Category: Art: All Of It

An area for all things relating to any form of art.

Geometry Dash: A Review

BY LOGAN SCHLOSSER

STAFF WRITER

Howdy to all of you wonderful people! I am once again your host Logan, and welcome to another great game review. Well, great is an opinion I guess. You get to judge if you perceive this article as great or not! Anyways, today I will be talking about a game that is near and dear to my heart. I’m sure you all have at least played this game at some point in your life. Whether it be on a friend’s phone or an overkill computer. This game has caused rage in many of us, often causing “rage quits” and “chucking your controller across the room”. The game in question is of course, Geometry Dash. With that being said, let’s get into it!

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The Pandemic’s Impact on the Gaming Industry

BY LAASYA AKI

STAFF WRITER

Among Us, Minecraft, Fortnite, Roblox – you’ve probably played at least one of these games during the pandemic. Most of us have tried passing time through various methods. One of these methods is gaming, which is an easily accessible way to pass time. It also gives us a way to hang out with our friends virtually. So, we have definitely gained a lot from the gaming industry during the pandemic. But what about the gaming industry? How has it been affected by the pandemic?

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Starbound: A Review

BY LOGAN SCHLOSSER

STAFF WRITER

Hello once again to all of you lovely people at home! Welcome to another installment of ‘I review games, and you read about them’. The games I pick are usually ones that can be played by almost everyone. Be that hardware-wise or the actual content rating of the game. So sit back, grab yourself a nice cup of coffee, and listen to me go off-topic multiple times. Anyways, the game we will be reviewing today is Starbound. Now, Starbound essentially combines the elements of the popular game Terraria and turns it into a space adventure. Now with that out of the way, onto the game!

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Spooky Game Events

BY LOGAN SCHLOSSER

STAFF WRITER

           Hello to all of you wonderful ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the next installment of I Review Games While Sleep Deprived, or affectionately known as IRGWSD. So today I will be taking the time to review some of the halloween events going on in popular video games. These can be from little things like sprite changes, or big changes like gameplay elements being added. Now with those introductions out of the way, let’s get right into it!

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What is the Promised Neverland?

BY ALICE FONTANESI

STAFF WRITER

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS TO THE PROMISED NEVERLAND ANIME. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Did this pandemic delay so many things you were looking forward to? Have you been waiting forever for season five of My Hero Academia to come out? Were you expecting the Demon Slayer movie to come out in September, but now it’s supposed to come to the U.S. in 2021 (based on true events of Alice Fontanesi’s impatience)? With season two coming in January 2021, it’s a great time to discover The Promised Neverland.

First of all, what is The Promised Neverland?

The Promised Neverland (Yauzoku no Nebarando) is a manga series written by Kaiu Shirai and illustrated by Posuka Demizu. It was officially serialized by Weekly Shonen Jump in August of 2016 and adapted into an anime by CloverWorks in January of 2019. The series is expecting a live-action adaptation this December and won the 63rd award for Shogakukan Manga Award in 2018 in the shonen category.

Now, what is the plot of The Promised Neverland? In episode one, we’re introduced to the three main characters of the series. The first is Emma, an energetic and positive child, but one that doesn’t lack any intelligence. There’s also Norman, the more reserved member of the group, and Ray, a cold, but caring, friend. The three of them live with about 40 other “siblings” in an orphanage known as the Grace Field House. Their caretaker “Mom” (Isabella) takes care of all the children, and we are introduced to Sister Krone,another caretaker, later on in the series. Life couldn’t have been any better for the orphans. Great food, nice housing, a great mom, and plenty of play time – who wouldn’t like it?

When one of the orphans, Conny, is sent away, Emma and Norman realize that she has left her toy rabbit, Little Bunny, behind. They go to return it, but they discover Conny’s corpse instead. The two of them discover that this orphanage was actually a farm where children were raised to eventually be shipped out and eaten by demons. They collaborate with Ray, Don, and Gilda to construct a plan to escape the farm before any of the other children could be shipped out.

The story does a good job of keeping things realistic, a problem most horror stories have. There is plenty of tension between the characters now that they know what is going on, and the pacing is great. As a wannabe author, I find it hard to keep a nice flow in stories without making it seem rushed, forced, wonky, or anything else. The Promised Neverland doesn’t rush or make things too slow, which adds to the realism of the series.

