This week is another bountiful podcast as the crew has a surprisingly long discussion about this week’s Gaming Flashback, Make Trax. The guys also discuss 1990′s kids shows like Reading Rainbow and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? The contest winner for a copy of Magicka is also revealed, as some magical books are discussed.

In the news:

• Rumor: Wii U will cost Nintendo $180 and retail for $300
• Online petition calls for end to Tera ‘censorship’ in EU
• Videogame-only Kickstarter alternative debuting at E3 2012
• NPD: 40% of freemium players pay for in-game upgrades

Interestingly enough, the day after the podcast was recorded, the gore slider issue was resolved.

We also have some great Reader Feedback, but no contest or question this week. Sorry, folks!

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.

After last week’s special appearance by Derrick and Jennifer Schommer along with Don Dunn, the regular crew of Jonah Falcon, Jordan Lund and Paul S. Nowak return, and they find themselves with some fascinating news items.

The news items include:

• Blizzard brags Diablo III will have difficulties that are harder-than-hard
• Sony passed on Demon’s Souls because it was “crap“
• Sony credit rating downgraded, “strong recovery in earnings unlikely”
• Tim Schafer raises $1.6M (and counting) to develop an adventure game
• Epic’s Sweeney: Lifelike graphics will come in our lifetime

Paul is also running a contest to earn “Pixie Diamonds” currency for Disney’s Pixie Hollow social networking MMO, with the prize going to the person who can answer, “Who is your favorite Disney Prince or Hero, and why?”

It’s contest time again! This time, we’re giving away the Xbox Live Arcade version of Defense Grid: The Awakening, a great tower defense title. You can read GameStooge’s review here, which has gameplay videos.

How can you win this addictive title? Very easy – tell us when you first started getting hooked on TD Gaming Podcast. That’s it. Let us know why you tune into Derrick, Jennifer and Don for your videogame podcast pleasure. One entry per IP. Entries must be before Wednesday, September 16 at 12noon EST.

However, there are more copies to win, as 2old2play and GameStooge will also be giving away a code for Defense Grid.

GameStooge, 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!

This week we’re looking at some crazy news articles, looking back at Jungle Hunt and covering our review of the casual game, Bejeweled Twist from Popcap. This weeks news includes:

• Activision considering charging for user-generated songs
• Little, BigPlanet Content being “moderated”
• Grand Theft Auto DLC probably won’t be released this month
• Epic weighs in on used games sales

This weeks soapbox tackles the question, “would gamers be interested in non-violent cooperative games?” This weeks podcast ends with a new contest to give away two copies of Bejeweled Twist on the gaming podcast and another two copies in our gaming podcast forums.

For those that haven’t posted on the forum or send us an e-mail about our Peggle Nights contest, it’s time to get in the action! The free Peggle Nights game giveaway will expire soon and we want as many contestants as possible.

We’ve got many great entries, we’ll be reading off some of the e-mails we received about our podcast contest this week along with some of the great forum posts. Those that love Peggle have a passion and desire for the title, so the next one is sure to be a hit.

For those that have already written in, sent e-mails or otherwise contacted us, we appreciate your efforts. Make sure you listen to the gaming podcast for all the details on the contest.

Many folks know the name Peggle as an addictive casual game from PopCap Games. For those that have played the original Peggle game, you’re already up to speed on the addictive nature of the little peg bopping game with family fun and innovative game play.

Gamingpodcast.net has a unique chance to give away eight electronic downloads of the upcoming game title Peggle Nights for Microsoft Windows. We’re making it very easy to enter to win our contest, you can:

• Post in our Gaming Podcast – Contest Forum and answer the question “What does peggle mean to you?”
• You can listen to Gaming Podcast Episode 87 and answer Don’s e-mail question, then fire us an e-mail.

How do you know if you’re a Peggle addict? No better way than signing up to win a free copy of Peggle Nights! Feeling unlucky? Listen to the podcast and write-in and then post in our forums to double your chances of winning one of the eight copies we’re giving out! We’ll have four reserved for forum posters and four reserved for gaming podcast entries.

If you want to read my past review of Peggle, head over to GameStooge.com and read up, get ready and start entering to win!

Although we weren’t able to get a free copy to give away for Castle Crashers due to limited supply, GameStooge has one, and has the ability to hand one out. If you’re looking to get in on the contest and potentially get a free code to download Castle Crashers upon its release, checkout GameStooge’s contest.

The rules are simple: “Write in the comment section what is your favorite movie with a castle, and why it’s the castle is so great in it – minimum 30 words.” The game looks crazy fun, so I highly suggest you put in a contest entry if you’ve got an Xbox 360 gamer tag and 360 console to play it on!

If anyone wants to win a copy of Stardock’s next upcoming Political Machine game, you’ll want to checkout gamestooge.com’s contest post. The contest ends June 30, 11:59pm EST so you wanna get over there now and enter to win.

“The rules of the game are simple: post your own political slogan as a comment by June 30th, 11:59pm EST. In other words, tell us, 2008 election style, why we at GameStooge should vote for YOU to earn the game.”

So, head on over to gamestooge and post a good comment and perhaps you’ll get the game, can’t hurt to try, right?

Stardock has always been a great company to work with and is willing to help out the industry whenever possible.