Sharing the Awesome...

Even if you're not really into gaming, here is a link that I think everyone will enjoy. It's for the Nintendo 3DS, a 3D-version of the DS. Now, I'm not a huge fan of the DS or DSi or DSi lite - I don't own any of these, but I have played a few games on the DSi and I appreciate all the different things you can do with them, ranging from picture taking to wireless multiplayer gaming...but this new 3DS is just neat! I'd get one just to look at it all day long :-) Take a look for yourself and let me know what you think!

Today is the highly-anticipated release date for the new Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Map Pack. I've already added Microsoft Points to my Xbox Live account (stupid, since I really didn't want to give Microsoft any of my money...or seem like I'm giving money to them) so as soon as I'm able to I'll be downloading the 5 new maps. Apparently only 3 of the maps are new, as two of them are well-known maps from Call of Duty 4 (Crash & Overgrown). The new ones sound interesting though (taken from Wikipedia: "..three new maps: Bailout, a multi-level apartment complex; Storm, an industrial park littered with heavy machinery; and Salvage, an abandoned car junkyard in the middle of the snow.") Exciting!


Oh, and if I didn't have a for-real job (that I love), I would definitely look into doing this: WCG Ultimate Gamer - Season 2. Now, I'm not big into reality TV (except for that one show "Who wants to be a Superhero?") - but this intrigues me. I haven't looked into it much, and I'm not going to apply or anything...but if anyone else knows information about this (stories from the first season, how the show conveys gamers and gaming to the public, etc...) let me know :-)

Playing Around

Like the new look? Blogger has just released a new Design Template that provides a bunch of new images, layouts, and fonts for further blog-customization. I'm going to try to make this a more "game-themed" blog (look-wise), so it'll be changing again shortly. Until then..hope you don't mind the bright colors :-)

PAX East was this weekend, and from the pictures I've seen so far, it looks like it was a TON of fun! I wish I could have gone - but now I'm trying to look for other video game conventions happening in 2010. Does anyone know of any?

Here are the big ones that I'm aware of:

• E3 - June 2010 - Los Angeles, California (trade-only)
• PAX Prime - September 2010 - Seattle, Washington
• Consumer Electronics Show (CES) - January 2011 - Las Vegas, Nevada

In other news, I spent a very relaxing weekend playing Modern Warfare 2. It was very nice to share the experience with my boyfriend and parents (all of whom are cheering me on with my PMS training). At one point my father even played for a bit! My only qualm with the game is that they don't allow the players to bring in "guests" like in Halo or Left 4 Dead - some of my friends don't have an xbox or xbox live, but we would LOVE to play together online in team deathmatches or free-for-alls. Le sigh.

Week 3 of recruitment for PMS starts today! I'm excited to test out some of my newly unlocked items...it's funny how I figure out one thing, fall in love with it, and then never divert from it...like the Assault class (First Recon). I was playing that for the last 25 levels (leveling in the online multiplayer world, mind you) but only now have I created my own class with my chosen Assault Rifle, secondary weapon, and special equipment. I'm enjoying this much, much more :-)

End for now!

Training

Prepare thyself - this will be a long one....

I'm halfway through my second week of training for the PMS clan...and I'm loving it! I can tell I'm getting better; I don't just run into the firefight all willy-nilly as I usually do, I tend to hide more and strategize, and I take the time to breathe and aim...and thanks to this, I've come out on top in many of my gaming sessions :-) The girls I'm training with are amazing, not only at playing Modern Warfare 2, but as women who do incredible things with their lives. I've met mothers, tattoo artists, business women, make-up artists, animal refugee founders...the list goes on. As an added bonus, the H20 guys are also a lot of fun to play MW2 with - they're very nice and respectful, and always defend the PMS girls if some of the other guys in the game start bad-mouthing them (which happens a lot, sadly).

In training, we don't just go into public games and play - we'll do private matches with just the PMS girls (members and recruits) to do specialized training, such as Duck Hunt for sniper training (4 girls snipe while the rest just run around and try to dodge the bullets) or one-on-one knife fights (knifing only) or Micheal Myers (one person can knife only, all others must hide/run but cannot shoot or knife back). Many of these sound like fun practices, but they actually hone in on different skills (Duck Hunt for sniping fast-moving targets, Micheal Myers for learning to use cover and really discovering all those "hidden" places in the maps). We've even done a free-for-all practice where we could only use sniper rifles, but we weren't allowed to camp (meaning we HAD to run around and practice something call "quick zoom"...which is really hard!). Just with these few practice games, my sniping and knifing skills have gotten so much better. I can't wait to practice more tonight!

