Yesterday beloved Megaman inspired musical fighting force The Protomen had some car problems on their tour of the United States.  They broke down on their way to Texas and reached out to fans via twitter, facebook, mailing lists and their own site in an attempt to make their show.  Unfortunately they were not able to make it and had to reschedule but even that news is eclipsed by the events that followed.  Due to the fact that The Protomen HAVE to rock and roll, they decided that if someone in the Texarkana region they were stranded in could assist them in moving equipment to said fan’s house they would hold a rock and roll pool party for the fan’s friends.

So did a good human being take them up on it?

Holy shit – what?  Really?  Wikipedia describes Texarkana as “a two-county region anchored by the twin cities of Texarkana, Texas and Texarkana, Arkansas, and encompassing the surrounding communities in Bowie County, Texas and Miller County, Arkansas.”

But it doesn’t say anything about the region being devoid of fun! Where are the disclaimers at when you need them?
How could anyone let such an opportunity slip by?  It’s almost shameful to think that a stellar band was forsaken by people who should have been honored to get their ears destroyed by the sonic force of The Protomen.

In the end all we can say is that they have some time to prepare themselves to shower our heroes with love and respect when they make their return for the rescheduled show.  I know that if this were to happen in Philadelphia or Toronto, the homes of GNSU, that we’d have the best goddamn pool party in the universe.  Ever.  Forever.  The end.

Blizzard’s RealID controversy, TF2 finally updates the Engie, Crackdown 2 and much more.

Things have been hectic in GNSU HQ (especially with the holiday cutting the week short) but despite being insanely busy a lot has been going on game wise so let’s take a look at this past week in gaming.

A leaked photo from the RealID Meetings

The first thing on everyone’s mind this week is most definitely the Blizzard RealID Controversy.  The backlash against the RealID announcement has been massive.  Any gaming blog you hop onto has something to say about it, and with good reason.  Penny Arcade made light of it while drawing attention to the fact that people want to be someone else when they play.  Yet it also makes mention of the focal point of it all – safety and anonymity.  A plethora of jokes, comics, rants, videos and more have centered in on our online privacy.  This blog addressed what you could dig up with a Blizzard employee’s name and job title.  Now they’re doing the same to millions in their playerbase.

Or is it Blizzard?  Rumors are flying that it’s not actually Blizzard’s doing and I wouldn’t be surprised.  Activision, now their parent company, is not necessarily the most trustworthy bunch of individuals.  Mr. Kotick, pictured on the left in our blatant propaganda photoshop, has gone on record stating that he’d make Modern Warfare games  a subscription based service as soon as possible if it were up to him.  This isn’t to say he’s not a smart business man – this would surely draw in a ton of profit – it’s to say he doesn’t give a shit about what the player base thinks.

As of right now, Blizzard is going to go through with RealID, and based on that we can only wonder what’s next in the gaming world.  EA is trying to clamp down on  sales of used games.  There has been more than enough complaints about all of these but nothing happens.  As much as people protest the general public will continue to buy the product without questioning it.  The gaming industry has become huge in the past 5-10 years and is rivaling Hollywood in sales and scale.  With big companies doing these sort of things it’s kind of frightening because they know they can take a hit and get away with it.  Even with other companies refusing to go along with strict DRM, or Valve being as community oriented as they are, what is to stop others from following suite?

This is how some trolls are likely reacting to the Blizzard Real ID Controversy.

Yep.

This image speaks volumes

In a move that mirrors Activision’s series of questionable decisions, Blizzard decided they would modify their battle net policies.

This morning it’s been announced that moving forward, Battle Net and most forums (set aside very few classic forums) will have users posting with their “RealID” – which means their real first and last names.  Blizzard insists that it has everything to do with the explosion of social networking but does not mention that it makes them look batshit insane like their parents (Activision) or Facebook. Internet users are no stranger to  privacy concerns – so this move by Blizzard is interesting to say the least.  The immediate backlash in the thread goes to show the disapproval of the change.  Concerns include people’s names being linked to what they say on the forums among other things. With anonymity gone, potential employers could see people’s less than savory flame wars or image posts.  While the idea of an interviewer getting a face full of goatse is mildly amusing it does support the red flags raised in the discussion.  What will be really interesting however, is to see if Blizzard wavers on their decision.  Facebook has already showed that they have no plans to honor people’s complaints regarding privacy so why should Blizzard?

A conversation with my pal Angel inspired this image.  If Bros had their own game it would probably be like this.  Of course it would be redundant because you’d end up playing an 8-bit simulation of Madden in it.

some bears from star trek or something idk

Naughty Bear’s multiplayer modes were announced today by 505.  The four different modes more or less translate to king of the hill, capture the flag, attack and defend and death match game modes standard to a lot of games.

The game modes come off as tacked on and don’t seem to offer anything additional to the experience.  This is something a lot of games are guilty of – a totally underwhelming multiplayer experience.  Sure, some games can drop a killer multiplayer and singleplayer experience but for the most part games should stick to what they are good at.  Either offer us a good single player experience or go all the way with the multi.

