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New Tomb Raider????

2010-05-06T12:27:00.000-07:00

Hell YES! There are some leaks that Eidos is working on the next action adventure packed game with lovely Ms Lara Croft. Lara is supposed to get a make over and game suppose to move toward horror survival category which is SOOOO SWEEEET!
Unofficial Story:
"UNOFFICIAL STORY
When a sudden storm destroys her research vessel, a young and inexperienced Lara Croft finds herself stranded on a mysterious and remote island hidden off the shores of Japan. Despite several signs of various inhabitants the island is oddly deserted, and an uneasy feeling settles in as strange sounds emerge from the shadows.

With only her determination, inner strength, and resourcefulness to help her, Lara must overcome the challenges of a harsh and unforgiving journey that will take her across a vast island wilderness and deep into the claustrophobic and menacing underground tombs from the island's past.

As she struggles to prevail through brutal combat encounters and treacherous exploration, Lara will be pushed to her limits and forced to adapt to her situation in order to survive and escape from the lethal predators that stalk her every move."
source: gamespot.com

My Brute

2010-01-28T09:45:00.000-08:00

Click on the link and fight me! if you dare :)
http://himera81.mybrute.com/

Stay Alive

2009-12-01T09:07:00.000-08:00

Aren't you glad Thanksgiving is over? well, I am. Too much food, too much boring conversations, too much family ... :)
Over the long weekend I watched "Stay Alive". it's not a new movie but for some reason i haven't had a chance to watch it when it first came out in 2006. the movie is about the game - Stay Alive where players visit creepy house with creepy surroundings (who has cemetery in the backyard? :D) where evil countess Elizabeth Bathory used to live. the players, well, have to stay alive, if they die in the game they die in the real live.
i really liked how the game looked, the graphics, level of creepiness, you almost thought it was too good looking. the movie had it's scary moments, especially at the beginning. those who played horror/ survival games know how freaked and jumpy you can get while playing the game. storyline was ok but they could go deeper with the creation of the game - they answered the question why but not who. but at the end i think the movie is worth watching.

X-Blades

2009-11-19T07:16:00.000-08:00

Might this be my new favorite game with female character?

yesterday I played demo on my Xbox360 and i liked it so much that i right away bought the game online. once i have the whole game i can tell more but so far...

main character is Ayumi. Ayumi like Lara Croft is an adventurer which collects artifact. but the similarities do not end there. game locations are similar in both - ancient ruins. game is also 3rd person shooter. both ladies fight with pistols (Ayumi actually with sword/pistols), both are hot:), and they both have bad girl attitude. Similarities end there. Ayumi is blonde and wears much less clothes than Lara. I guess that was especially done to draw male players. Ayumi besides regular weapons has also power to perform certain spells like earthquace and shooting fireball which looks quite spectacular. the whole game is very dynamic and has nice visuals. controlling Ayumi is very easy.

I was really stunned to see that the game got such a low reviewes but my today's opinion is based on demo so we will see if it changes...

Halloween and after Halloween

2009-11-17T08:15:00.000-08:00

Halloween came and passed and i was left with some nice memories of the Halloween party and few good horror movies. I recently started watching Tales from the Crypt. I highly recommend it! Each episode is about 30 minutes long. The intro to each episode is done by the Crypt Keeper, quite entertaining fella :).

here are some pics from my Halloween Bash!

2009-11-04T13:18:00.000-08:00

this is the song that i'm currently obsessing about - Muse Uprising:

http://www.youtube.com/user/muse?blend=2&ob=1#p/a/0/w8KQmps-Sog

Left 4 Dead

2009-07-23T12:14:00.000-07:00

L4D is a first person shooter survival type of game. you are playing one of 4 survivors who managed not to get infected by virus that changes peoples to zombies. yep, i know, it was done before:) however what is really cool about this game is that you get to play with your buddies on split screen (big TV is recommended). in my case it was my nephew currently visiting from Poland.

Ladies will be happy to know that there is a female character - Zoe.

