World of Warcraft; Its Legacy and How It Affects Us
Aubrey Arnold
Like most people, before you play World of Warcraft (called WoW by players), you may hear that it ruins lives… or that people have gone to rehab for it… Which, although I haven’t confirmed his and frankly don’t have the time to search that kind of thing, may be true. Sadly, people who don’t like video games or have only heard a little about it (AKA Haters) all seem to believe that all the people who play it are creepy, pimply dorks with no social interaction and online girlfriends.
However, it has revolutionized online MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online)and continues to blow away competition. I personally have played WoW and the new MMO, Aion, and even though Aion is vastly superior graphics-wise, it just isn’t the same. WoW seems to have a free, social atmosphere whereas Aion is very serious and dull. Someone helped you? Great. Thanks. Bye. In WoW, people start stupid conversations about sparkly horses and Russia. I mean, come on; sparkly horses and Russia. Even social recluses have the courage to add in on that.
The gameplay is simple, but the options are endless. You can skip spells, decide not to pay your trainer because you’re dirt poor and skip spells, or you can be smart and learn as many spells as possible so you don’t end up like my character (dirt poor), all the while gathering and storing as much gold as possible. Gold is important, and if you don’t have it you can get stuck in a rut. However, there are always some people who are generally very nice and have lots of money, and they may give you some.
Also, your guildmates, if you’re in a good guild, will always help you out. A guild is a group you can join- or form your own! A guild can be important, but if you’re joining on your should consider if it’s an established guild or not. If it isn’t, and is very small and inactive, you may want to leave and find a new one.
Overall, WoW is a great game. It’s rated T for Tweens- ARGH ANGRY PARENTS AHH!- Ahem, Teen, but this is mostly due to idiots online that don’t mind their language. If you decide to play it, don’t forget it’s only 15$ a month! … I think.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Final Fantasy XIII
Final Fantasy. Again? Really? Another one? Well, yes. And for one of those RPG-ers like me, it’s great! Just like the rest of the series, the storyline is completely different than the others, but you can still use summons and some of those great items like Phoenix Downs (Because you know that you won’t get anywhere without them)!
The storyline, again continuing the Final Fantasy tradition of being original, is set on a floating land called Cocoon, which is completely cut off from the world below, Pulse. The citizens of Cocoon are taught to fear and despise Pulse. When a fal’Cie called Anima, a entity of Pulse, is found in Cocoon, the corrupt government initiates a military Purge of the people who had been in the vicinity of the fal’Cie. They claim to be moving the Purgees to Pulse, but their real intentions are more deadly than they appear.
First up, I’ll talk about the gameplay. I won’t lie, it’s not that impressive. It’s very linear; you won’t be able to go just anywhere and there aren’t any side paths. The battle system is very challenging, and you’d better read up and work on your strategy if you want to win. As always, the regular battles are not that bad, but gods help you in boss battles. Final Fantasy has a habit of making you work for your victories, and this is no exception. In battle, it’s a fixed arena and you have an Active Time Battle meter that has sections for each attack you issue. You can queue up commands while the meter fills. The older Cure, Fire, Blizzard, etcetera return to aid you as well. A new function called the Paradigm Shift also is being used in the battle system. When you change your Paradigm, each party member (up to three characters are in your party at any given time) changes a ‘class’ of sorts, the classes being Ravager, Medic, Commando, Saboteur, Synergist, and Sentinel.
To sum this all up, Final Fantasy XIII in a visually stunning game with an interesting concept that still fails to break free of certain restraining traditions of the Final Fantasy line. I would suggest that you should play it if you like RPGs, love pretty cutscenes (like me), or are one of those people that have owned every Final Fantasy game ever and absolutely must have it will spontaneously explode… whew, I ran out of breath just writing that. So, before I get brains all over my keyboard, I’d like all you kiddies out there to know that Final Fantasy XIII is rated T for trees and- oh, wait. Darn it! I got it wrong again (We apologise for your inconvienience. The author has been sacked, even though she was supposedly sacked a while ago. Final Fantasy XIII is rated T for Teen.)!
The storyline, again continuing the Final Fantasy tradition of being original, is set on a floating land called Cocoon, which is completely cut off from the world below, Pulse. The citizens of Cocoon are taught to fear and despise Pulse. When a fal’Cie called Anima, a entity of Pulse, is found in Cocoon, the corrupt government initiates a military Purge of the people who had been in the vicinity of the fal’Cie. They claim to be moving the Purgees to Pulse, but their real intentions are more deadly than they appear.
