I love the wholesome little accomplishments that make us feel so good; like the well earned rewards for our perseverance to keep on fighting, our commitment to learning the skills needed for success, and the joy in just being able to play the game.  Then of course there is joy of blowing your opponents face off with a rocket launcher to the noggin or sticking him with grenade and watching his body plummet to the depths below.   With a long way to go, I climbed one minor rung of the Halo 3 success ladder; I got my **UNSC Spartan achievement today and I couldn’t be any happier.  So look out you Lone Wolves cause I’m getting better everyday and I’m coming for ya!   *bang bang*

**UNSC Spartan is a Halo 3 Multiplayer Achievement. It is earned when the player earns the rank of Sergeant (20 won ranked or social matches) on Xbox Live. This Achievement gives 15 Gamerpoints to the player and unlocks the MJOLNIR Mark V Armor Permutation.

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Dawngrrl Gametart

Don’t lie!   Just admit it, we’ve all been there.   You’ve found yourself absentmindedly opening up Freecell and felt a wash of delicious guilty pleasure in doing so.  You’ve had a really crappy day at work and popped open minesweeper and for those few game time moments; you were at peace with all the chaos of your day.  Some of you even have a nightly Mahjong ritual to clear all the tiles before you would even consider laying your sleepy head down on the pillow. 

How is this even possible? That with such brilliantly engaging RPG’s, intricately realistic FPS games, and stunningly beautiful adventure games, we can still find ourselves with an addiction for such simple, single minded click games?   The prices of console games are dropping; second generation consoles are super inexpensive and a perfectly decent gaming PC isn’t too much of a financial stretch either (unless you want play Crysis :P) and serious gaming is much more accessible for a much wider scope of people.  I have it all and I am constantly in the middle of a new 360 title, my beloved WoW character, or any number of DS, Wii, and PS3 games. Even with the whole shebang at my whim, I am a sucker for a quick game of jawbreaker or minesweeper. 

The simple act of winning a game of solitaire is remarkably satisfying and relaxing!  You quiet out the rest of your mind, escape to place of mental calculation or visual response and finger/eye coordination and fire off those more narrow synapses for a change.     Compared to the body, it’s like a nice relaxing stroll outside for the mind.  I love the hard sweaty run to get in the good-for-your-game cardio, but I’m convinced that a nice stroll in the brain park with a game a day will lower your stress levels and perhaps even your cholesterol! 

So however enthralled you become with your hardcore games and no matter how bad you want that level 70 flying mount, elementary gaming will open its simplistic, relaxing arms and give you big mental hug, and after it’s all said and done you will still feel like achieved something even though it doesn’t show up on your gamertag. 

Does anyone know where you can play good online scrabble, like they used to have on iWin.com? Damn miss that!

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Dawngrrl Gametart

No game has caught my interest as much.  No other game gives you such an enormous playing field AFTER your story mode levels are done.  I play it with the guys at the office, I play it on Live, I play it on home with the Boy Genius or the Boy Kid, and for times of needed solitary gaming refuge, I continue to work my way through legendary difficultly mode.  It never gets old! 

Never playing its predecessors, I was a Halo virgin when I got Halo 3 and from the moment I strapped on the battle rifle and made my way through jungle following the Spartan I was hooked.  The game play is incredibly natural; from swapping weapons to dual wielding and tossing grenades, it’s an easy quick swap of the bumpers and the left and right triggers for shooting.  I am not  a fan of stop wheel inventory or select button menus for weapons swapping in FPS games so this is right up my virtuoso alley!  

The available weapons, maps and customization options keep it freshy fresh, especially with the new heroic map pack that released earlier this month, and if I loved the hammer anymore, I’d marry it.  The unique feel of the different weapons is remarkable and the granular differences in their use and effects truly means the more you use the weapons and get to know them, the better you will play; learning the nuances of each one and how that makes them more or less useful on the different maps or in different game play modes.  Custom games allows you to create your own games with specific weapons and maps, i.e., everyone spawns in the center ring of Guardian and stays there to fight, or The Narrows with only swords and rocket launchers - chaos indeed - but if variety is the spice of life then Halo 3 gives you all the salt and pepper you need to create a zillion flavors of play!  Live is a whole different ball game where you can customize your character even further, join in the ranking fray, earn extra achievements, and play with peeps from a pool of many many thousands of online players at any given time. 

You’ll read a zillion reviews of Halo 3 and if your doing so to make that final decision of “Buy or don’t buy”, I hope this one convinces you that Halo 3 really is all its cracked up to be and the game goes far beyond beating story mode.  I’ve been playing since the day it released and it’s still putting out the most bang for my XBOX buck!

Kiss Kiss,

Dawngrrl Gametart

I couldn’t be any more excited by the hype and hoopla surrounding Ubisoft’s recently released Assassin’s Creed. No matter how the game fairs in the hands of the critical gamers en masse (Dawngrrl Review forthcoming – 2 hrs in!) it is the stunning production value that garners my girly girl attention. That’s right my beloved playfellows, Assasin’s Creed was produced by the stunning Jade Raymond, a chic chick; a smart, swanky, sexy gamer grrl!

