Tweedledum & Tweedledee will be donating a portion of all sales in early 2005 towards the cause. In addition, I encourage you, our avid international travelers, to consider making whatever contributions you can.

Finally, it was the woman's turn. She was given the same instructions to kill her husband. She took the gun and went into the room. 6 shots were heard, one shot after another. The agents heard screaming, crashing, and banging on the walls. After a few minutes, all was quiet. The door opened slowly and there stood the woman. She wiped the sweat from her brow, and said, "This gun is loaded with blanks. I had to beat him to death with the chair."

Due to be released for PC in early 2005, the castle-sim and siege-warfare RTS game Stronghold 2 will bring the series to life in glorious 3D. Stronghold 2 will also offer players a "castle-life" campaign, enhanced multiplayer capability and a new, innovative and exciting single player campaign that will be revealed in the months ahead.

"The first Stronghold game pioneered a genre by combining the elements of simulation games and combat strategy into a single unique experience," said Christoph Hartmann, Senior Vice President of Publishing at Global Star. "Now we are thrilled to bring Stronghold 2 to the market, which will undoubtedly set the standard as Firefly Studios has taken its already highly regarded gameplay and pushed it beyond anyone's expectations with new and innovative features. We are confident that Stronghold 2 will captivate gamers in 2005."

"Test Drive is a world recognized brand in the racing genre featuring some of today's hottest music and Atari is proud to release the exciting next chapter, Test Drive: Eve of Destruction," said Nancy MacIntyre, Vice President of Marketing for Atari's Beverly Studios. "This over-the-top racing game allows players to break the rules and race how they want to race - wide open, peddle to the floor, putting all challengers on their bumpers."

"We are thrilled to work with Atari on Test Drive: Eve of Destruction," said Carmen Liu, Senior Director, Strategic Marketing & Development, The Island Def Jam Music Group. "Video games are a great place to introduce a wider audience to developing artists like Autopilot Off, Thrice, and Thursday and at the same time gives platinum acts like Sum 41 and Hoobastank a valuable outlet for their music outside of radio."

Nintendo has entrusted Metrowerks as a key provider of development tools which enable the creation of games that fully leverage the innovative features of the new Nintendo DS handheld, such as touch-screen input, voice recognition and wireless communication. CodeWarrior Development Studio for Nintendo DS provides developers with a comprehensive, integrated development environment for producing games designed to revolutionize the handheld entertainment market.

"Metrowerks has earned a worldwide reputation for offering high quality software development tools," said Satoru Okada, research and engineering manager at Nintendo Co., Ltd. "The tools included in CodeWarrior Development Studio for Nintendo DS are no exception, and will allow game developers to create exciting titles that take advantage of the unique features found in the Nintendo DS."

"Sports video subscriptions are being used to leverage what networks already have on TV, and are enticing more consumers to sign up for enriched broadband services such as MSN Premium," said Gerry Kaufhold, a principal analyst with In-Stat/MDR. "Synacor and Earthlink are bundling sports video bargains along with greatly improved user convenience. Once consumers experience extended sports coverage via broadband, their appetite grows for more types of content, plus they want it delivered to their cell phones and new portable video devices."

Mothersbaugh was a founding member of the influential rock group, Devo whose chart-topping songs include the '80s electro classic Whip It! Since leaving the band, Mothersbaugh has parlayed his avant-garde musical style into the world of entertainment where he scored, composed or directed the music for such films as Envy (2004), Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004), Rugrats Go Wild (2003), Thirteen (2002), The Royal Tennenbaums (2001), Rushmore (1999) and Happy Gilmore (1996) among many other major works of film and TV.

MTV2's "Video Mods" debuts on September 18 at 9:30 pm EST (6:30 pm PST) and highlights some of today's most popular video game characters as they perform videos by artists of all genres, including Lil' Jon, Black Eyed Peas, New Found Glory and others. Each video will be transformed by adapting the music video to utilize a unique video game environment and feature characters from one or a variety of video games.

"Having BloodRayne as one of the premiere 'performers' in MTV2's 'Video Mods' show is a testament to her popularity and appeal," said Ken Gold, vice president of Marketing, Majesco. "We are thrilled to see BloodRayne star in a music video and we applaud MTV2's creative blending of entertainment mediums and properties."

LEGO Star Wars combines two childhood favourites, LEGO and Star Wars, to create an innovative and exciting action-adventure title designed for young gamers. The game is based on The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and the eagerly awaited Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, slated for worldwide release in May 2005.

Under an agreement between LucasArts and Giant Interactive Ltd, LEGO Star Wars is currently being developed by Traveller's Tales for the PlayStation2, Xbox and PC. Amaze Entertainment is developing the Game Boy Advance version.

Mike McGarvey, CEO of Eidos says:

"This signing of a title with such wide spread appeal and recognition is a major coup for Eidos. We look forward to working with Giant on maximising the game's potential."

More on this title as we get it.

Microsoft said it will stop producing team sports games such as "NFL Fever," "NHL Rivals" and baseball game "Inside Drive." But the company said other sports-themed games such as the golf title "Links" and the snowboard game "Amped" won't be affected.

Employees were informed of the cuts earlier this week, and Microsoft said it would try to find them jobs elsewhere in the company. Microsoft has around 1,200 employees in the games unit.

The move was not a complete surprise, since Microsoft said in March that it would not make any new versions of the affected sports games this fall. Then in May it struck a new a partnership with Electronic Arts, maker of popular games such as "Madden NFL," to allow those games to be played online through Microsoft's Xbox Live service.

Source: seattlepi.com