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2005 Holiday Gift Guide

Happy shopping and Merry Christmas!!!

Wolfclaw II Gaming Keyboard Price: $49.00 US Company: PD Scientific Pte. Ltd Website: www.wolf-claw.com Editor's Rating: These days it's not hard to find keyboards designed for specific types of users. Gaming keyboards are designed to give gamers an edge over the competition with special key designs and layouts. The Wolfclaw II is one of these specially designed keyboards for gamers. The ergonomic key design is specifically for FPS gaming. The intent is to put things in a pattern or shape that makes it faster and easier to operate. The arc layout is a nice style to keep your fingers in a normal gaming position without much stretching. Although the specialized key pad is missing some default keys used in some games like the Y key, you will find the Wolfclaw II a great tool for your gaming arsenal. It is the same size as a normal multimedia keyboard, but has the game pad on left instead of the numberpad on the right side like normal keyboards. After you are done gaming, you still have a useful keyboard that is quiet and has several other useful features such as 8 multimedia buttons on the top and two integrated USB ports. Picking up the Wolfclaw II for normal computer usage or for gaming with such titles as Quake 4 or Call of Duty 2, would make any gamer happy this Christmas!
	Call of Duty 2 PC Version Price: $44.90 US at GoGamer.com Company: Activision Website: www.activision.com Editor's Rating: Call of Duty 2 redefines the cinematic intensity and chaos of battle as seen through the eyes of ordinary soldiers fighting together in epic WWII conflicts. The sequel to 2003's Call of Duty, winner of over 80 Game of the Year awards, Call of Duty 2 offers more immense, more intense, more realistic battles than ever before, thanks to the stunning visuals of the new COD2 engine. Last Christmas we were recommending you consider the original Call of Duty for your gift list. This year, no gamer will want to be without Call of Duty 2. The game paces itself so that you're always on your toes, and you'll find yourself switching back and forth almost constantly from an offensive position to making a defensive stand against counterattacks on the objective you've just captured. One aspect of gameplay that has changed since the first Call of Duty is that you no longer have a health bar. As you get shot, you'll see the screen growing more and more red along the borders and your character will start to grunt and pant. If you continue to take damage in a short span of time, you die. So as you get shot that first or second time, you need to get yourself back to cover and hide for a couple of seconds to recover. Once your vision clears, you're good to go again. After you have mastered all of the single player missions, on-line Multiplayer will provide you hours of gaming fun as with the original game. What better way to master your Wolfclaw II gaming keyboard than to spend hours of your free time playing Call of Duty 2.
Call of Duty 2 : Big Red One XBOX Version Price: $49.82 US at WalMart.com Company: Activision Website: www.activision.com Editor's Rating: For those of you out there that prefer console gaming over PC gaming, Activision has made sure that whatever platform you are on you have a Call of Duty 2 game. For the XBOX it is Call of Duty 2 : Big Red One. Experience the adrenaline rush and harsh realities of war as never before, get to know your squadmates, and fight alongside them through an epic story during the most harrowing moments of WWII. As a part of America's most decorated and heroic fighting unit, The Big Red One, you'll work together with your squad to accomplish a variety of combat missions spanning North Africa, Italy, and Nazi-occupied Western Europe. The single player version of Big Red One is a little short and doesn't take a long time to battle your way to the end. The focus is to work as a squad, so you pretty much always have someone watching your back and at times seem to also get in the way. The game play is very polished while you are entrenched in the fighting and once you finish the single player levels you can spend time online as it is LIVE enabled. For the XBOX fanatic that isn't ready to move to the new generation of hardware, Call of Duty 2 : Big Red One will make an excellent gift choice.
	Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 500GB Hard Disk Drive Price: $369.99 US at TigerDirect.com Company: Hitachi Website: www.hitachigst.com Editor's Rating: As the digital age moves on, each of us is collecting more and more files that we store on our computers. Whether it is music, moves, pictures, or just running the latest and greatest software and games, our PCs are running out of storage space. Hitachi is here to help with their new 500GB hard disk drive. Running at 7200 RPM and available in both Parallel ATA and Serial ATA II, this drive will quickly give you access to anything and everything you could possibly think to store on it. The SATA drive is also backward compatible for most of us running SATA 1.0 systems still. But with a quick update of the drive, you can take advantage of the 3.0 Gb/s transfer speeds of SATA II when your system supports it. Like all Deskstars, the 7K500 claims a relatively aggressive 8.5 millisecond average seek time. It is the first of Hitachi's drives to feature a larger 16-megabyte buffer similar to those found in competing designs. The drive leverages a five-platter design with higher-density 100-gigabyte platters and was the first half-terabyte drive to hit the market. With the increased storage space comes added heat. So make sure you keep this drive cool. Doing so will ensure all the massive amounts of data you can store on this thing will be safe. The overall cost per GB of space is very low with this drive making it a great gift idea for that person in your life that could use the extra storage space.
Polaroid 10" Portable DVD Player Price: $284.90 US at Amazon.com Company: Polaroid Website: www.polaroid.com Editor's Rating: Anytime you have to go on the road it is nice to be able to take movies along with you. If you have kids it's almost a necessity these days. I know everyone on my shopping list would love this Portable DVD Player from Polaroid. The massive 10" screen is great for watching movies. Everyone gets a crystal-clear view of the player because it has a 180 degree rotating screen. You can watch or listen to DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD, CD-R/RW, or view your latest vacation pictures on JPEG discs. The sound is great too, with a built-in Dolby Digital Decoder and stereo speakers. And don’t worry if your adventures are filled with bumpy roads, a built-in ESP function gives you an uninterrupted picture even while you’re in motion. Dual headphone jacks let two people listen at the same time as well. It even comes with all the cables and a travel case so you can use it in the car or at a hotel or where ever your travels take you.

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