For 2 hours I ran, jumped, dodged, went prone, set charges, and did just about everything but the chicken dance, and still my efforts toward completing Act II Part II "All Ghillied Up" were summarily denied. I died more times than I care to admit yesterday and while I bitch, moan, and complain my way through the Veteran difficulty level on Call of Duty 4 sharing my pain and its fruit is the only neighborly thing to do. 

The majority of the level is straightforward and shouldn’t take you too long to get to last objective now known as !&%!$@!!. Get behind the Ferris Wheel and put Captain Flashback (Price) down in the far left corner of the semi-grassy knoll.  After you run about and plant your claymores you’ll get a final checkpoint.  Enemy choppers come and start dropping the baddies off like flies:

The Set up:  Your going to make your standoff in the trees behind the bumper cars.  The baddies are going to shoot at you from 4 primary locations.  1. From behind the fence to your right - lots of grenades inbound (I curse you flashbang!). 2. The bumper cars platform - they will enter from the opposite side and hide behind the empty cars. 3. The left side on the bumper car platform - the path you took to get there. 4.  The Ferris wheel platform and the lowest Ferris wheel cart. 

Toss your C4 on the Ferris wheel platform (under the lowest cart), in the empty bumper cars, and one on the very left corner of the bumper cart platform. Don’t fire your C4 until you have to…it’s helpful to fire it when its time to run to pick up Price and get top the chopper.

Be patient.  Stand behind one of the trees and wait for the first few guys on the car platform and take them out. Do not crouch. This will only slow you down and you need to dart all over the trees to avoid the constant barrage of grenades.

Run from side to side avoiding death for about 2 minutes…when you see the objective complete, your chopper will land but you still have to go get Price and get onboard. 

If you still have your C4 set it off and start running.  There is a sniper in the grass in Price’s direction so stop by the Ferris wheel and dust him first.  Once you get to Price, pick his sorry ass up and make a B-line for the Chopper, you’ll get pelted, but keep going, you’re in the clear once he’s on your back. 

Now.."do a little dance…make a little love…get down tonight…boom chicka boom…get down tonight…"

Kiss Kiss,

Dawngrrl Gametart

Finding the perfect backpack for your chic geek portability needs is dreadfully difficult. The elusive “mothership” of your portable necessities has many required characteristics and finding all of those in one exceptional fashion statement seems to be mission impossible.

Must we pay $500 for the perfect looking Prada leather backpack? And if so, mustn’t we question brutalizing the baby soft Italian leather in such a way?  Could we possibly hope for something that functions like a nerdy-birdy-geekbag yet looks ravishing on the runway? 

Well, the answer is, I don’t know!  Here are the requirements for the phantom piece of luggage goodness.  If you run across it, for the love of my sanity, please let me know.

1. As stated - it must be in Fashion.  You simply cannot get dressed in trendy and toss on a utilitarian Targus!
2. Professional - It must be professional enough to attend meetings.
3. Compatibility - it must be a ubiquitous accessory.
4. Functionality - It must house the laptop, the iPods, the portable drives, the smart phone, the wallet, the makeup, the just in case items, the books, camera, the notepads, and serve as an occasional overnight bag. 
5. Size - it must be enormous on the inside, but small and compact on the outside, as to fit underneath the seat in front of you. 
6. Convenience - all buttons, pouches and zippers must only require one handed interaction to open or close.

Dream a little dream…

Kiss Kiss,

Dawngrrl Gametart

I had a rough time with its predecessor, but it had enough good in it for me to finish the game.  I had seen some cool trailers for Bloodshot (Condemned 2) so I was pretty excited to pick it up last week and check it out, and I am glad I did, they took a mediocre game and took up a few notches in several areas. 

Onto the to the world of Ethan Thomas; an angry drunk and begrudging serial killer hunter! In take 2, the graphics are a bit better overall and they fixed one of my major complaints with the prior version: the constant darkness!  You could certainly adjust the brightness to suit your preference, but even when doing so in Condemned, it was a lot of work to make out objects on screen and required squinting and changing your focus from the task at hand.  Even though I still had to turn up the brightness, the darker areas seem to have a higher contrast with more detail, so playing those drab scenes in the sewers, basements, bathrooms, and alleys is way easier on the eyes.   Moreover, Bloodshot actually has some levels that are lighter and more visually aesthetic then the infested rot that shadows most scenes, like the FBI labs which is a nice change, even though it quickly fills with tar like sludge and delusional blur.    It’s still a very dirty game and I feel slightly sullied after playing.  The unsanitary bathrooms painted with blood and feces and rotten infested carcasses and garbage strewn everywhere, make me want to my wash hands when I let go of the controller.   Visual unsanitary, but I suppose it adds to the tone of the story.

