Keeping up with the entire week of gaming news can be tough - unless of course you're a studious web surfer.

　　For the rest of us, here's a quick look at the stories that made waves this week - stories you can talk about with your fellow gamers over the weekend.

　　John Romero spilled a few beans regarding ION Storm's upcoming shooter Daikatana. For gamers, it's all good news.

　　One of the big stories of the week was id's patch for the Quake Point Release. The patch added a slew of new features to Quake II including eight killer deathmatch levels. After being released last Friday, some nasty bugs were found in the 3.12 version, and id quickly got them fixed. We're happy to report that 3.13 is pretty safe.

　　On the hardware side of news, 3Dfx's Voodoo2 got added support as Jazz Multimedia threw its hat into the ring with 8MB and 12MB product offerings. Creative Labs supposedly shipped a 12MB product already (but we have yet to see one), and Diamond Multimedia announced that it too would up the ante by offering a 12MB board as well. This means that a new war is coming to the Voodoo2 market - which is ultimately good news for gamers as it means more Voodoo2 boards will surely get into the hands of gamers.

　　In other 3D accelerator news, NEC reps stopped by the GameSpot offices and gave us a close look at their second generation PowerVR chip. Also, NVidia let slip word that the RIVA 128ZX will be released soon - coming fast on the heels of the highly popular RIVA 128 2D/3D cards already in the market.

　　Ensemble Studio's Bruce Shelley, the brains behind Age of Empires (and now Age of Empires II), will entertain GameSpot News readers' questions on the AoE sequel - and just about anything else you have in mind.

　　Freedom-of-speech advocates might like to look at what retailers are doing to censor one game - and what one game's advertising department is doing to raise eyebrows for another. Are game companies going for the lowest common denominator - or is it art?

　　We also had news of Westwood's Lands of Lore 3, Cyclone Studios' Requiem Wrath of the Fallen, and an update on Blizzard's Starcraft. Westwood is moving into voxel technology (best known as a key component of Novalogic simulation games) for its next title. In seemingly never-ending updates from Blizzard, the Starcraft team members have basically left their homes for the comfort of the office carpets. And lastly, Cyclone has begun talking about Requiem Wrath of the Fallen.