Playback: The Week in Review

Interplay's controversial game, Kingpin, is finally out, enabling gamers to hone their skills as hoodlums with the hopes of someday becoming mob bosses. The development of the game has garnered tons of press because of its harsh language, gruesome methods of killing, and the apparent dismemberment of Kingpin's developer, Xatrix Entertainment. During E3, we heard that the title wasn't shown because of the dark cloud hanging over the industry in the wake of the Columbine shootings. Insiders tell us that behind the scenes, Interplay debated toning down the violence and even turning the blood green. No quick solutions would have worked in time to show the title on the floor at E3, so the company held it back. While the game is out and selling well (considering all the talk on fan sites), Xatrix Entertainment appears to be dead in the water. While the company hasn't issued any official statement, resumes of former employees of Xatrix have been flying all over the place. Since the company's president and CEO, Drew Markham, hasn't replied to the rumors brewing that Xatrix would shut down after the completion of Kingpin, we'll have to assume Kingpin 2 may never begin development, even if the first title is amazingly popular.

The second big game released this week had less controversy but huge expectations behind it. The title? Dungeon Keeper 2. Bullfrog has been showing the title for some time and each time it has looked better and better. Fans of the original have had to rely on fan-built levels in the meantime. Finally on shelves, the new version has better 3D acceleration, a more usable first-person possession mode, EAX and Qsound support. The company is planning to offer online updates for fans of the new title. If the updates are similar to the model used by the official SimCity site, updates could easily bring new fans to the wonders of the dungeon. With a copy in hand, many gamers may not be leaving the warmth of their PCs over the course of the long weekend.

With all the consolidation in the industry, it has been interesting to see developers branching out to do their own thing. Developers like to work in smaller, leaner groups, and big corporations tend to make that impossible at times. Even the highly successful teams under Electronic Arts have felt the corporate crunch. This week, four artists announced their departure for new positions at Ballistic Pixel Lab. The artists have been responsible for titles like Madden, NCAA Football, and March Madness. While Ballistic Pixel Lab wouldn't announce any titles it is currently developing, attracting the four artists might mean that Ballistic may have something stellar in its future.

Ultima Online has always tried to emulate the real world (with an obvious fantasy slant) and in the real world, power corrupts. This happened to be the case with one of Ultima Online's Game Masters (GM) this week when he was caught selling Ultima Online property that he had apparently been freely issuing to his online persona. The GM then went to eBay, where he auctioned off Ultima Online virtual property, such as gold, houses, and other items. The GM received about $7,000 in real money for the Ultima items. When Origin discovered what was going on, it immediately fired the GM.

NEC and VideoLogic have been taunting gamers for sometime with information about its upcoming PowerVR chip for the PC. VideoLogic will be releasing the Neon 250 (now that the NEC PowerVR push has disintegrated in the US) next month to US gamers for about US$175. With 32-bit color and texture detailing, the board looks to be a real competitor with the current generation of 3D accelerators. The effort to launch the board here in the US is an interesting one, as very few gamers were fond of the original PowerVR chipset for the PC. Basically, the add-in board didn't stand up well to the power of 3dfx and nVidia. The PowerVR2 chipset looks as though it could garner the attention of gamers. We received a few shots of the board running Quake 3 Arena. If you're interested, take a look at our hot screenshots.

Aureal is going retail. The company hasn't officially started selling Aureal-branded cards yet, but will soon begin to sell Aureal speaker systems to multimedia consumers. In three- and five-piece systems, the solutions should bode well against Aureal's greatest competitor, Creative Labs, which owns speaker maker Cambridge SoundWorks. The move is an interesting one because MediaVision (the company that went belly up before being rechristened as Aureal) used to sell cards. Then, as Aureal, it only developed sound chips and related technologies for outside manufacturers.. With Diamond's acquisition by S3 and no announcements made regarding the future of its audio lineup - Aureal has to make a move soon to keep its products out there. We'll keep our ears open in the meantime.