My favorite Super creepy baddie!

The real upgrade in the game is the melee fighting techniques with combo and parry moves that add a great of texture to your combat.  Though some of these moves are prompted trigger pulls, it’s quite an improvement. 

The investigative techniques are still mostly the same, (camera, spectrometer, UV Detector, etc.), but now you get upgrades and new equipment as the game progresses, including armor.  There are more puzzle investigations that add texture to game play and to get a perfect score you have to answer all questions correct on the first try.  Which means you have to put a little more thought into your investigations this go round. 

The achievement scheme is a lot different and those investigations are a big part of getting your points.  You don’t just collect 6 birds per level and collect your cool 25 points.  There are transmitter collectable’s, player responses, and emitters all of which are required to be a top notch investigator.  There are 25 single player achievements and 13 multiplayer achievements, but you don’t get achievements for finishing anyone mission on any particular level.  For example, you have to get all perfects on all levels to get that achievement or your have to make gold investigator on each level to the gold achievement, etc. 

It’s a scary and entertaining game, better then the first, even though its caked with nastiness and the baddies are uber gross!  The boss in the doll factory (left) is toe-up!  You have to love a crazy clown chick with a psychedelic laugh that makes your skin crawl but somehow looks sexy in her dirty corset and striped stockings.   Even though she wants to kill you with the rotary saw blade lollipop she’s wielding you might feel sad to have to stick her head through the grinder…ewwww.  

Highlights

• A new melee combat system which includes offensive / defensive combo moves, grabs and holds, and death moves interacting with the environment, i.e., throwing a body through a TV.
• New environments like outside areas, labs and warehouses.
• New gear and forensics tools and a redesigned process for the investigation of the crime scenes that is all upgradable based on new scoring system.
• Many new items in the environment can be used as melee or throwing weapons like golf clubs, bricks, and exploding dolls.
• More gun play with weapons like the sub-gun and crossbow, but keeps the cool stun gun from V1.
• More accurate game play for difficulty levels, i.e., normal is actually medium and hard is difficult!
• All-new multiplayer modes like fight club “Circle of Death” add to the game after your story mode is complete and some texture to the new fighting system.
• Much more cohesive storyline keeping the same characters yet introducing new characters, new baddies, and new bosses.
• A killer creepy soundtrack enhancing the overall "fear factor"!

I wouldn’t recommend you play this game with the kiddos around, it almost gives me nightmares, certainly the heebie-jeebies.

Kiss Kiss,

 
Dawngrrl Gametart

Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare has been a blast to play!  In fact, the one major downside of the game is how short the single player campaign is.   So I started over on veteran with the intention of getting the mile high club achievement rumored to be almost impossible. 

I am about halfway through this difficulty mode and it could be one of the most frustrating in my FPS gaming career.  I’ve died a 100 times to make one checkpoint and its figuratively and literally a long slow crawl from level to level.  The game has enough variety and required concentration to keep it interesting but it’s pretty painful at times.  So my question is…has ANYBODY reached the unlockable mile high mission at the end of Veteran game completion?  Will I find myself entirely disappointed after working so hard to get there?  At some point, I have to return the game to its owner ( thanks Leif! ) so I would love to get some feedback from those of you that have tried to make it.

Kiss Kiss,

Dawngrrl Gametart

I don’t know about you, but moving to a new office is more exciting then the first day of school with fresh new school supplies and new jeans that I begged mom to buy.   This is where I am going to commute to and fro, spend a large chunk of my time, meet and co-mingle with my professional family and last but not least, shop on my lunch hour.   The Boy Genius and I took a trip to downtown Seattle to check out my new digs and take some pictures, so I thought I would give you guys a visual of the front door, the lobby, and what is sure to be my lunchtime activities for some time to come.  

The front door! This big shiny new building where the paint is barely dry is soon to house my new MSN team and I.  Its in the South lake Union district of Seattle deliciously close to anything and everything downtown Seattle has to offer!

Speaking of delicious, i am not sure if someone called Starbucks and told them where I was going, but I am uber excited that they found their way into the lobby of our building!  *whew!*

A stroll through the man made mountainous skyscrapers will careen me right to 5th avenue for some light shopping and indigenous sight seeing!

I am really excited for my shoe collection, it must be feeling ecstatic!

Kiss kiss,

Dawngrrl Gametart