First up, I’ll talk about the gameplay. I won’t lie, it’s not that impressive. It’s very linear; you won’t be able to go just anywhere and there aren’t any side paths. The battle system is very challenging, and you’d better read up and work on your strategy if you want to win. As always, the regular battles are not that bad, but gods help you in boss battles. Final Fantasy has a habit of making you work for your victories, and this is no exception. In battle, it’s a fixed arena and you have an Active Time Battle meter that has sections for each attack you issue. You can queue up commands while the meter fills. The older Cure, Fire, Blizzard, etcetera return to aid you as well. A new function called the Paradigm Shift also is being used in the battle system. When you change your Paradigm, each party member (up to three characters are in your party at any given time) changes a ‘class’ of sorts, the classes being Ravager, Medic, Commando, Saboteur, Synergist, and Sentinel.
To sum this all up, Final Fantasy XIII in a visually stunning game with an interesting concept that still fails to break free of certain restraining traditions of the Final Fantasy line. I would suggest that you should play it if you like RPGs, love pretty cutscenes (like me), or are one of those people that have owned every Final Fantasy game ever and absolutely must have it will spontaneously explode… whew, I ran out of breath just writing that. So, before I get brains all over my keyboard, I’d like all you kiddies out there to know that Final Fantasy XIII is rated T for trees and- oh, wait. Darn it! I got it wrong again (We apologise for your inconvienience. The author has been sacked, even though she was supposedly sacked a while ago. Final Fantasy XIII is rated T for Teen.)!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
April Fools Article
PlayStation 4
Just Because You Want It Doesn’t Mean You Can Have It
This September, Sony has announced what we’ve all waited, dreamed, and screamed fangirlishly/ fanboyishly for: The Sony PlayStation 4. After the release of PlayStation 3, Sony has worked hard on its successor, the PS4. Of course, we all wonder: what could possibly get better? Well, I’m here with answers for once. That’s right kids, I finally am being productive. So shut up and listen.
The PlayStation 4 is everything its predecessor was but better. The graphics have evolved into even more realistic and breathtaking visuals, again beating out Microsoft for best graphics. Microsoft was face-palming in grief, resulting in numerous nose injuries. But after the blood was ShamWow-ed off the conference tables, Sony celebrated by telling us a little more about the new system.
“We decided that the old controllers were getting, well, old; we made new ones that track movements better, with a lot less buttons. Older players were complaining about ‘all the newfangled buttons’, so we decided to cut down,” says one of the designers working on the project. The programmers are eager for mass-production to begin so that they don’t have to do as much work.
“They can get a little annoyed with the designers ordering them around every moment with, ‘program this, program that’, so now that we’re officially releasing the system a few months from now they’ll get a long-awaited rest,” a programmer’s family explains kindly. Now we know why games have bugs. It’s Programmer’s Revenge. Anyway, with the blood and tears of the programmers, we now have an almost entirely bug-free system with insane graphics.
Hopefully, this new system will herald in a new era of gaming for us. And if Final Fantasy XIV sucks, blame it on Microsoft for once.
Just Because You Want It Doesn’t Mean You Can Have It
This September, Sony has announced what we’ve all waited, dreamed, and screamed fangirlishly/ fanboyishly for: The Sony PlayStation 4. After the release of PlayStation 3, Sony has worked hard on its successor, the PS4. Of course, we all wonder: what could possibly get better? Well, I’m here with answers for once. That’s right kids, I finally am being productive. So shut up and listen.
The PlayStation 4 is everything its predecessor was but better. The graphics have evolved into even more realistic and breathtaking visuals, again beating out Microsoft for best graphics. Microsoft was face-palming in grief, resulting in numerous nose injuries. But after the blood was ShamWow-ed off the conference tables, Sony celebrated by telling us a little more about the new system.
“We decided that the old controllers were getting, well, old; we made new ones that track movements better, with a lot less buttons. Older players were complaining about ‘all the newfangled buttons’, so we decided to cut down,” says one of the designers working on the project. The programmers are eager for mass-production to begin so that they don’t have to do as much work.
“They can get a little annoyed with the designers ordering them around every moment with, ‘program this, program that’, so now that we’re officially releasing the system a few months from now they’ll get a long-awaited rest,” a programmer’s family explains kindly. Now we know why games have bugs. It’s Programmer’s Revenge. Anyway, with the blood and tears of the programmers, we now have an almost entirely bug-free system with insane graphics.
Hopefully, this new system will herald in a new era of gaming for us. And if Final Fantasy XIV sucks, blame it on Microsoft for once.
Friday, January 15, 2010
BioShock, I Shall Not Forget
When a game wins Game of the Year, there’s a reason. In this case, the reason is staring us in the face: it’s the whole thing. The whole game is an intricate weave of plotline and gameplay and Little Sisters. It’s a bloody, wonderful kaleidoscope of a realistic plot that screams in the face of society. Of course, with such a realistic setting, this game, which is for the PlayStation3 and Xbox 360, is indeed rated M. I certainly do not recommend this game for younger players. Parental discretion is advised, but it is mostly for blood, gore, general creepiness, and language.
