*Wipes sweat off his brow* A hurricane bearing down on me AND a huge LNC? Man, I'm stressing! So much stuff going on in this industry right now as the year begins to wind down. Of course, Acclaim's closing has given us plenty of stories to talk about. Two games are saved so far, Juiced and Worms 3D, so now lets see what happens with The Red Star. In the mean time, I'll be battling a hurricane Saturday evening, so don't be surprised if there's no LNC Monday as I most likely have lost power again. It took about four days after Charley for restoration; hopefully it won't be much longer than that.

	Just Add Monsters' "Revolutionary" Title Revealed In an exclusive interview with EuroGamer, JAM gave the first details regarding its "revolutionary" title that has been in the work for 18 months and set to be a next-gen console launch title. The game is called Heavenly Sword and is an intense combat action title. JAM's design director, Tameem Antoniades, described it as, "...Half-life with swords against obscene amounts of enemies." He also added, "...the core gameplay is all about ultra-stylish combat against overwhelming odds. The combat is already surpassing the likes of Ninja Gaiden in terms of depth, style and variety and we still have a long way to go."
	Worms 3D Looking for a Publisher Team17 had the upcoming Xbox title Worms 3D Special Edition all wrapped up and finished when the game's publisher, Acclaim, went belly up. The company's Marty Brown gave us a status update on their message boards. "Given that our previous US publishing partner (Acclaim) is now bankrupt and is no longer trading, I can confirm that we are currently in negotiation with several US publishers regarding publication and hope to have news on that very soon. We apologise for any disappointment, particularly for the people who had pre-ordered Worms3D on Xbox (which is complete), the delays in it's publishing are entirely out of our control."
	ESPN NBA 2K5 Follows Suit; Will Retail for $19.99 Oh, like you didn't know it was going to happen! Due to its success with their NFL and NHL games at the value price point, ESPN Videogames announced that ESPN NBA 2K5 will also sport the low $19.99 price tag. The game is currently slated to hit stores in October, just in time for the NBA season's tip off.
	Atelier Iris ~Eternal Mana~ A Go for the US Not long ago, on the NIS America message boards, they made it clear they intended to bring Atelier Iris ~Eternal Mana~ to the US if they could get approval from Sony. Well, in a post on the board today, it appears they got it. The post exclaims, "Sony has approved Atelier Iris ~Eternal Mana~ for the release in the United States! I want to take a moment to thank PEG from Sony and all our fans for the support. Every posting on our forums has definitely made an impact on Sony's decision. NIS America would like to thank all of you for supporting us from the start! Again thank you very much and congratulations to everybody!" Details on price and release date will come in a few weeks.
	Three New DS Titles Japanese developers are hard at work on bringing us new Nintendo DS titles as news of three new games filtered out of Japan. First, the studio behind the RPG Giftpia, Skip, are hard at work on their first DS title. Director Kenichi Nishi posted on his blog, "I'm working 12 hours a day, but the staff are putting in even more effort. This place is starting to look like a field hospital..." Next comes another surgery game (Atlus recently announced one), this time from developer Spike. Titled Tendo Dokuta, the game uses anime style graphics and has players first spend quality time with patients, try to diagnose them, grope them to check injuries, and talk with them before opening 'em up with a knife. Finally, Nintendo themselves are in the developmental stages of a new puzzle title. A producer of popular video board game series, Akira Sakuma, was recently touring the Nintendo studios with a co-worker when he took notice of a certain title. In an update of his personal blog, Sakuma comments, "I got to see a puzzle game that's currently in development [for the DS]. Doi just wouldn't stop playing the game, saying, 'I can't stop playing this game... it feels like popping bubble wrap!'"
	SOCOM II Update Sony announced they will release an update next week for SOCOM II that will fix a myriad of issues. Most importantly, it will fix an exploit that allowed players to increase their online stats. To alleviate the exploitation, Sony is resetting the server stats. The update also addresses disconnect, voting, and clipping problems.
	Steel Battalion: Line of Contact Patched Capcom has addressed two major issues for its online mech sim, Steel Battalion: Line of Contact, in a recently released patch. First, they fixed an exploit where users could duplicate rare and expensive upgrades for their mech. They then corrected some latency issues that made online gaming for some near impossible. The patch will automatically download over Xbox Live.
	"Bungie Weekly Update" Discontinued! No, not really, just joking! Like clockwork, we have another wonderful update from the magical land of Bungie! They're currently in what they call "Final Push" mode; meaning, getting everything done within a month. Frankie talks a lot about deadlines; everyone has one. Animation, music composition, audio effects...the works. There is one thing done for sure: the manual. I can now rest easier.
	Misc. Q&As/Features TeamXbox talks with the producer of FIFA Soccer 2005, Danny Isaac. HomeLAN Fed speaks with some guys over at Sammy Studios about the upcoming fighter Iron Phoenix. IGN chats with Rob Gee, project lead at Raven, about X-Men Legends.
	Misc. Media/Previews
	A video walk-through of the country-side of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is up at GameSpot. They also have shots of Enthusia. 1up gets their mitts on Blood Will Tell and reports in. Game Informer has a new movie for the $14.99 Gungrave: Overdose. GameSpy does the preview thing with Shadow Hearts: Covenant.
	GameSpy is the latest to talk about the Halo 2 demo currently showing in Europe.
	We get some hands-on impressions for Mario Tennis from GameSpot.
	GameSpy details the latest on Mega Man Zero 3. GamerFeed goes hands-on with Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen. Images of Chronicles of Eden Vol. I: Vangarde's Tale are at GameSpot.
	At FileShack, we have a 70MB video of NBA Live 2005 (PS2, Xbox, GCN). GamerFeed takes Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition (PS2, Xbox) for a spin. Game Informer gives us new media for X-Men Legends (PS2, Xbox, GCN), Mortal Kombat: Deception (PS2, Xbox, GCN), Outlaw Golf 2 (PS2, Xbox), and ESPN NBA 2K5 (PS2, Xbox). EuroGamer previews the game revealed last night, Roll Call (PS2, Xbox). Planet GameCube shares previews of Street Racing Syndicate (PS2, Xbox, GCN) and Call of Duty: Finest Hour (PS2, Xbox, GCN). TeamXbox shows off two new flicks of Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone (PS2, Xbox). GameSpot delivers impressions of The King of Fighters 2002 & 2003 (PS2, Xbox), video of The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (PS2, Xbox, GCN), details on Viewtiful Joe 2 (PS2, Xbox), and screens of both Oddworld Stranger (PS2, Xbox) and Crash Twinsanity (PS2, Xbox). IGN previews Tony Hawk's Underground 2 (PS2, Xbox, GCN) and Predator: Concrete Jungle (PS2, Xbox). GameSpy wraps it up with shots of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 (PS2, Xbox, GCN) and a look at Mega Man X: Command Mission (PS2, GCN).