Also, the characters are well written. The children are not only extremely smart, but mature, considering that most of the characters are between the ages of four and eleven. The adults in the story are also quite intriguing. Sister Krone is willing to help the children despite her desire to become a Mother because she doesn’t want any of the kids to become as twisted as she was. Isabella is also quite the character because you can always debate among yourself whether she is a good guy or not.

Despite a few minor problems, like the CGI backgrounds or the small differences between the anime and manga, The Promised Neverland is definitely a binge-worthy series and you should go watch it right now. Seriously, the first season is twelve episodes; this isn’t another One Piece. You can find the series on Crunchyroll and many other anime streaming platforms, so grab your tissues, a little buddy, and a reminder to stay away from the manga readers that like to spoil everything and watch this masterpiece.

GMOD: A Review

BY LOGAN SCHLOSSER

STAFF WRITER

Hello to all of you lovely people! Welcome back to this series of newspaper articles where I review a game that’s probably been out for a long time, and I just am not up to date on. Alright, with introductions out of the way, time to reveal this week’s game to enjoy! It is a 3D sandbox game focused purely on modding and having a good time. This game is of course, Garry’s Mod. Time to move to the most important part of all, gameplay!

Alright, let’s just get right into it. Before we get into the whole modding thing, let’s get into the barebones game, which I have affectionately named “The Garry”. Now, this game is built upon Valve’s flagship engine, the Source Engine. That means that the movement and parkour is the exact same as Valve’s other games that are running off of it. These include many of Valve’s flagship games, such as the Portal series and Half-Life 2. So basically, once you are in the game and have selected the map you would like to play on, you get your first chance to open the Garry’s Mod menu. Now this menu allows you to spawn in every single asset from the Half-Life 2 game to screw around with. Really want to blow up some explosive barrels using a crossbow? You can do that at any time, any place. There is also a tools section where you can make your very own creations you can call your own. Like a massive sculpture made purely out of bathtubs.

Now that we have the core gameplay out of the way, we can talk about the mod part of the game. Because the only place you can purchase this game is Steam, you have full access to the Steam Workshop. This is where people upload their very own modifications to various games. Now this is where the mod part of Garry’s Mod comes in. You can simply just click “Subscribe” on all of the mods that seem interesting to you, reboot the game, wait for them to install, and then you are good to go! There are various different types of modifications that you can install, from maps to play on, to items to play around with. Overall though, the modding is the reason that I have spent 258.7 hours of my life on this game (oh, yeah. Did I mention that part?).

Garry’s mod is a very complex game. Yet simple enough to attract people. Now you may be wondering why I never talked about the music of it. Now, this game does not exactly have music at all. If you would like to have music though, head onto the Steam Workshop and pick some up for your game. Now, there is not much else to explain about this game, so I will just have to tell you to pick up the game and try it for yourself. I know that I am repetitive when I say that, but this is just a game that is hard to explain without someone experiencing it for themselves. Anyway, that is all I have for you today. As usual, have a good day and try this game out if you like the review. Thanks as usual!

Among Us: Tips and Tricks

BY IAN JIN AND VENKATA KARAVADI

STAFF WRITERS

Tips and Tricks for being an impostor. 

By Ian Jin

Being the impostor is undoubtedly one of the most fun parts of  Among Us, but there are some tips and tricks to being impostor that will help you stay alive and kill the Crewmates.

Tip 1. When playing as the impostor the lights out crisis is your best friend. You can activate this by pressing the button shaped like a lightning bolt in the electrical section of your sabotage screen. Doing this will temporarily shut off the lights. The thing that makes this crisis so useful is that when the lights are off the vision of the Crewmates is MASSIVELY hindered to the point that they will only be able to see people that are extremely close to them. On the other hand the vision of the impostors will not be affected.

Trick 1. By using the lights out and venting mechanics in conjunction, you can make very stealthy kills that will frame innocents, or you can vent in what would be in plain sight.

Tip 2. Use the venting mechanic appropriately. The venting mechanic can be a useful method of escape that will frame innocents but it can also be the last bit of proof that will get you voted out. For example, in security, while you are in a vent, you cannot see all the way to the security cameras which means that you could kill somebody in electrical then vent to security, only to be caught venting by a person who was looking at the security feeds.

Trick 2. If you want to vent/kill but you can see the red lights blinking on the security cams (which means that somebody is looking through the security cams), you should use the sabotage communications crisis, because sabotaging the comms will temporarily shut off the security cams which will clear you for venting/killing.