The gameplay is simple: a first-person shooter with the added benefit of plasmids, which are genetic up-grades that let you use special powers like shooting fire from your fingertips (my dad, who played this game, quite enjoyed using this… a little too much). This opens up a surreal aspect that is brought down but the trashed surroundings of Rapture, a supposed utopia built by a man named Andrew Ryan. Ryan had created the ‘perfect society’, a place where no one relies on another, and the individual rules all. People who live above Rapture, which is beneath the Atlantic Ocean, are called ‘parasites’ and shunned by Ryan and his followers.
But alas, this so-called ‘utopia’ comes crashing down upon itself, and begins to destroy itself as people begin to join groups opposing Ryan’s power, such as a smuggler named Frank Fontaine. Then, in a plane crash over the Atlantic, the main character swims to a mysterious entrance leading down into the sea. Thus he comes to rapture, now run-down and populated by splicers, who have over-used plasmids and the substance used to use them, called ADAM. Splicers are extremely aggressive and murdered the rest of the human population of Rapture during its’ bloody civil war. They have become deformed and hideous from excessive ‘splicing’, which is the act of injecting oneself with a plasmid and ADAM abusively, much like drug addicts only more dangerous.
As the main character, named Jack, you learn about yourself and you soon discover that you must make the decision to save the remnants of humanity in Rapture or merely survive with disregard to their future. So it’s up to you now. Will you become a killing machine, with only your own safety cutting off your morals; or will you risk your own life to attempt to save Rapture’s future from those who would use and kill them? With danger literally around every corner and the looming shadow of conspiracy and betrayal above your head, what will you choose?
Survival or heroism?
The shadows or the light, which still filters through the grimy windows and water of the Atlantic Ocean’s depths?
The gameplay is simple: a first-person shooter with the added benefit of plasmids, which are genetic up-grades that let you use special powers like shooting fire from your fingertips (my dad, who played this game, quite enjoyed using this… a little too much). This opens up a surreal aspect that is brought down but the trashed surroundings of Rapture, a supposed utopia built by a man named Andrew Ryan. Ryan had created the ‘perfect society’, a place where no one relies on another, and the individual rules all. People who live above Rapture, which is beneath the Atlantic Ocean, are called ‘parasites’ and shunned by Ryan and his followers.
But alas, this so-called ‘utopia’ comes crashing down upon itself, and begins to destroy itself as people begin to join groups opposing Ryan’s power, such as a smuggler named Frank Fontaine. Then, in a plane crash over the Atlantic, the main character swims to a mysterious entrance leading down into the sea. Thus he comes to rapture, now run-down and populated by splicers, who have over-used plasmids and the substance used to use them, called ADAM. Splicers are extremely aggressive and murdered the rest of the human population of Rapture during its’ bloody civil war. They have become deformed and hideous from excessive ‘splicing’, which is the act of injecting oneself with a plasmid and ADAM abusively, much like drug addicts only more dangerous.
As the main character, named Jack, you learn about yourself and you soon discover that you must make the decision to save the remnants of humanity in Rapture or merely survive with disregard to their future. So it’s up to you now. Will you become a killing machine, with only your own safety cutting off your morals; or will you risk your own life to attempt to save Rapture’s future from those who would use and kill them? With danger literally around every corner and the looming shadow of conspiracy and betrayal above your head, what will you choose?
Survival or heroism?
The shadows or the light, which still filters through the grimy windows and water of the Atlantic Ocean’s depths?
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Shiro
This is my OC, Shiro. This has nothing to do with Journalism, by the way. This is for fanfiction.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The Book Thief- First Article
There are some books that just hit you with a hammer and watch you struggle. The Book Thief is one such book. In this touching, horrifying novel, you follow a girl named Liesel as she lives in Nazi Germany. In this book; though; there is a twist: there’s a Jew in Liesel’s basement, in her foster parent’s German house on a German street in a Nazi world. Liesel’s beloved Papa (Hans Hubermann) keeps his promises, even when it means endangering his life- along with his family’s in the process. The Jew, a young man named Max, changes Liesel’s life in ways that bring death, fear, and love on to her doorstep.
Markus Zusak writes with halting intensity, and the small footnotes and simple yet haunting artwork (courtesy a la Max) add even more intrigue and heartbreaking detail. It’s an important lesson for all people: This was a work of fiction, but yet so breathtaking in its truthful, human story of surviving during the Holocaust and persevering through Death’s grasp. Coincidentally, the narrator himself is someone that Liesel and her close ones encounter frequently: Death.
