Poor Lara Croft, she's always exploring new places, meeting new animals, and then being forced to kill them.  Here's a new trailer from Tomb Raider:Underworld that has  Ms. Croft exploring a Thai temple and having to take on a pair of tigers.

Added to the Rock Band Music Store is one of Rolling Stone magazine's "25 Best Bands on MySpace":  the Brooklyn-based Locksley.  Locksley contributed a three-pack of songs from their 2007 album Don't Make Me Wait, to include the rollicking drums of the title track, the rollicking guitar licks of "All Over Again," and the rollicking, semi-screamy hooks of "She Does."  It's definitely some tweenie, Generation Y garage pop rock that won't leave Gen X too embarrassed to download it too.

Each track is $.99 (80 Microsoft Points) for one month, but doubles to $1.99 per track (160 Microsoft Points) after that. [READ MORE]

Sins of a Solar Empire was one of the more original strategy games of the year (see Tyler's review) and the folks at Stardock are going to be expanding the series in a unique way.  Instead of larger expansion packs they are going to be rolling out smaller "micro-expansions" over the next year or so.  The first pack, Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment is slated for release later this year and will only set you back $10.  The new pack will add a new Starbase defense platform that you can upgrade over time and allow for a lot of cheap Deathstar jokes.

The other two packs will focus on diplomacy and ship enhancements.   No details on their release were provided.  [READ MORE]

The folks at Stardock released their Gamer Bill of Rights which addresses everything from the purchase experience to the ownership rights and everything in between.  It's a good list of items and I'm interested to see if more PC developers jump on board this or not.  Here's the full list:

1) Gamers shall have the right to return games that don’t work with their computers for a full refund.
2) Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
3) Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game’s release.
4) Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.
5) Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will play adequately on that computer.
6) Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won’t install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their consent.
7) Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.
8) Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.
9) Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play.
10) Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.

These are especially important as we move toward digitally distributing games but it's going to require a lot of honesty on the part of gamers and I hope that we can live up to our part of the bargain. [READ MORE]

Here are a few things I missed while marking my territory:

• Gal Civ III is coming, just not any time soon
• Bethesda releases a ton of new Fallout 3 vids in case you're not going to PAX this year
• Valve walks through the evolution of the Demoman class, otherwise known as the bane of my TF2 existence
• Flickr + Wolfenstein 3D = tons of potential for abuse
• Is there a Game Informer cover curse or do they just pick the wrong companies to accept money from?
• Gears of War 2 team over twice the size of Gears of War team
• Yes Variety, Devs should talk to the press, they just shouldn't be asses about it
• 1Up's score inflation called out
• More ink on Billy Mitchel

PATCHES

• Dominions 3: The Awakening v3.20 Windows Patch, Mac Patch, Linux Patch
• Empires in Arms v1.03.14 Patch

VIDEOS

• Dead Space Animated Comic Episode 5 (QT)
• Blackstar Chronicles Teaser
• X3: Terran Conflict Think (MP4)
• Zubo Horror (QT)
• Unsolved Crimes Trailer
• Strange Attractors 2 Trailer (QT)
• Tomb Raider: Underworld Thailand #2 (MP4)
• X-Blades GC 2008 (QT)
• Runes of Magic Housing (WMV)
• Mercenaries 2: World in Flames Launch, Dev Diary #3: Characters (WMV)
• Silent Hill: Homecoming GC2008 (QT HD) [what's new: HD format]
• Aliens: Colonial Marines The Jace Hall Show

SCREENS

• X-Blades (360, PC)
• Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball (Wii)
• Raven Squad: Operation Hidden Dagger (360, PC)
• Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 3 (PS2)
• Defense Grid: The Awakening (PC)
• SBK 08 - Superbike World Championship
• RocketBowl (360)
• Ninjatown (DS)
• Supreme Commander (360) [Cybran Base Defense]
• Aion - Tower of Eternity (PC) [Asmodian Ascension Quest]
• Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game: Champions of the Force (PC)
• Silkroad Online (PC)