Tip 3. Remember that your first priority is not killing but simply staying alive. Assuming that you are playing in the two impostor game mode, if you or your impostor teammate dies then you are at a MAJOR disadvantage because there are only two of you and eight of them. Which in turn makes impostor lives very valuable while the lives of crewmates are of little value.

Trick 4. Use the lock door options so you can trap crewmates and kill somebody where there aren’t many witnesses.

Tip 4. This is very important. ALWAYS have an alibi, this is usually easier if you kill in a secluded and/or remote place on the map which will make it harder to find the body which will, in turn, give you more time to join up with some crewmates and move in a pack which will give you plenty of people who can vouch for your innocence when the body is found. 

Tip 5. never kill in high traffic areas such as storage or cafeteria unless ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. Killing in these places will lead to the body being found almost immediately which will make it easier to pinpoint who was the killer.

Trick 3. If you are playing in the two impostor game mode then you and your impostor buddy can do something that the community refers to as a “double kill”. Now as the name suggests this is when you and your fellow impostor kill two crewmates at the same time. A good example of this is you and the other impostor going into the electric and finding two crewmates doing tasks there and then you kill one of them. Now, your impostor teammate could kill the other crewmate to keep them from reporting the body and selling you out. WARNING, this tactic is best employed for ending the game or for clutches. 

Tip 6. It is a good idea to travel in a pack because then you can get not only your fellow impostor to vouch for you but even some crewmates as well!

Trick 5. A good way to divert the crewmates and get some easy kills when there are lots of people in electric and the lights out crisis would be fixed too early for you to do anything is to do the Reactor Meltdown crisis. This crisis makes the reactor melt down and gives the crewmates about 30 seconds for two crewmates to touch their hand to a pad on opposite sides of the reactor room to stabilize the reactor. By using this you can get lots of people to rush to the reactor and you can use the distraction to kill somebody else who was doing a task.

Tip 7. Even dead you can still use the sabotage mechanic. You can use this to give the other impostor the upper hand by locking the doors to help the impostor get a kill or to give them time to hide after getting a kill.

Tip. 8 Always ask questions like. Where was the body? What are your tasks? How many tasks do you have left? These kinds of questions make you look like you are participating and trying to find who the impostor is, but don’t really help the discussion move forward.

Tip 9. If the crewmates start pointing fingers then go along with it. Doing this will eliminate whoever was accused and then when the person is found to be innocent the accuser will look suspicious.

These are the Tips and Tricks for being an Impostor!

Tips and Tricks for being a Crewmate.

By Venkata Karavadi

Being a Crewmate doesn’t have quite the thrill of being an impostor, but with these Tips and Tricks you will be able to stay alive, weed out the impostors, and fix the ship with ease.

 Trick 1. The important thing to do is…. REMEMBER. Because if something happened, you know what happened and you could possibly convince your fellow crewmates and vote the impostor out. 

Tip  1.  When playing as a crewmate, you want to make evidence so when a body is found, you won’t get voted off easily. So remember where you are, remember what tasks you were doing, and see if anybody looked or did anything suspicious, or if anybody walked away from the body.

Tip 2. Whenever there are two people going in a room and one person is coming out, check that room. If there is a dead body, or if there is nobody because ( if there is a dead body, the person who is coming out must have killed him) then you could know if the other person vented or the other person died. It is important to keep an eye on suspicious people. And it is also important to remember stuff.

Tip 3. If you find a body, here are the things you need to know so you and everybody else can vote the right person out.

1. Who was near you?

2. Where was it?

3. *Optional* Was there a person who hated or kept on voting on the person who died?

4.  Remember that the lives of crewmates are less valuable than the lives of impostors so a good way to trade a life for a life is to accuse the impostor and even if they deflect the blame and they vote you out they will know that the person that you accused was the impostor and they will vote the impostor out.

If you could get all this info you could get the impostor out.

But, the main part is you have to try to convince your fellow crewmates because at the end of the day, your fellow crewmates can vote for the person who you think is good with information.

Tip  4. If you are used to being a crewmate and are good at tasks, then go to your tasks so you can easily finish them and you have time to spot who is the impostor,but you don’t want to do it TOO quick because your fellow crewmates might vote you out for being sus and roaming around.

Tip  5.  Call an emergency meeting if you see somebody vent. But, you might want to be quick because the impostor could kill you, but quickly call an emergency meeting and tell what happened. 

Tip 6. If 2 people are going in a room and the door is locked, once the door is unlocked, you have to go in there to see what happened.  It’s important to remember.

