A look back over the week's big news takes us first to two stories we ran that served up exclusive screenshots; the first for Monolith's shooter Blood 2, the second for the upcoming helicopter sim Apache Havoc.

　　If you've been waiting for new games to play on your PC, Grand Theft Auto and Die by the Sword were released this week. Grand Theft Auto, targeted for "mature" audiences, places you in the role as a criminal who gets to jack cars, trucks, and other vehicles like school buses, shoot police, and perform little jobs for a crime family you'd be happy to call your own. On the more admirable side, Die by the Sword, puts your wimpy body into a suit of armor to protect you as you slice and dice evil creatures. Demos for both titles are available on GameSpot.

　　Monitoring the graphics card and chip scene just gets more and more complex as 3D hardware acceleration has pushed its way into the mainstream. Early in the week, nVidia dropped a bombshell that its TNT chip has some major processing power that might just give 3Dfx's established lead a run for its money. Matrox also announced that it had two new chips it's prepping for release. The announcement certainly makes up for Matrox's lack of full 3D support in its cards (with the exception of the m3D). Be sure to check out Computer Gaming World's articles for an in-depth look at the two new chipsets.

　　You've probably noticed the proliferation of DirectX 5.0 in demos and games made for Windows 95 over the past two years. For those who haven't kept up on the debate between OpenGL and DirectX, the short of it is: Microsoft is making up ground fast. Rather then start building significant parts of the underlying technology from scratch, Microsoft decided to license technology from companies already established in the realm of 3D programming. Not only has this pushed the stocks for the companies involved with the technology higher, but it also helps Microsoft catch up with the functionality of the more mature OpenGL API. Word has it that DirectX 6.0 should be hitting the Web sometime in July. Interestingly, a new version OpenGL was ratified this week, which should give Microsoft's DirectX team more work to do when it starts laying down the groundwork for DirectX 7.0. Still with us? Then read on.

　　We've known for a while that the Brits on the other side of the big pond have a real fondness for Quake II. In fact, we hear they can actually play pretty well (and that they're not all that polite about firing a rocket down your gullet). Our buddies at GameSpot UK put together a CTF guide, so if you're new to the Capture the Flag way of deathmatching or are just wandering over to Quake II from Quake, here's your best chance to find out how to kick some butt. In other Quake news, there has been a long-standing rumor that a version of Quake for the Be operating system has existed for months. Now that the Intel release of this object-oriented OS is out, many are bugging id about the playing it. GameSpot News has been talking to Be about the software and a spokesperson for the company said that a port is done and it is just waiting for id to give it the go ahead. We'll be following the story as it develops.

　　That was the big news last week. Who knows what to expect tomorrow.