ARTICLES

• Samurai Shodown II, Y's Book I & II, and Castle Crashers.  Defunct Games is happy.
• For a counterpoint to the 9800 GTX+, here's ATI's Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 512MB Toxic Video Card.
• NVIDIA enables SLI on Intel X58 Chipsets for a fee.
• For a full-size solution, universal PC builders will want to read about the Gigabyte MA78G-DS3H Motherboard.
• AtomicGamer forces together a preview for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on 360.
• Techgage also wrote up an article on the latest announcement from NVIDIA to enable SLI on Select X58-based Motherboards.

Thanks to Defunct Games, TheTechLounge, AtomicGamer, Crackle, Digit-Life, and Techgage for today's News Roundup.

Find the boy, save the town.  Silent Hill: Homecoming switches up an old horror archetype by using a disturbed little boy instead of a disturbed little girl for that added creepy factor.  This video is about a kid named Josh.  Finding him will change everything.

Wired Blog Network's Geek Dad has a review up for Super Swing Golf Season 2 for the Wii as part of his Parents' Guide series. He gives a detailed break down of what, where, why, how, when, who for the title and compares it to two other golf games: We Love Golf and Tiger Woods PGA Tour '09.

Geek Dad describes how the game handles using the Wiimote to simulate swinging a club. The only thing I would add is that as with bowling it's imperative to use the strap, unless you really wanted to buy a new television anyway. Geek Dad also gives gamers a heads up that playing 18 holes can take an hour or more playing solo and potentially much longer with a bunch of friends. Apparently it could be time well spent as you'll actually learn a little about the sport.

While Super Swing Golf doesn't quite have the level of detail of We Love Golf, and lacks the serious weighty proceedings of Tiger Woods, it still manages to provide the majority of information the player needs to make their shot selection.

Ultimately experts looking for a hardcore golfing experience are better off sticking with Tiger Woods. For kids and amateurs, it's a solid pick. If you've been looking for a golf videogame, check out Geek Dad's review of Super Swing Golf Season 2 before making your final decision.

Heads up all you Fallout and Penny Arcade fans. Your favorite web-comic artists have taken time out from prepping for PAX to upload a sixth strip to their Penny Arcade Comic on Bethesda's official Fallout website. The strip tells the tale of one lonely vault dweller and a crate of puppets.

The site is age gated due to the game's rating but well worth the small hassle for the wealth of Fallout 3 information within. Make sure to check out any strips you missed in the Vault.

Yesterday's offering was Escape from the Mindmaster on the Atari 2600. What was unique about this game was it came on a tape and you had to use a special cartridge called a Supercharger to play it. There were some awesome games made for the Supercharger and Mindmaster was one of the best. It had a 3D feel way back then and the mini puzzles scattered throughout the maze were a nice addition.

So what do we have for today? Well, as you can see below, it's an RPG that looked very similiar to a classic Origin game. This game had a really unique end fight and a pretty cool ceremony in the middle of the game.

One of the big initiatives recently for AMD has been Cinema 2.0. If you don't know what that means, the video below does a good job explaining it and what gamers and developers will see in the future. From the video, you can see some impressive demonstrations using their latest AMD Radeon 4870 card generating some really slick effects. I als like the 3D hologram like display. Now, demos are great and all but we'll have to see if this does make it to the consumers anytime soon.

Here are a few things I missed while tracking down the parts for my own :

• Gamers are now doping for World Cyber Games...it's time to start testing for Red Bull and Cheetos
• Lowest rated player in Madden 09 to play this week, it's still pre-season though
• Video games cut into exercise time, once again people get paid for this kind of analysis
• MTV talks to people  at Silicon Knights not named Denis Dyack
• Old people tend to believe the "video games made me do it" argument more than others, also like prune juice more
• Novint posts pictures of the "sweat shop" they are using to put together pistol grips
• Full Throttle remembered, loved
• Gearbox may do the next Halo game, try to care