One hot topic that is going around all the forums (and was even mentioned on the radio station 99.5) is this new website called GameCrush.com. I read this article, and I have a few thoughts of my own...

1. To all the girl gamers out there: Is any self-respecting girl gamer really going to sign up as a "PlayDate" for this? Or even like the idea? I suppose the keyword here is "self-respecting"...
2. The article likens the elite PlayDates (known as "JaneCrush") to the FragDolls...please don't. The Frag Dolls have been here for years, have proven their worth and skill time and time again in legitimate tournaments, and work closely with Ubisoft (a formidable player in the gaming industry). Perhaps GameCrush would like these girls of "JaneCrush" to become as famous as the Frag Dolls...but they are not, and will not, be the same.
3. Guys - if you want to play games with girls, it's a lot easier than you think. Just go to Google and run a search for "Girl Gaming Clans" - there are many out there, all full of women who love to play games and are always willing to play with guys who treat them with respect. Plus, you don't have to pay.
4. Is this a good business idea? Yeah, sure. But there are some flaws in the business logic (one that stands out the most in my mind is the xbox live portion - so a guy gets a girl's gamertag...and now he has that, forever. He could message her all the time, what's stopping him? I suppose the girl could block a user, but then she's cutting out a potential "client"....just silly, as xbox live is already poorly designed).
5. "...from what we can tell, most of the girls on the service genuinely like to play games and are simply interested in getting paid for it. " ........I beg to differ. These girls aren't getting paid to play games. They're getting played to be "flirty" and "dirty." Would they still get their 60% cut of the sale if they just video-chatted the entire time and didn't play the game? My guess is yes. Will they earn money if they just play games on the site and don't get guys to pay money to play with them? No. So technically they're not getting paid to play games - it all depends on how appealing they can be to the guys searching the site.
6. Your thoughts? Comments are always welcome :D

Now, onto something much cooler: I was visiting one of my favorite sites the other day (The Awesomer) when I came across this! In the same vein as the Blind Gamer who beat Zelda, this is a game specifically made for the vision impaired - meaning the entire game is played through sound cues and no visuals. Pretty neat, if you ask me!

I'll be writing more in a few days - too much to do in too little time! 

BioShock 2 - Complete

I was going to write a lot about my end thoughts on BioShock 2, after finishing the Single Player campaign mode last night with my bestest, but D-pads Are Us has done a great job of covering most of what I was going to say. Here are my few additions to his post -

*Caution: May Contain Spoilers*

• Ummm..what happened to all the people? Grace? Poole? THE DAD?!?! Did we just leave them down there...for BioShock 3?
• The dad who was leaving voice recordings (Matt M-something?) touched my heart, and I would have liked a side-quest where we meet him and help him find his daughter, Cindy....and as a side-note: Don't set up good/interesting characters and then never show them. Grrrr.
• I agree with what the link above says: Essentially the first 8-10 hours of the game are almost *exactly* like BioShock 1. It isn't until the last leg of the journey that you begin to do some different stuff, which I did think was VERY cool (if only because it shows how intricate each character type is, and how much effort the game creators put into the back stories of each). But the overall storyline of this game was nowhere near as epic/crazy as the first one - still pretty good though :-)
• As more of an inside joke: The most important thing this game lacked = the clown's voice and laugh for the Circus of Value. A close second = the crazy singing splicers.
• Big Sisters = pretty freakin' sweet. And scary. Super scary. Stop screaming.
• It would have been nice to re-visit some of the original maps from the first game - most notably Andrew Ryan's office, maybe the core of Rapture too...

Overall - a good sequel. I mean...it could have been A LOT worse. But I enjoyed it, for what it was. Perhaps in a few months I'll pick it up again and try it on a harder difficulty...but for now, onto Mass Effect 2/Modern Warfare 2!

Favorite quote from the game (would have been "It's the circus of value! HAHAHAH"):

Love is just a chemical. We chose to give it meaning.

                                              -Eleanor Lamb, Rapture

Rapture

I wrote a very long blog post last night all about BioShock 2, and the pros and cons of the game...only to click the "Publish Post" button and have the system send me an error message saying something about a "failure to post." I lost the entire thing, and I was too tired/frustrated to re-write it. So, here's a short recap of what I was going to say:


*Caution: May contain spoilers*


I love the BioShock series.