There are four campaigns available of which each contains few chapters. the locations are really creepy and zombies comparing to Resident Evil prior games run at you, they do not walk.

there is a horde - mass attack by zombies, hunter - jumps on you unexpectedly, smoker-gets you by his long tongue, boomer - if shoot to closely spills some king of slime on you, Tank - huge sob, hard to kill, witch - silent but deadly if bothered.

i rate this game quite high because it is a lot of fun to play along with somebody and XBox360 has really very few games with local multi player.

True Blood

2009-06-04T08:39:00.000-07:00

The first season recently showed up on DVD and BlueRay.

I am on the 6th episode (12 total) and i have to tell ya this show just blowed my mind!

I am into scary stuff but not particularly into vampires although when i was younger i loved Buffy :) Anyway I hesitated before watching the first episode but eventually cave in after persuasion from my boss. I am hooked!

True Blood takes place in the small Louisiana town where nothing really exciting happens until Bill - the vampire comes back to the town after his last living relative dies. the story goes around the relationship between Bill and Sookie - the waitress at the local bar, Sam - Sookie's boss and Tara - Sookie's best friend, and Jason - Sookie's brother with many partners. Town also is strucked by murders of women who get acquainted with the vampires.

True Blood is actually the name of the synthetic blood which replaces the real blood and now vampires do not have to attack people to feed:)

anyway, seriously, you should watch this show.

Survival games

2009-05-18T15:33:00.000-07:00

Resident Evil is a type of the survival game but about the game later...

not so long ago my boss and I were wondering about a good horror/survival game. since the new Nightmare on the Elm street is in the production we thought about the move where you are Freddy. you are the mastermind behind best scenarios of the deadly dreams where you scare, attack and eventually kill terrified teenagers. this would be really cool don't ya think?

Study Shows Playing Video Games Improves Women’s Spatial Skills

2009-05-12T12:32:00.000-07:00

I thought this might be interesting to read:)

By Shawn on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 at 12:15 PM PST
In Gamer Life, Games
Need a convincing argument to get your girlfriend, wife or daughter into gaming, or are you a girl gamer that needs extra leverage with your parents? A study at the University of Toronto has indicated that just a few hours of video game play can improve spatial awareness in females.
The research, to be published in the October issue of Psychological Science, suggests that a new approach involving action video games can be used to improve spatial skills. Women have been proven to test lower than men on spatial awareness based skills such as reading a map, driving a car, assembling a barbeque or learning advanced math. However the gap can be closed.
Our first experiment discovered a previously unknown sex difference in spatial attention,” said Jing Feng, a psychology doctoral student and lead author of the study. “On average, women are not quite as good at rapidly switching attention among different objects and this may be one reason why women do not do as well on spatial tasks. But more important than finding that difference, our second experiment showed that both men and women can improve their spatial skills by playing a video game and that the women catch up to the men,” Feng added. “Moreover, the improved performance of both sexes was maintained when we assessed them again after five months.”
Professor Ian Spence, director of the engineering psychology laboratory in the Department of Psychology, theorizes that playing action video games may actually trigger previously inactive genes that are crucial in developing neural pathways necessary for spatial attention.
“Clearly, something dramatic is happening in the brain when we see marked improvements in spatial skills after only 10 hours of game playing and these improvements are maintained for many months.”
Professor Spence expresses hope that video game training could help to encourage more young women to enter the mathematical sciences and engineering which are still male dominated fields.

Virtual Fighter 5 Online (Xbox360)

2009-05-12T07:37:00.000-07:00

VF belongs to 3D fighting game. two opponents equipped with amazing martial arts skills fight each other until one of them is knocked out. to win the fight one of the fighters has to win two rounds. rounds are usually 30 seconds long.

there is a variety of fighters that player can choose from. each fighter has its own bio and it's more interesting if we first get familiar with the fighter before choosing him/her. yes, i said her, girls are there! :D each fighter also presents variety of skills; for instance; Sarah Bryant's Martial Arts style includes Karate, Teakwondo, and Savate style.

before getting in actual arcade the player has a choice of practicing moves in training mode.

