The Lord of the Rings Online first content update, Shores of Evendim, was announced before the game even went live. Today, it finally has a solid date attached to it: June 13th, less than two months from the game's launch. If there are any flies on those Turbine guys, they're paying rent.

The first big addition to the game adds the (dur) Lake Evendim zone, an area with a wide level spread, but most of whose content falls in the middle range. The south of the Evendim where it abuts the Shire is a bit Hobbity, but quickly transitions to forests and ruined Dunedain cities. The new zone features more than a 100 new quests, specifically added to freak out obsessive completionists who have been trying to go through every scrap of game content (cough). There are also nine new monsters running around in there. And by "new" I mean "new." Not "same goddamn spider with a texture swap." There are a few of those, too, but they're not even counting them.

Among the new critters are some Beornling-like wolfskin-wearing men, the leader of whom has a nasty tendency to revive his wolf allies as even more irritating spectral dogs. There's also an interesting ecology going on between tomb worms and nasty-ass guys called Kergrim. The latter feed on the former, so kill a bunch of worms and you can count on the bigger bads coming out of the woodwork. Also featured are an NPC Ent who hands out some of the game's quests, and (spoiler):

A story-capping Balrog-kin. Happily, he's not a straight up clone of the whip-and-sword-having Durin's Bane. 'Roggy is his own unique snowflake, and the fight is suitably epic.

Also featured is a necessary retooling of Champion skills, some new sets of epic armor, the ability to sustain notes while playing music, or import tabs to the game. Making a dwarf loop a lute remix of Baby Got Back in the middle of Rivendell just got that much easier.

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Now I'm not 100% sold on this game yet, but I have been jonesing for a new MMO to play. I was hooked up with a 10 day trial, and so far its not bad, but I haven't really found too many other people to play with yet. I may just not be high enough to get out of the starting area, but then again with I played DDO there were people everywhere... Then again it was really just one city that all took place in.

Once again my beloved console has been struck down with the Red Ring of Death. It was out of warranty so I debated ripping her open and seeing if I could fix it myself or not, but decided that the $139.90 Microsoft charges is a lot less then buying a new one, so I called them up. I was actually surprised that they gave me a discount as this is the 2nd time it has happened to me, and at almost the exact same time (within 2 weeks of my warranty expiring) as it did last year. They gave me a 50% discount, so I would have to be a fool to not accept it.

So once again, I'm without my console, but at least it's during the summer and I'm not itching to play UNO like I was last year. I have a lot of Guitar Hero 2 to catch up on and a few others, but nothing that is pressing me to play right now besides Catan.

Larry Laffer, better known as Leisure Suit Larry, turned 20 years old yesterday. Sadly, like many child stars, he didn't have a huge celebration. It merely passed with a statement by his father, Al Lowe, in his daily joke.

Lowe writes, "Today is the 20th anniversary of Leisure Suit Larry. On June 4th, 1987, LSL1: Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards shipped ...to the lowest sales of any game in the history of Sierra! I assumed I had just wasted six months of my life and immediately started work on Police Quest I with Jim Walls and Greg Rowland. We worked long hours while, unknown to me, each month Larry's sales doubled. A year later, Larry was in the Top 10 and soon after that was number one. So lift a glass with me to my dear departed friend, Mr. Laffer! Together we had one hell of a decade of great times."

Although Mr. Laffer will be appearing in some upcoming mobile games, it'll be hard to recapture his glory days where he taught young boys around the country lessons about the opposite sex. Oh well, although Lowe thinks Larry is dead, we do hope that one day -- and soon -- a Leisure Suit Larry game will return the series to raunchy greatness.

I can never forget these games growing up. This was our Dead or Alive: Beach Volleyball game. My mom is actually the person who bought me my first Larry game, actually 1-3 were all boxed together. And I got 5 as a free gift for subscribing to PCGamer starting with Issue 2.

In my Halo 3 kick, I thought I'd share this.