Pros of the game:

• Level of detail in not only characters and backstory (the voice acting is very, very good), but also the creation and development of Rapture
• Being a Big Daddy
• Exploring the new levels
• Listening to the audio diaries (I love them!)

Cons of the game:

• Very similar story to the first one (New tyrant, splicers work for new tyrant, new tyrant is an enemy of Andrew Ryan..)
• Surprising how easily the splicers are able to take down my Big Daddy, even with the suit and big guns (seems like you start with a very small health bar in the game)
• Insufficient Funds - I'm roughly halfway through the game, and I'm just now getting enough $$$ to buy ammo and health kits

Creepiest parts of the game:

• Walking around in near darkness with a flashlight (the bloody bodies everywhere doesn't help...)
• So much water! For those of you who know me, I'm a terrible swimmer, so I'm already a little nervous around water in the real world. However, Duke Nukem totally ruined water in video games for me, so I'm even more paranoid...
• Big Sisters, and their god-awful screams

Overall:

• The story is not as good as BioShock 1 (although, it's still pretty compelling)
• Security Bots are the end-all, be-all (I sometimes set alarms off purely to summon security bots so I can hack them and have my army of 2 :D)
• Can't wait for the BioShock Movie! If they actually make it, that is...

In other news, I've only played a tiny bit of Modern Warfare 2 recently, as I've been dedicating my time to fixing my car, spending time with my bestest while playing BioShock 2 (yeah, it's a team effort), and gearing up for joining PMS. Sadly, I missed the Pre-Recruitment meeting last Sunday due to being out of town with my boyfriend and best friend (yay for seeing plays in Philly!), so hopefully I can start the 8+ training hours per week next week. Don't get me wrong - I'm dedicated - but I feel like it's going to take me a little while to get used to this new addition..not to mention re-arranging my schedule....but I'm excited!

The wait is over!

...and I didn't make it. But that's ok - I know 3 of the ladies who made it pretty well (considering I really only started talking to them on Sunday evening), and I'm SO happy for them! Congrats ladies! Please take TONS of pictures, tell me ALL the stories, and...put in a good word for me? ;-) Also, here's the link so you can see the lucky ladies.

Now that that's over...what will I do? I know! Join the PMS Clan! I've already submitted an application for the North American division of Modern Warfare 2...I'm not sure when I'll hear back or when I'll need to start scheduling in practices (8 hours a week!), but I'm pretty excited to get started. I think I want to try and hit some tournaments/events too, when I get the chance. I'm not even sure where to begin looking for those, but I think I'll get a good idea of what's going on through the PMS/H2O website.

If only PAX East weren't so soon..and so far away. I would like to go, but I hear that all the Saturday passes are  sold out...not to mention I have a b-day photoshoot to attend that Sunday (yay J. Vankim photography!). I'll just have to keep my eyes peeled for any other neat events happening on the East Coast - and if anyone knows of any, drop me a line!

Off to play some Modern Warfare 2 before my guests arrive for my ever-famous GAME NIGHT! TTFN!

MW2 FTW

Mmmmm, I like it. It took me a little while to get used to when I started playing, but by the end of the evening I was holding my own on the battlefield in Modern Warfare 2. I like the interface and the way the game looks, although my only pet peeve is the button layout: Click in the right analog stick to melee?? And click and hold the left analog stick to sprint?? I was never a fan of having to click down the analog sticks for anything, but maybe I'll get used to it. Other than that, I'm quite enjoying the game :-)

I downloaded a new app to my android phone (a widget, actually) that periodically updates me on the latest news and events in the video game world. At some point in the morning, it alerted me to this article, which is probably one of the best things I've heard about in a long, long time. I love stories where people come together for a common goal or to help one another. This really brightened my day, in the midst of all the chaos and stress :-D

Frag Doll Cadette update - the Frag Dolls sent out a message through twitter last night stating the following: "To gamers who applied to our Cadette Program: we won't be able to announce new Cadettes until Friday at the earliest. Hang tight!" Well...there you have it.

Another short one for tonight - too much to do!

Starcraft 2 Beta

Sadly, I don't have the Beta for Starcraft 2, but I've heard some great things about the game from those that have been playing. In fact, a friend of mine sent me this article that lists some of the "broken" aspects, characters, and strategies of the game...most of which probably won't make it into the actual game. I haven't had a chance to watch the videos yet, but they all seem pretty interesting :-)

I'm dying for my copy of Modern Warfare 2 to arrive in the mail. This game was sent out on Feb. 18...and it's still not here. I contacted the seller, and the next day the package tracking system listed my game at a sorting facility in Virginia. So, it's close by, but it's still not here. Maybe today it'll arrive...maybe. I just want to test my skills in this FPS so I can see what my chances are in joining a PMS clan. There are even mandatory practice hours...which is both daunting and exciting. Even if I don't make it into the Frag Doll Cadettes this round, I know that I want to persue a path into competitve gaming.

