“Bulls do not win bull fights. People do.” – Norman Ralph Augustine

That’s right, Grinding Down readers. I did it. I did this:

The Bull (25G): You defeated Lawrence Barrett, elite member of a secret mercenary hit squad.

After failing time after time after time–his grenades kill you instantly on the middle difficulty and are quite hard to avoid, considering he throws them in groups of three and the room is small, cramped, with few choice hiding spots–I decided to look up some walkthroughs online to see how others tackled this annoying fellow with a machine gun for a hand. No, not that one. That Barret cusses more. And he would be on my side to begin with, making this boss battle a non-necessity. Anyways, I found a video of someone beat him by tossing a gas canister at him, then an exploding barrel, and then did that twice more, all under sixty seconds. Whaaaaa. Not a single shot was fired, which means that this would be the best way for me to go about it, considering running into the room and trying to equip a lethal weapon was clunky and a waste of time.

Well, it took me three more attempts to figure out the best way to move around the room and toss these deadly items, but I did it. I got him caught in a gas cloud, choking, growling, saying something repeatedly about “playing dirty.” Whatever. You have a gun for a hand. I was so pleased to have finally gotten past this roadblock–and yes, for stealthy players, that’s exactly what he is–that I exclaimed loudly that I had conquered he who seemed unconquerable. Tara was upstairs watching Cheers, but she responded and even gave me some kudos love via Twitter:

According to forum grumblers, there’s a few more of these sorts of boss fights to look forward to. Great. Freaking superb. I can’t wait. However, I do like that this boss battle had two vidoegame references tied to it: Final Fantasy VII and the Metal Gear franchise in calling these elite soldiers The Something. I just didn’t like how it fit into the grand scheme of playing the game. For now, I’m off to China, I think. Well, not me. Jensen is. Place your bets below in the comments on what part I’ll get stuck at next.