the further you get in the arcade the better opponents you will face.

what i like about the game is well the fact that you can choose to be female fighter. Sarah was actually my prime choice. you can even change the outfit. the graphics are really neat. the way the characters move is very impressive. there is a two players mode which is nice to actually play against human. before going online i recommend practicing for some time because they are really good out there and they can kick your butt in two simple moves :)

being able to control your character the way you want needs lots of practice, at least for me but it is forth it. if you are a Martial Arts fan just as I am then you will love this game.

i used to play Dead or Alive (not quite sure which part) long time ago on Sega and it basically has the same concept as VF.

Star Trek

2009-05-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

this post is off topic about my other passion - movies, especially scary ones, although Star Trek does not really belong to this category i thought i would give it the acknowledgement it deserves.

over the weekend i went to see Star Trek, I'm not a fan of the movie nor the sci fi category but i was allured by the commercials of the movie on TV. Special effects looked nice, guys in the movie even better and besides the movie was directed by J.J. Abrams ('LOST' - adore this show) so i thought eh, what the hell? so i grabbed my husband and we went.

this movie keeps you at the edge of your sit from the beginning to the end and it is over 2 hours long. i was actually surprised at myself that i liked the movie so much. here is why?

well, first of all the cast was really well arranged beginning from Chris Pine as James T. Kirk and Zachary Quinto('Heroes' as Sylar) as Spock to John Cho as Hikary Sulu. i aslo have to mention Erica Bana as Nero (the bad guy) which was totally unrecognizable with shaved head and tattoos on his scalp and Karl Urban ('the Bourne Supremacy', 'Doom', 'Pathfinder') as Dr.MacKoy, there was even original Spock (in the movie Spock form the future) played by Leonard Nimoy.

second of all, the special effects - amazing! you go to movie theater to see movies like this.

third of all the story itself. since it is a prequel, movie presents the story since the birth of the Kirk to how he becomes the captain of the Enterprise. we are presented with his rebellious childhood and youth which is very fun to watch. the other person on which story focuses is Spock. Spock is shown as someone torn between his human side where he experiences variety of emotions(his mother is human played by Winona Rider) and his Vulcan side which is very logical and puts emotions on the side. these two at first hate each other but then they become really good friends. story is easy to follow filled with action and funny dialogs.

movie ends with original Spock citing original series motto:

"Space... the Final Frontier, these are the voyages of the star ship Enterprise. Its ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before."

and as a fun comparison - characters of the original movies (top) and new ones (bottom)

Need for Speed: Underground

2009-05-08T08:12:00.000-07:00

the first NFS game was released in 1994. so far 16 games in this series were produced.

i have not played all of them simply because my fascination with racing games was not really high at that point of my live when the first game was released.

in 2003 NFS:U was released and i thought i would give it a try. let me tell you, if you are a chick(and a dude:)) that loves to speed in your own car but for legal reasons :D cannot then you will really like this game.

i loved the idea of simple story where you basically race, get popularity points and higher places at the hierarchy among other racers. NFS:U introduces 3 types of racing: track, drift, and sprint. after each winning you would unlock certain things like having the picture of your car on a cover of the automotive magazine or unlocking cool new things that you could install in your ride. i really enjoyed 'dressing up' my car, changing the color (how does hot pink sound, ha? :D), adding the rims, tinting the windows, putting some graphics on the car, adding neon lights under the car, all that to make your car more flashy:) of course the power of the car is also important. for some reason the best car to handle and the one that had good acceleration and speed was Acura TSX and it was the car that i would choose often.

city at night (named Olympic City) is where racing happens which is really neat. even thought you do not really have time to admire all the nicely done details of the city because of the speed:) it is a huge positive element of the game.

game reminds me of the fast and the furious movie where illegal racing overcome the city at night. if you liked the movie you will like the game.