Apparently, one summer found her indoors where she diddled a controller day in and day out, the result of which was a drive to make games herself.  Raymond went on to get a computer science degree from McGill University in Quebec, and her first job was programming games for Sony. A few years later, she moved into a producer role at EA, and she has since been producing games. “She’s French-Canadian. Somedays, she’s mostly Canadian and can be quite pleasant. Today, she’s obviously French.” Name that movie?  How much French vs. Canadian influence goes into her career may be a mystery, but the work she produces certainly puts her in the same arena as the testosterone filled influential of the gaming world, and all I can say to that is “Bravo honey!”

Raymond spends most of her surf time on Engadget, Bluesnews and Gamespot and her tube time shared between Lost, Alias, 24, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and Six Feet Under. While I found her list of game favs a bit narrow (Resident Evil 4, Prince of Persia Sands of Time, Intelligent Cube, Tekken 3, Incredible Crisis, PaRappa the Rappa, Zelda: Ocarina of Time), I can admit to a love of Resident Evil and Price of Persia myself, and only wonder if Assasins Creed will make it on that list. 

There has been lots of press around this pretty poppet and along with it some vulgar comics of her slob knobbing some nasties. I can’t say I am surprised, in fact, it’s almost a rite of passage, or a hazing so to speak. She made it to a niche place in the gaming world, and being rewarded with pornographic reference material is par at best. My guess is that she’ll get over it, I certainly would. Ubisoft has her back, and hell, maybe she’ll get to date the Master Chief or Altair himself. 

Gamer girls are not all sitting around in sweatshirts, ponytails, and converse high tops.  We wear make up, like shiny things, cry at sad movies and still love to blow things up with a grenade launcher.  Jade Raymond is a perfect example; she’s hot, girly, and she plays (and produces) video games.  That is what makes this honey my crush of the month!

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Sometimes when I finish a game I am left with a sense of excitement and accomplishment.  Sometimes I am even filled with a kind of satisfied euphoria and in rare cases I have been known to feel a sense of loss that the game is over, wishing it would go on  - a statement of our game/gamer relationship. 

Last night when I finished Condemned I was left with an overwhelming feeling of … ambivalence.    Overall, it was okay, it just never managed to get any better then good.  The story line has gaps that don’t really explain what’s going on in the world, which leads your imagination on a wild goose chase to nowhere. 

It’s interesting to note that I first peeked at Condemned many months ago, and not immediately grabbing my attention, it went back on the game shelf, untouched for a long time.  I only picked it back up after reading a blog on gamespot by chap who was playing it for its creep factor. 

So, onto the deets:  while I admit that its a scary ride with some definite “ewww” moments, if the story line would have been opened up and extended, I’m sure my girly fright senses could have been tickled the right way.  You begin the game as Ethan Thomas an FBI Agent with Serial Crimes Unit.  You’re not very good looking, and your character is sluggish and seems like he has a bad hangover throughout the entire game.  I like my heroes to be heroic, or at least hot, or have some sense of interest or attraction.  This guy could have been picked up in the low IQ section of the homeless shelter.   

The game begins on an assignment: where after a series of shooting and chasing through a very unfortunate area of town you find yourself implicated in a bunch of murders.   So you run off on you own to find the real killer.  This opens the connection with a chick from the forensic lab via video phone who helps you to analyze evidence.  She for some reason thinks you innocent and through the rest of the game pops in and out with unrealistic reports from the unrealistic tools you use to collect data and send to her.  .  The game in its entirety is devoid of anything sexy, leaving even her character cludgy and unfeminine in every way.  This was an opening for some kind aesthetic  appeal, but then, I like a little pretty with my putrid.  Not here, Condemned is ugly through and through, from the dark dirty depressing rotting streets, to the feces smeared bathrooms and blood soaked buildings, it’s a grossly gory atmosphere that somehow made me feel like washing my hands everytime I put the controller down. 

If you could hear my thoughts during gameplay, it would sound something like this: 

What the hell is wrong with everybody?  Why is there a weird corpse chopping butcher in the middle of the game?  Why are peoples arms missing, and why do all the baddies look like they’ve been soaked in acid?   Ewww, that’s gross, I don’t want to reach in there.  Why does the serial killer keep letting me live?  Maybe he isn’t the serial killer.  Damn he’s ugly. Who is the killer?  What’s that flashback?  Is that me?  Who is that? Am I the killer?  Ohhhhh that would be exciting if I was the killer!  Maybe I am the killer!  Oh I’m not the killer, damn.  Why does that guy have nails in his head?  Oh he’s the evil.  Is this Hellraiser?  Who am I?  Where’s the last damn bird carcass?  What?  I don’t understand.  That was really gross.  What the fuck is that ninja doing in the game?   Who’s the killer?  The killer is killing killers.  Am I a killer?   No, I am not the killer, damn.  I wanna be a Ninja. 

The fighting isn’t bad; you select weapons as you go picking up shelves, pipes, 2×4’s with nails in them, and occasionally run across one of several firearm varietal’s.  Your armed with a taser gun that will stun your baddies for a few seconds while you brutally bash their heads in. 

You collect birds, 6 in each chapter and metal pieces, 3 in each chapter for achievement awards along with other things like badges and such.  Pretty much that’s it.  I certainly would say it has a uniqueness about it, in that I’ve never played a game quite like it, but ultimately I feel sullied by its nastiness and confused by its teasing incomplete story line that never let’s you finish your business.   Dirty Birdy.

Kiss Kiss,

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