect from Valve, TFC for Half-Life is destined for greatness. Yet we've found that there are some female readers looking for some female representation in the upcoming release.... We'll see.