Sorry for the lack of posting Monday.  As you can see in the picture above Arien and I have been very busy but we assure you we will be back to our regularly scheduled program soon.

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?

So we finally started linking to some people we thought you should check out, some fun time blogs that we feel compliment us by touching on some things we don’t talk about on our site. Check them out below:

Angry Bananas – Carlos is a good friend of the GNSU Crew and has been on our podcast before, give his site some love… or else.

All is Fighter - we’re no experts to fighting games but these guys are.

Sex Food and Comic Books – These are three topics we love but don’t exactly discuss as much as we probably should.  That said Satine and Joe have them pretty well covered.  Be sure to watch “I hit it with my axe!” – it’s a great series.

Frank Howley – sumbitch just has some funny videos.  Watch.

nerdySOMETHING – our pal Justin started a blog of his own so if it sucks blame him.  or Brian.  No, just blame Brian.

So today we’re kind of lazy and super busy and I was busy doing maintenance on the site (see: making a new staff page and nothing else) but nothing super interesting is going on today. Well, almost.  Find out some actually exciting news after the jump

This costume cost more than the game

The Steam Sale continues today and offers some crazy good deals on games like Street Fighter for 10 bills and Team Fortress 2 for under 7 dollars… UNDER 7 DOLLARS.  You have no reason not to get the damn game now!  It’s amazing!  I mean, I’d personally recommend the Orange Box as a whole but if the other games in that package don’t interest you then at least snag TF2.  If you like team based FPS game at all it’s pretty killer and I logged an asburd, unmentionable amount of time in the game.

As of this post the Mario Marathon has raised about $70k for Child’s Play which is no small feat at all with support from the likes of Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day and the PA Crew themselves.  They’ve been running for 4 days and despite Arien’s misunderstanding of watching such a thing the rest of us still think it’s pretty sweet.

Oh, Nintendo did release some Pokemon Black/White videos which are looking pretty slick.  I haven’t played this shit since I was in gradeschool but goddamn it’s actually looking like a good time.  Maybe it’s nostalgia but hell it’s certainly worth a look.  Brian refuses to play because, in addition to his achievement addiction, he also finds it necessary to literally “collect them all” and due to there being several hundred Pokemon total the bastard won’t touch the series.

And did we mention Hulu is coming to the 360 and PS3?  Well, we didn’t.  Joystiq did.  Ahem, but still, this offers some interesting choices for gamers out there.  Despite being in a generation where a large amount of people download movies and tv shows online or stream them, people still opt to go through Netflix for the quality service.  This leads me to believe Hulu has a lot of potential especially offering an interesting alternative to expensive cable television.  There’s also this:

“In addition to enabling playback on various boxes, Hulu Plus features full seasons of current ABC, NBC, and Fox television shows, in HD — none of that “five trailing episodes” business. Learn more about the new Hulu Plus service here. If you need us, we’ll be gathering more information about this service, and also canceling our cable TV.” [Joystiq]

Yeah, peace Comcast.  It was nice knowing you.  Consoles have totally gone the way of true multimedia entertainment centers.  Er… the ones not owned by Nintendo anyway.

So maybe there was more than enough to talk about today.  Who knew?  In any event keep an eye peeled for some guest articles, Arien’s excitement about Bulletstorm, and the new podcast.  We promise it’s a good one!

And if you haven’t entered our Killing Floor contest today is your last day so get on it, bitches!

Whattup!  This week’s podcast which is due out Wednesday morning will be strictly about Co-op gaming! Games that make you want to high five your pal after kicking some ass.  So that leads us to the first of our new series of polls.  What is YOUR favorite co-op game?  Vote after the jump!

Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo came and gave it their all but there was only one true standout winner…

E3 2010 is over and we’re here to offer our thoughts on what went down this year from the good to the bad to the ugly – there is also a fair amount of discussion regarding Shaun White’s hair but that’s besides the point.

Give it a listen! or you can subscribe on iTunes!

And tell us what YOU think! E-mail us or comment below!

…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.

This is it, guys – the big gaming event of the year running from the 15th to the 17th.  While E3 is always an exciting event I feel like this year is going to be a big one.  There’s a lot of new technology being shown off between Microsoft and Sony’s motion control devices and Nintendo’s next DS incarnation.  There will be some big name games on display like the new Zelda title and Portal 2, and much more.

Things are actually already under way in some respects.  Nintendo has revealed details on their upcoming Zelda game simply titled “The Legend of Zelda” – set long before The Ocarina of Time.  Microsoft has announced a change in name for their controller-less motion gimmick from “Natal” to “Kinect” – a name which makes sense in theory but in practice kind of sucks.  Though, given the way it is looking it’s probably suitable.  See and judge for yourself:

I’m personally excited for more footage from the upcoming Scott Pilgrim title.  Footage was recently released of the 4 player co-op sides crolling beat ‘em up extravaganza.  The visuals are amazing, the music is fantastic, so my fingers are crossed on the game playing living up to the rest of what we’ve seen.

And speaking of multiplayer goodness I am also hoping for a good showing from Behemoth on their next multiplayer title.  Previously titled “Game #3″ the anticipated “BattleBlock Theater” will most likely be shown off in more polished form this year.

Aside from all of these titles there is so much more to come in the next week – it’s going to be a killer show with a ton of surprises including an announced surprise from Valve which many are speculating to be Source Engine 2.

Stay tuned to GNSU and our Twitter page (http://www.twitter.com/gnsucrew) to keep up to date on the happenings and check out our Podcast this week for an E3 centric episode!

You could have the fantastic X-Box Live Arcade game “Toy Soldiers” for free!

How do you win this illustrious prize?

If you want a chance at it just

1: Follow us on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/GNSUcrew)

and

2: Retweet this message: @GNSUCrew is giving away “Toy Soldiers” on XBLA for free, follow and retweet to enter!

We’ll pick a winner by the end of this week.

It’s worth it! watch below if you aren’t convinced!