Contest: Win a Free Season of Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures

wallaceGameStooge, 2Old2Play and Gaming Podcast have joined forces with Telltale Games and are offering three chances to win the PC version of Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures – the entire four episode season!

That’s right – you can win the entire season, a $34.95 value, which includes:

  • Fright of the Bumblebees, which comes out March 24
  • The Last Resort (May)
  • Muzzled (June)
  • The Bogey Man (July)

Winners get the order code to get each chapter as it comes out for free!

For Gaming Podcast, you merely need to post a comment stating your favorite brand of cheese. Just let us know which cheese makes you drool – whether it’s the tanginess of cheddar or the mildness of Gouda. The majesty of Roquefort or the commonness of American. You don’t even need to restrict it to cow’s milk cheese, too – if you love goat cheese, let us know! Only one entry per user, and you have to impress us with your love of that fine dairy product. The contest ends March 24, 12 noon EST.

You have two other chances at GameStooge and 2Old2Play – please head over there and checkout their contests!

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Episode 255: The Darkness II ContestEpisode 255: The Darkness II Contest

Dan Quick returns again to cover for Paul Nowak, and this week, the Gaming Podcast is offering free copies of The Darkness II Limited Edition, which comes with the main game and some free DLC. The guys are giving away an Xbox 360 version and a PlayStation 3 version. To win, just listen to the podcast and post what your favorite scary movie is.

The game news this week includes:

  • Ex-SCEE senior VP Phil Harrison joins Microsoft’s European team
  • DOOM developer John Romero has “plans” for “old school” shooter
  • EA defends Mass Effect 3 From Ashes DLC data being on disc
  • Notch settles with Bethesda over “Scrolls” trademark
  • DICE: 2GB RAM won’t be enough for next gen consoles
  • Angry Birds theme park to open in Finland
  • GAME puts itself up for sale, GameStop interested
  • Diablo III release date announcement “in a few days“, no PvP in launch version

And yes, they know that the announcement was just made today – May 15th release date for Diablo III.

The contest to win either the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 version of The Darkness II will run this and next week, with the winners announced in Episode 257.

2008: The Year of Sequels? Too Much Risk?2008: The Year of Sequels? Too Much Risk?

While compiling a list of games to respond to a user question on the TD Gaming Podcast, I’ve noticed something about this years gaming lineup: their mainly all sequels! Are there any new franchises taking a risk in the market or just more of the same? Some are not really “sequels” but spin-offs of the same franchise.

A few examples of some October time frame titles: Fable 2, Far Cry 2, Gears of War 2, Rock Band 2, C&C: Red Alert 3, Saints Row 2, Rayman Raving Rabbids 3, Tekken 6, Call of Duty 5, Guitar Hero World Tour, Tom Clancy End of War, Sing Star Vol 2 and others.

There are a few original titles: Afrika for the PlayStation 3, Little Big Planet (PS3) and Huxley (360 and PC). Most of the original franchise creations seem to be PlayStation 3 related, probably because the console needs some major hits to spur more sales.

Is the market so competitive and risky that new franchises are becoming a rare breed? Last year we saw Assassin’s Creed and before that Viva Pinata and Gears of War exclusive on the Xbox 360. Consider Viva Pinata a “slight” failure in terms of excitement and Gears of War a success, that’s 50/50 in terms of risk vs. reward.

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Mass Effect 3: What REALLY Went Wrong, And How To Fix ItMass Effect 3: What REALLY Went Wrong, And How To Fix It

NOTE: THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES THE ENDING AND EVENTS OF MASS EFFECT 3. DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WISH THE GAME TO BE SPOILED FOR YOU.

In this day and age, one learns to take internet outrage with a heavy dollop of salt. The videogame community tends to be reactionary in the worst way, for a few reasons: they tend to be young, they tend to express their immediate feelings almost as a stream of consciousness, and let’s face it, the Greater Internet Dickwad Theory comes into play as well.

When it comes to game endings, when I hear that the community is upset about a game’s ending, I almost always take that as a good sign that the ending is daring and provocative. For example, there was an outcry over the abruptness of the ending of Halo 2, which had the nerve to conclude with a cliffhanger. The 2009 Prince of Persia reboot ended with the player undoing all of the work to free an ancient evil god they’d just imprisoned.

So when I heard that there was a growing outcry about the endings of Mass Effect 3, my interest peaked, because invariably, that meant the story was provocative and daring, instead of predictable and boring.

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