Gaming news was definitely on the lighter side this week as the last remaining weeks of summer sweat away. Game development is still grinding away, but with office staff taking some time off to catch some rays or fly to exotic realms, there wasn't too much news about gaming development. We had one story, however, that set the gaming world buzzing.

　　First up: Mergers and acquisitions seem to get bigger and bigger - with telephone companies and game companies. Earlier this week, Electronic Arts purchased Command & Conquer maker, Westwood Studios. EA just seems to get bigger and bigger. And with the upcoming and highly anticipated release of Tiberian Sun, EA could make a considerable profit. In the meantime, will it be good for gamers? Just like you, we'll have to sit back and wait. Although Hasbro really hasn't made a significant dent in the hard-core gaming arena, after buying Avalon Hill and MicroProse it has a chance to swing some weight in a market it has never been able to reach. We caught up with Hasbro Interactive's CEO and asked him what the big picture looks like for the company.

　　Activision has been busy developing games instead of buying developers, and we got to hear about two of its titles this week. Interstate '82, the sequel to Interstate '76, is coming on strong, and we got to see some of the gameplay, new vehicles, new effects, and a new interface (we even made a suggestion for the interface that the game's developer might use in the game). The best feature to come to the brand will be deathmatches. We're sure that Activision doesn't want to make a Twisted Metal for the PC. And with its powerful Heavy Gear II engine pushing the vehicles along, we have faith that the title will get better as it moves to gamers' desktops. Activision is taking the retro thing even further with the announcement that it will be building a title based on the classic, Space Invaders. The title is 20 years old now, and we're not sure what Activision is planning to do with it. After being a little skeptical of what the company would do with its last big brand, Battlezone, and discovering the title could stand on its own even without the universally known Battlezone name, there's a good chance that Activision could use the same formula to build another hit. Next up on the classic calendar... Activision's Asteroids.

　　We visited Seattle to take a look at a slew of new games. On the way to the Space Needle, a sign saying something about computer games caught our attention, and we went in to discover that Seattle gets a good chance to play some game betas. So if you're looking to play more betas before anyone else you're going to have to move to Seattle.

　　Fugitive, the development house composed of ex-Blizzard employees and one ex-GT employee, has officially announced that it has signed a deal with GT Interactive to publish its games. Although we reported this to readers almost three weeks ago, we thought you'd like to know about the official announcement.

　　The PC 3D side scroller Jazz Jackrabbit is back with a vengeance in this long-in-coming second version. We spoke to Epic MegaGames about the development of the friendly hopper this week to find out what has changed and how Epic set out to make sure that its game would be a gem of a game (yes, there's a joke about carrots in there somewhere).

　　And finally, last week we got a tip from a reader that a creature in Ultima Online had a name with an interesting coincidental meaning. We weren't completely sure that the term "Zog Cabal" was offensive and looked to other sources to find out more. After we discovered that it was considered offensive by some, we called Origin to see if it was aware of the term and if it had any comment. Without any foreknowledge, Origin went into reactionary mode and axed the creature from the service. Some players apparently assumed that we forced Origin to take the character out of the game and blamed us for the creature's demise. We've said lots of stuff about Ultima Online in the past, and Origin listens to us as much as it listens to anyone else, but it sure didn't get any pressure from us. Since Origin's decision, we've had mail from both sides - those who love us and those who hate us.