the negative of the game is no option to choose your character, of course you name your character but naming your character Stephanie will not change your character into a woman, Stephanie will become Stephan. there isn't a lot of interactions in the game with other characters but still being directed as 'dude' or having hot girls hitting on you is not really what straight:) female player wants to hear or see. apparently makers of the game (EA) didn't do enough homework on how popular racing games are among women, yes we like cars too!

and the best part of the game is the soundtrack! the choice of the songs is really great, it gives you that additional power to press that forward arrow (I played it on PC) harder and longer and forgetting about the brakes:) here is some sample:http://musicmp3.ru/soundtrack_need-for-speed-underground.html.

of course i purchased the soundtrack so that i could speed in my own car while looking around and making sure cops are not following me:)

at least intro to the game is showing kicking ass female. enjoy!

Tomb Raider

2009-05-07T06:43:00.000-07:00

the first review goes to .....

the first TR game was released in 1996, it was a bomb! since then 8 additional games were released.

"The level of sophistication Tomb Raider reached by combining state-of-the-art graphics, an
atmospheric soundtrack, and a cinematic approach to gameplay was at the time unprecedented.( Blache III, Fabian; Fielder, Lauren (2002), The History of Tomb Raider: The Games ,GameSpot )."
"The resulting sales were consequential, topping the British charts a record three times,^[7] and contributing much to the success of the PlayStation ("Lara hit in The Face: Article by Miranda Sawyer"; Blache III, Fabian; Fielder, Lauren (2002), The History of Tomb Raider:
Introduction, GameSpot)."

Lara Croft wealthy archaeologists is the main character in this game. She is smart, well spoken, educated, beautiful, and on top of all she has excellent combat and gun usage skills.

Lara is not an average girl but she is what many women want to be:). Throughout the games Lara visits many places in the world where ordinary people would never go

(South America jungles); she fights dangerous and even extinct animals (T-Rex for example:) ) and she always looks flawless in her green tank-top and short shorts.

why do i love the game? and why you should try it if you haven't already.

Tomb Raider is an action-adventure type of the game with the 3rd person shooter which means camera is behing Lara. this way we can see Lara in all her glory and we are able to admire her acrobatic skills.

Tomb Raider takes player on a journey through wonderful and dangerous places. Every corner hides some suprises and the player has to be prepared for everything. Game is filled with different and interesting quests that require you to seriously use your head.

I think Lara is the first female character that kicks ass and still looks gorgeous. Playing female character helps you associate with everything that is happening to Lara.

Controlling Lara on the PC is quite harder than on the XBox360, at least in my opinion; hovewer, i masteredthe conrolling since I walked throught all of the first 8 games on the PC and only the last one Underworld I played on the XBox.

Here is an iteresting pic showing how Lara's appearance changed through time:)

here are some cool websites:

offical: http://www.tombraider.com/

walkthrough, tricks and tips: http://tombraiders.net/stella/

wikipedia TR history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_Raider

Beginnings

2009-05-06T08:45:00.000-07:00

Ahhh yes, the world of video games. I began my journey with Commodore 64 system, then Atari, PC and now finally XBox 360. I love playing games and yes I am 100% female. I will be reviewing best games out there from the perspective of Polish-American me - Kasia.
My adventures with the video games started with the 2D games (of course! :)). My favorite one was Bruce Lee. the purpose of this game was to go as far as you could, fight and kill as many enemies as you could and of course have as much fun as you could:).And I'm thinking now, how the hell this simple 2D game was so entertaining?
Atari introduced me to Prince of Persia and i was amazed how realistic were his moves, when he fought, run, and jumped. there was a real story behind the game which was sooooo cooool. the goal was simple, rescue the princes and the given amount of time and you win.
Til now i love racing games and my very first one was Lotus Turbo Challenge. i remember the thrill and joy of kicking my brother's ass.
my PC's and now also XBOX360 favorite game of all times is TOMB RAIDER. when back in 1996 I first time laid my eyes on the screen of this game and my fingers touched the computer's keyboard to inhale the live into Lara I became addicted to this game. i finished all the TR's parts, some even few times and each time i love this game even more.

So that's my beginnings and just a small sample of the games that i played, finished, and enjoyed.