Playback: The Week in Review

As we enter the fall season, there's been more than just a few leaves changing colors to distract us. Change within the industry is rampant. Some of the big news this week involved some hard business decisions made by companies and individuals - resulting in some bridges built and others being burnt to the ground.

Good news this season revolves around the release of some very big games: Half-Life is just a few weeks away, Shogo is already on shelves, SiN is already in a second demo, and we're actually seeing titles that support DirectX 6.0. Let's take a look at the week's top gaming news and give you an update about what's been on the tips of our trigger fingers.

The biggest surprise of the week was that 3D Realms took a serious look at Prey and decided to give two members the boot. Paul Schuytema, the project's leader, was dismissed, and 3D Realms has decided to reexamine the market. What does this mean for 3D shooters? Are we about to see the making of an entirely new genre? Apogee/3DRealms cofounder Scott Miller says that the game is now due for the year 2000. If you want the whole story, read on.

The second big story of the week was that one of the producers on Origin's Wing Commander series has defected and headed for GT Interactive. What does this mean for the future of the series? At this point no ones knows, but we've heard that many members of the Maverick team have departed Origin.

More shake-ups in the news involved Psygnosis. Could it be that the company's coffers are looking a little bare? The company has been severing some of its ties with some UK developers. Although all US-based titles remain on the books, rumor is that Psygnosis' parent company, Sony, is looking for an overall lower number of titles in development and fewer names on the payroll. On the PC side of the company, Psygnosis hasn't been all that successful with sales after porting its titles over from the PlayStation.

Long time PC developer, Sirtech, announced on Wednesday that it would be closing its doors. The company known best for the Wizardry series and Jagged Alliance said that the reason for the closure was due to the disappearance of a "gentlemanly business of publishing." The company's Jagged Alliance 2 and Wizardry VIII titles, being developed at Sirtech Canada, are still in development and are up for publishing grabs.

On Monday, 3Dfx released a beta version of its 3Dfx Voodoo2 drivers for DirectX 6.0. It seemed to be the hot download of the day. Talk about new technology to the avid group of 3Dfx gamers, and they'll always jump, and this is one of the great things about 3Dfx - it actually can get thousands of people to download beta drivers.

Getting onto the 3Dfx site after the release of the drivers was nearly impossible. We received several e-mails asking us if the new drivers would give any added performance to current DirectX games, and we didn't know what to answer. In the midst of it all, we were overwhelmed by the announcement as well and set off to do our own benchmark testing. 3Dfx said that it had achieved a 40-percent-faster speed than its closest competitor when in SLI configuration. It was true that there is a 40-percent advantage over its competitors, but there is no performance increase over current games. Luckily, we cleared up the confusion with 3Dfx. The second big announcement is that 3Dfx-based boards are coming down in price, so if you're looking for top speed, get out the credit card.

Two exclusives that GameSpot scored over the week included two top-tier titles. Next Thursday, you'll be able to play Heretic II as GameSpot will be the site to visit when the demo goes public. Also, this week GameSpot TV had an up-close-and-personal interview with Valve Software's Gabe Newell. So sit back and just watch a RealVideo interview with the man behind Half-Life?