Through Death’s insightful storytelling, Liesel, her foster parents, and her friends come alive in a way that only true master authors can accomplish. I recommend this book for any person, adult or teen, to read (I don’t, however, recommend this for younger children). The story will grip you; don’t forget to keep your tissues near… or else.
Markus Zusak writes with halting intensity, and the small footnotes and simple yet haunting artwork (courtesy a la Max) add even more intrigue and heartbreaking detail. It’s an important lesson for all people: This was a work of fiction, but yet so breathtaking in its truthful, human story of surviving during the Holocaust and persevering through Death’s grasp. Coincidentally, the narrator himself is someone that Liesel and her close ones encounter frequently: Death.
Through Death’s insightful storytelling, Liesel, her foster parents, and her friends come alive in a way that only true master authors can accomplish. I recommend this book for any person, adult or teen, to read (I don’t, however, recommend this for younger children). The story will grip you; don’t forget to keep your tissues near… or else.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
flower: Proving that Sometimes the Simplest Art is the Most Meaningful.
flower: Proving that Sometimes the Simplest Art is the Most Meaningful.
By Aubrey Arnold
Flowers. Before any of you boys reading this run away screaming, I am indeed talking about a video game. The successor of the apparently serene flOw (I have never played it), flower is a stunning visual poem that can both make you smile and give you the chills.
When my dad called me over and told me he’d bought something really cool called ‘flower’, I’d given him a funny look as he walked away into the TV room. I’ve never been so wrong in my life. If you’re hating on it because of the title, leave now or I’ll tape you to a chair and make you play it. The controls master the SixAxis controller’s true powers, unlike a similar attempt that I will call Lame (This is a reference to the controls in a game called Lair- good concept, bad execution. Please, please remake it!).
Indeed, the only button ever used in the game is your choice- you can use your choice of the x, the triangle, the square, or the circle. This is used for the sole purpose of acceleration. Other than that, it’s freestyle flying with the controller! Fulfill your dreams of flying with flower and never again dream of being a flying wind- flower petal- thing ever again! The only issue is that it is much to short.
I may call the meager amount of levels short, but it is by no means sweet. The first two levels will have you in your happy place, but beware of the saddest level I’ve ever played that will jump you and strangle your happy place until it is reduced to smoldering ashes. This game is a ‘visual poem’, and it doesn’t need sob-sob cut scenes and character deaths to make you feel like crap. At first, you explore open fields and beautiful scenic landscapes, but as you approach civilization in the later levels, the tone changes drastically. Liberate sunken buildings, paint them bright colors, and get rid of those ugly old iron things, for Gods’ sake!
This game is (in my opinion) rated E for everyone. Just beware of the scary levels that made me want to scream and run away. Yeah. This time, the kiddies can’t get me… RUN! OH MY GOD THEY ARE COMING, NO!... See you next time.
By Aubrey Arnold
Flowers. Before any of you boys reading this run away screaming, I am indeed talking about a video game. The successor of the apparently serene flOw (I have never played it), flower is a stunning visual poem that can both make you smile and give you the chills.
When my dad called me over and told me he’d bought something really cool called ‘flower’, I’d given him a funny look as he walked away into the TV room. I’ve never been so wrong in my life. If you’re hating on it because of the title, leave now or I’ll tape you to a chair and make you play it. The controls master the SixAxis controller’s true powers, unlike a similar attempt that I will call Lame (This is a reference to the controls in a game called Lair- good concept, bad execution. Please, please remake it!).
Indeed, the only button ever used in the game is your choice- you can use your choice of the x, the triangle, the square, or the circle. This is used for the sole purpose of acceleration. Other than that, it’s freestyle flying with the controller! Fulfill your dreams of flying with flower and never again dream of being a flying wind- flower petal- thing ever again! The only issue is that it is much to short.
I may call the meager amount of levels short, but it is by no means sweet. The first two levels will have you in your happy place, but beware of the saddest level I’ve ever played that will jump you and strangle your happy place until it is reduced to smoldering ashes. This game is a ‘visual poem’, and it doesn’t need sob-sob cut scenes and character deaths to make you feel like crap. At first, you explore open fields and beautiful scenic landscapes, but as you approach civilization in the later levels, the tone changes drastically. Liberate sunken buildings, paint them bright colors, and get rid of those ugly old iron things, for Gods’ sake!
This game is (in my opinion) rated E for everyone. Just beware of the scary levels that made me want to scream and run away. Yeah. This time, the kiddies can’t get me… RUN! OH MY GOD THEY ARE COMING, NO!... See you next time.
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