Tip 7.  IF the lights are out, then it might be certain that a kill is about to happen. So it is important NOT to be around people when lights are out.

Trick 2. If you see a person doing a”task”, and the task bar doesn’t go up(on the top left), then call an emergency meeting, because he was doing a fake task.  Fake tasks are when the impostor stands at a normal task area and just sits there for the task time then they leave.

Tip 8. There are different maps, so it is good if you play all three maps so when you are playing a different map, you know where things are, where there are tasks, and where the vents are to see if the impostor vented or not. 

Tip 9. USE THE SECURITY CAMS!!! It is useful to see where people are, and also you can see if an impostor killed anybody. The only bad thing is, when the cams are on,the impostor might see that the cams are one (red light on cams).

Tip 10. Follow the arrows for tasks or emergency tasks,because if the emergency tasks(when there are red-flashing lights and arrows),run out of time, it’s game over.

Tip 11.   If everybody’s tasks are done (if the task bar is full), You win!!

Tip 12. It’s not ONLY about finishing tasks and voting off the impostor, it’s also about surviving and not getting killed. Stay away from suspicious people.

And here are some other ones

  1. Move in groups.So if you are alone, you could get killed.
  2. Keep a close eye on players completing tasks.
  3. Complete tasks.
  4. Don’t waste your visual tasks. People can see that you are not the impostor if people are near you, and they see your visual tasks (one popular visual task is the Submit scan in medbay.)
  5. Always try to fix sabotage.
  6. Use the Emergency Meetings for Strategizing.
  7. When in doubt, skip the vote.
  8. Don’t spam in chat.
  9. Don’t look sus(suspicious)

Tip 13. If you die as a crewmate, you can still finish tasks and if the other crewmates finish the tasks too, then…. CREWMATES WIN!! If the impostor kills everybody, then… the crewmates lose 

And not everybody will get the tasks they like. Some People could get harder tasks while others could get easier tasks! Some people could get less taks, while some ppl could get more tasks!

Tip 14. Always type in chat because they might think that your impostor. If somebody asks where you were, you say where you were.

Tip 15.It’s also important to ask questions. Like “Who was near you?” “Where were you?” Etc.

Trick 3. A task with the “Wifi” signal in Admin, if the game starts, and one person IMMEDIATELY goes to that task, call an emergency meeting because that task is not supposed to be the first task (It’s called the download task, and when you have this task, there is supposed to be a part one, because when you are doing the part one of download, the task info is supposed to go from the room you’re first in to Admin, the second part for download task is from Admin to tablet). So tell them that in a short way (like, say, “he was doing the admin download task. He was not supposed to do that task yet!”). 

Finally, you need to gain trust with your crewmates, get evidence and proof that you are not the impostor, because your crewmates will vote with you if you have a reasonable explanation and good evidence.

If you could do all or some of this, you could win!

These are the tips and tricks for being a crewmate!

Among Us: A Review

BY VENKATA KARAVADI

STAFF WRITER

A month or two ago, the games Rocket league, Fortnite, Minecraft, Etc. were really popular. But a month ago, there was this game called “Among Us”. 

Many popular Youtubers were trying out this game, and they loved it. There are three maps , and it’s a game where there are 7-9 crewmates (depends on host options) ,and there can be 1-3 imposters (host options). Crewmates have to do tasks so they can fix the ship they are in, and the imposter has to kill all crew mates before the crewmates know the person is the imposter. Once a dead body is found, they will have a meeting and they will discuss(by chat or voice call if private) who was near and who they think it was. The most people who have voted for a person are out, but you can also skip if you are unsure of who it is or if many people are going to skip (because the other people will be suspicious of you If you are the only one who voted for somebody). If you are the imposter, you have to silently kill the person, and if you are in or near a room, you go in a vent so people who come near don’t notice you. You can also go from room to room with a vent. Once there are only three people (including you), if you are the imposter, just kill somebody when people are not near you. So, when there are three people and the imposter kills one more person, the game is over and the imposter won. If you want to win as a crewmate, you either have to complete all tasks or vote out the imposter or imposters. I have tried this game, and it’s also a game of strategy,because you can kill somebody (if you are an imposter) at a certain spot.There are three game modes; public, private, or freeplay. Freeplay is where you finish all tasks (and there is no imposter and nobody else except you), and then you win.  It’s a very fun game and I recommend you try it. It’s also free on App Store and Google Play(for phones and tablets) . On laptops or PCs, it costs money. You can buy it on Steam(for PC) if you have it.