In Naughty Bear, the single play experience is the focus and naturally the selling point of the game.  The plot, which has drummed up some controversy, surrounds a bear who is the ONLY bear who did not get invited to a party and therefore decides to take revenge through torture, murder, and very likely: mediocre gameplay.  For shock value it is chock full of “cutesy” graphics and imagery you would associate with children’s books… wait, this sounds kind of familiar…

Oh yeah, didn’t Rare do that on the goddamn N64?

Conker’s Bad Fur Day rocked some pretty solid reviews when it was released back in ’05 full of profanity, violence, pop culture references, a DECENT multiplayer mode, and pretty good graphics for its time – and it had the shock value that Naughty Bear is partially trying to ride on.  I know that you can say that everything’s been done before so why should it be a big deal that Naughty Bear has a similar gimmick – the point is that Rare did it better.

I want to reserve judgment until Naughty Bear actually drops but at this point the only torture the game is bringing to us is the possibility of another boring title.

…a song from the SMASH 90′s hit family sitcom “Dinosaurs” it was none other than Baby Sinclair singing “I’m the baby, gotta love me…” etc.

How would something like this happen you ask?  Simple.

It’s all Arien’s fault…

That son of a bitch loves playing grating music over voice chat while we’re in Team Fortress 2.  Of course he plays the occasional gem like “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen or other inspirational hits, but this particular tune is a goldmine of griefing that he unleashes upon unsuspecting masses.  When it plays people cannot bare to hear it and he is met with an onslaught of angry responses.  Even hardened trolls have yelled at him to knock it off.  It’s quite remarkable.

To be honest, even some of the annoying shit that he plays is met enthusiastically – people “get it”.  This song though? Nope.  So imagine my surprise in seeing the goddamn thing in my iPod.  Of  course, I figured out how it happened.  I tested the audio in iTunes to make sure the clip played fine before he threw it in HLDJ and then I forgot about it.  It sat there like a bomb or unwanted child until one day it struck out at me.  Today was that day.  D-day.  Dinosaurs Day.

I personally would have been much happier if one of the random King of the Hill clips he played ended up on there.  Nothing like getting your work day started to this:

Instead I got greeted with this:

And in case you need your brain washed out listen to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now”

I’m going to get back to work and probably just leave my iPod off so I can forget it ever happened, but somehow I think that song will be forever etched in my brain. When I am on my deathbed and family and friends surround me and I can’t even remember the name of my wife or parents the last thing I will utter is “I’m the baby, gotta love me!”

A sad end indeed.

Microsoft has rented out the Bagger 288 in anticipation of all the upcoming shovelware en route to the 360 this November.

Judging from the launch titles alone, Microsoft would appear challenging Nintendo in the race to see who can push out more shovelware on their system. The lineup includes the following (list courtesy of Kotaku):

• Kinect Adventures (Microsoft Game Studios)
• Kinectimals (Frontier Studio/Microsoft Game Studios)
• Kinect Joy Ride (Big Park/Microsoft Game Studios)
• Kinect Sports (Rare/Microsoft Game Studios)
• Dance Central (MTV Games)
• Your Shape: Fitness Evolved (Ubisoft)
• EA Sports Active 2 (EA)
• Deca Sports Freedom (Hudson)
• Dance Masters (Konami)
• Adrenalin Misfits (Konami)
• Zumba Fitness (Majesco)
• Sonic Free Riders (Sega)
• The Biggest Loser: Ultimate Workout (THQ)
• Motion Sports (Ubisoft)
• Game Party: In Motion (Warner Bros.)

The list includes games where you can exercise, race, play sports, and raise cats. Now before you get too excited, let’s take a look at Kinect in glorious action by a commercial family.

GOOD JOB, MOM! THIRD PLACE!

This is the demo video that’s supposed to make Kinect look appealing to the general public. Every game in this painful to watch video looks absolutely awkward to play. The only redeeming part of it is watching the dad pull a Minority Report while watching a movie to skip to a point where a fat girl complains about being with her family, possibly because her family hasn’t experienced the joy of Kinect.

One of the upcoming Kinect titles is a Star Wars game where you’ll get to play as a Jedi who uses the force to randomly flail around and gently knock over Stormtroopers with a lightsaber.

Which in your living room will look like this.

And yes, I know everyone has already seen this video.

Early reports indicate this gimmicky device can be yours for approximately $150.

I suppose I can try to end this on a positive note. Despite not really showing much in the way of gameplay, Ubisoft’s Child of Eden looks like a total trip and gives off an uncontrollable urge to get under the influence of anything really. Seen by many as a spiritual successor to another trippy game, Rez, we can only hope that in the spirit of being more interactive with games it will also include a vibrator like Rez did. Girl gamers deserve a break once in a while.

[courtesy of reddit.com - give this gent an upvote]