10. Quiet launch.

9. It doesn't work from your desktop.

8. XBOX Live users have it so much better.

7. And it’s missing the little things too.

6. The feel of www.gamesforwindows.com.

5. The content on www.gamesforwindows.com.

4. Can't connect to Windows Messenger.

3. Limited buddy list capacity.

2. It's Vista only for now. No XP.

1. Limited or no third party developers are using GFW - Live.

Read the Details Here

From when I beta tested Games for Windows - Live, I could tell we're getting a half assed project. If I can't be logged into it the entire time I'm on my PC able to receive a play invite while I'm just surfing the web, then it's useless. From what I can tell from the Halo2 and the Shadowrun talk out there now, this is doomed unless something else can pick up the slack. Microsoft hasn't told us any other games besides UNO that are going to use it, so what that magic salvation is, you got me.

Looks like 2007 is going to go down as the year when the big boy TV networks decided to try sticking video gaming up there alongside the World Series and the Superbowl.

Last week, the UK saw the launch of XLeage -- the cable TV all-gaming "sports channel". Now, North America will get similar treatment, as the World Series of Video Games officially comes to broadcast television. The real surprise? The whole thing's gonna be broadcast on CBS Sports, a theoretical audience numbering in the millions.

The deal between CBS and the WSVG was officially announced yesterday, in New York.

"We're delighted to work with the World Series of Video Games to bring competitive video games to a wide audience as part of our award-winning sports coverage," said Rob Correa, senior vice president of programming for CBS Sports. "With popular titles that broaden the appeal of competitive gaming, we think this will be the year that television broadcasting of video games really takes off."

Featured games at the WSVC include Quake 4, Guitar Hero 2, Fight Night Round 3, and World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. Games will be broadcast in four separate hour-long segments, each timed to coincide with the WSVG semifinals in the USA and finals in Sweden. Coverage will air as part of the CBS Sports Spectacular on Sunday, July 29; Sunday, August 19; Saturday, November 17; and Saturday, December 15.

Each episode will include segments on the competitors along with the games themselves. The shows will be produced and directed by Matthew Mills, of TV By Mills, who oversaw MTV Networks' Gamer's Week 2.0 in 2006. TV sportscaster Greg Amsinger (who anchored the WSVG Finals last year) will be doing the play-by-play.

"We're delighted to work with the World Series of Video Games to bring competitive video games to a wide audience as part of our award-winning sports coverage," said Rob Correa, senior VP of programming for CBS Sports. "With popular titles that broaden the appeal of competitive gaming, we think this will be the year that television broadcasting of video games really takes off."

The WSVG (technically the "World Series of Video Games, presented by Intel") is described as "world's premier video game tournament circuit." It's technically in its second year of operation, having officially been around since 2006. Last year its tournaments drew an attendance of around 90,000 gamers. Those interested in more information (or in signing up) should check out the company's official website at thewsvg.com. For those interested in participating, here are the dates for the major televised tournaments:

# June 21-24 - Louisville, Kentucky
# July 5-8 - Dallas, Texas
# October 18-21 - Los Angeles, California
# Nov. 29-Dec. 2 - Jonkoping,, Sweden

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WOW! CBS is actually going to be airing this and not G4? This is very surprising. Is CBS hurting for content that bad? Now while I love Video games, I just can't see myself sitting down and watching the World Series of it being played on TV.

IGN is reporting on news in an issue of Weekly Famitsu that Konami will be celebrating the 20-year anniversary of the Metal Gear series by re-releasing all of the Metal Gear Solid games, including recent PSP hit Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. The prices for the re-releases are listed as follows:

* Metal Gear Solid, PlayStation, 1500 yen ($12.35)
* Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, PlayStation 2, 1800 yen ($14.82)
* Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, PlayStation 2, 2800 yen ($23.05)
* Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, PSP, 2800 yen ($23.05)

Konami will also be bundling all four of the games for 6900 yen ($56.80). There's no word on if these "Metal Gear Solid 20th Anniversary"-branded re-releases will contain any new content or other extras to look forward to, but for now we're just hoping it heads to North America as well.

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I might pick that up, as I haven't played 3 or Portable Ops yet...

As of tonight I'll have a PC back in my home, so I will no longer be missing my Wednesday updates.