Need Something Bingeable? Try Miraculous Ladybug!

BY ROWAN RAVERTY

STAFF WRITER

Has this distance learning gotten too boring for you? Need some action in your life? Want to leave your house and travel? Getting tired of those FRIENDS reruns and need something new to watch? Well, have I got a show for you!

Miraculous Ladybug is a 3D animated show about two superheroes named Ladybug and Cat Noir. These partners in crime work together to protect the city from the evil Hawkmoth who wants to have their miraculouses. A miraculous is a piece of jewelry that holds the power of our heroes and villains. The power is found in these magical creatures called kwamiis. Each kwamii represents a different animal and holds a special ability. The Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculouses are the strongest, holding the power of creation and destruction. They belong to our protagonists.

The holder of the Ladybug Miraculous is Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She is voiced by Christina Vee, who has also voiced Sailor Mars in the Sailor Moon franchise. Marinette is half French from her father’s side and half Chinese from her mother’s side. She’s a kind, clumsy girl who wants to be a fashion designer. Her kwamii friend is Tikki, who’s very kind and cheerful and supports Marinette. When Marinette is Ladybug, she becomes a lot more confident. Her weapon is a yo-yo, and her special power is called Lucky Charm. She can summon a random idea and use it to stop the villain. She has no clue what the item will be. She also has a big crush on her classmate, Adrian, and gets all flustered when she tries to talk to him.

And the holder of the Black Cat Miraculous is Adrien Agreste. He is voiced by Bryce Papenbrook, who also voices Makoto Neagi and Nagito Komeada in the Danganronpa franchise. Adrien’s the son of a famous fashion designer, Gabriel Agreste. His mom, Emilie Agreste, was a famous actress; she mysteriously disappeared before the events of the series. Adrien is a charismatic, friendly, encouraging, supportive, and innocent cinnamon roll. He is innocent because his father kept him in the house for so long. Well, until he got miraculous and then he was able to get a sense of freedom away from his scheduled life. His kwamii friend is named Plagg. He’s a mischievous little bean who likes to get into trouble. He’s also a big fan of cheese- the stinkier the better. When Adrian becomes Cat Noir, he has freedom. No more being controlled by his father! He’s more optimistic and has a thing for saying cat puns. He also likes flirting with Ladybug because he loves her.

That’s right, there’s a love square in this show, and it gets very aggravating at times. Marinette likes Adrian, but he likes Ladybug and doesn’t know that she’s Marinette. And Marinette has no clue that Adrian was flirting with her this whole time as Cat Noir. 

Now, in season 2, they did introduce two new love interests for both Marinette and Adrian. First is Luka Couffaine, a sweet guitarist who has Marinette question if her life will be with him or Adrian. He’s very supportive of her, saying that he’s always there for her if Adrian declines her. Kagami Tsurugi, a Japanese girl who’s a part of Adrian’s fencing team, likes him. They spend a lot of time together due to their parents being friends. She knows of Marinette’s crush on Adrian, but believes Adrian has a crush on Marinette. Adrien also has two other girls in the series that have crushes on him, but he doesn’t like them in that way. Chloe Bourgeois is the daughter of the Mayor of Paris, Adrian’s first ever friend, and Marinette’s bully. There’s also Lila Rossi who I really don’t like because she’s a liar and has a respect/works for Hawkmoth.

Speaking of Hawkmoth, he’s the series’ main antagonist. Now, I can’t say much about him because if I do, I have to spoil so much of the fun mystery of the series. So, I can only say a few things. First, he’s voiced by Keith Silverstien, who also voiced Gantetsu and Kimimaro Kaguya in the Naruto series. He holds the Butterfly Miraculous. I know, how can butterflies be evil? Well, he can turn butterflies into akumas, which translates to demons, to control people to be supervillains. This is only when someone is upset/angry/willing to be under his control. That’s called akumatization. Only Ladybug has the power to turn the akuma back into a butterfly. His kwamii is named Nuroo, a shy little purple butterfly boy who I just wanna hug.

My god, I did it! A review! This is great! Now, this isn’t everything I wanted to talk about. If I did talk about it, well, I’d just spoil the whole series. So, go watch this fun series; it’s on Netflix. There’s also a Christmas Special and an episode special where they go to New York! And the original characters you can make! The possibilities are endless. Now, go and binge-watch this amazing piece of work!

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