Ah, it feels good to have goals :-)

[Update...]


I received Modern Warfare 2 today - FINALLY! Although, I also received a "bonus" gift in the same package...

WHAAAA??? Weird freebie, but at least I got my game!

Anger toward Xbox Live

I just received an email from Xbox Live Support regarding my problem with attempting to merge or switch an Xbox Live subscription from one profile to another. This is the exact email I received:

"Hello Kimberly,

 

This is Kody, with Microsoft XBOX Support services.

           As I understand, you are very concerned to know if it is possible to merge two Xbox Live and or an offline and online accounts and transfer or credit points and achievements to the other.

 Unfortunately, we cannot merge two Xbox Live and or an offline and online accounts or profiles and transfer or credit points to one gamertag to the other.

 Thank you so much for your time and inquiry.

 If you need to reply to this e-mail, please reply 'with history' (include any previous e-mail) or reference to Service Request Number 1125944892 so we can expedite our service to you.

 Thank you for visiting Xbox.com. We hope that we were able to assist you, and that your experience with our customer service was positive - something we constantly strive to improve. If you should have future questions on Xbox products or services, please be sure to revisit our Web site as we are continually adding information to enhance our service.

Best Regards, 

 Kody

Microsoft XBOX Support Services

http://support.microsoft.com"

Ummm...excuse me? You can't do anything to help me? You can't even give me an alternative? I'm another $40 in the hole because your system has a stupid account-setup process? Great...


So I went ahead and purchased another subscription to Gold...I apologize if you guys get another friend request from me on Live, as I'll be deleting the current "Kimmington" account when I get my new subscription code. 

On a happier note - I played on Live last night, and it was great. I'm not nearly as bad as I thought (although I'm certainly no where near as good as I want to be), and I really enjoy the multiplayer aspect of BioShock 2. My copy of Modern Warfare 2 is stuck in Philly somewhere...I fear it may never get to me. In any event, I hope to play more tonight, and even have a guest join me! We'll see how this works out...

Gamertags!

My wireless adapter for the xbox should be arriving either today or tomorrow, which means that I need YOUR gamertags! Please leave comments (or contact me personally) with your tags here, and I'll be sure to add you via the xbox live website before the adapter gets here. I only have 2 friends as of now - and I'd like more! Also, I'd appreciate any Playstation Network IDs as well....and can you add friends to the Wii? I rarely play that system, but I'll add you on there as well!

In addition to this, please leave me comments with any recommendations of games I should get for xbox live playing/training. I have all the Halo games, Modern Warfare 2 should be arriving in the mail today, and I'm already scoping out prices for Left 4 Dead 2...any other big ones I'm missing for sweet, sweet multiplayer action?

Side note - I finished Dragon Age Origins last night...and I'm a little disappointed in the ending I got. Sure, BioWare is known for throwing "curve-balls," but good grief. Also, the very end was pretty predictable. I guess what I'm getting at is if I'm playing a good character and I'm making sure I choose all the "good" options when decision making....I should at least have a chance at a good ending. Oh well, maybe I'll pick it up again within the year and see if I get a different ending. But as of tonight I'll be attempting to finish Uncharted 2, start Mass Effect 2...or perhaps play with some of you guys on Xbox Live! :-)

Just a few more weeks...

Late last night I received my confirmation email from Phoenix of the Frag Dolls, saying they received all the parts of my application, they are complete, and that my name has been entered into the random drawing - YAY! I know I shouldn't get my hopes up....but WOW do I want to be accepted into this program. Dream come true - hell yes.

Fun side note - Barbie's new career is Computer Engineer! I definitely voted for this, and I'm glad it turned out! I like that she looks like she's straight out of the 80's in this link too.

Another fun fact - I'm officially getting Xbox Live! I've decided to suck it up and pay for Live, as well as a Wireless Adapter for my 360. I'm still looking for a cheap one, but I did go ahead and buy two headsets, a year subscription to Xbox Live Gold, and three new games: BioShock 2, Modern Warfare 2, and Mass Effect 2. I'm super excited...now if only I could not break the bank with this wireless adapter... :-) I'll post my Xbox Live name on here as soon as I'm set up and ready to game!