News Roundup: Upshift Showdown

• One of the few games at E3 trying to do something new, here's a demo of de Blob.
• The gear-grinding open beta client is available for Upshift StrikeRacer.

• E3 2007 trailers for:  Empire Earth 3 University, Showdown Scorpion, Jagged Alliance 3, 2025: Battle for Fatherland, Numen: Contest of Heroes, A Stroke of Fate, Hard to Be a God,

• Screens:  Garfield's Nightmare, Fever Frenzy, Code Lyoko, Hegemony: Philip of Macedon, Undercover: Operation Wintersun, Guild Wars: Eye of the North, and Showdown: Scorpion.

• E3 puts out a State of the Nation address regarding the newly-SOE-acquired Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.
• MMORPG.com's Community Forum Spotlight takes a look at instancing in MMOGs.
• Benchmark Reviews looks at the rack-ready battery backup solution, the Tripp Lite SMART1500LCD 1500VA 900W LCD Rackmount UPS.
• GamersInfo.net pushes out more E3 previews with: Smarty Pants, MySims, Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Zombie Ninja Pro-Am, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Tony Hawk's Proving Ground.
• Strategy Informer previews Loki, and introduces some advanced filming rhetoric into the mix.
• Save some gold pieces by pre-ordering the atypical dungeon-delver, Scallywag, now available for download from Shrapnel Games.
• WarCry writes up E3 previews on BioShock, and the increasingly-cool The Agency.