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!

Distant Worlds

Oh...I'm so there.

Clicky!

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!