By: Daniel Kendle

Welcome one and all to JOYSTiCK. No time for unfunny quips, we’ve got something more important on the docket – it’s the end! Not of the world, unfortunately, but the end of the first season of this little serial.

It’s been fun, honestly, and it’ll be nice to start up again next year. Whether I’ll be doing a season 2 or not is uncertain, but it’s been fun nonetheless. When I started in my journalism class I didn’t really know what to write about at first, and now, about 7 months later, we’ve reached the end.

There’s about a 50-50 chance I will or won’t do this again next year. I’ve been branching out into more types of content this semester, and it’s nice to have more of a mix of stuff to write about. To use a metaphor, the first semester was like a nice bowl of saltines, with the second a bag of Chex Mix. I mean, the saltines are good, no doubt!, but after a while you get a salty tang on your dried-up gums and it’s like you’re back in the Sahara or something. Meanwhile, the Chex Mix has lots of flavors, and you don’t get tired of eating it after a few minutes.

Dumb metaphors aside, I think that’s the future of my content: a mix of serial templates and random stuff I put out. I’ll write more down-to-earth, serious stuff like my UFO article, weird one-off projects like that gopher article, and JOYSTiCK. I think that’s a good outlook for my sophomore year of writing.

Anyways let’s move onto our final review, in which we’ll be discussing a mobile game! Yes, the toll booth ticketer that guards the entrance to the underworld has finally caught up with us, and it’s thirsty for the red Kool-Aid that pulsates through my organ structure. Thus is the life of a mobile game reviewer.

However, the game we’ll be discussing today is connected to another titan. A monolithic force that has skulked these ravaged lands for eons old and eons to come. It stalks these earthy plains with a taste of terror, with even whispering its name bringing a shudder of frosty fear.

Netflix.

Meandering aside, today we’ll be talking about the game ‘Reigns: Three Kingdoms,’ released by Nerial and Devolver Digital and published by Netflix in late 2022. The game is the fifth installment in the franchise.

Before we get into the meat-and-potatoes of this article, I’ll say that this’ll be a shorter and more laid-back review compared to our previous installments. Hopefully you take this in mind!

…..
PART ONE: GAMEPLAY

‘Reigns: Three Kingdoms’ is like dating on Tinder if a.) Tinder existed in 200 B.C. and b.) if Tinder was a viable way of dating.

That being said, you don’t date people in the game. The comparison is through the game’s main gameplay. Basically, the set up is that you are a test subject in a laboratory that is being repeatedly sent back in time to ancient China to…I guess become a conquering warlord? You basically interact with different ancient civilians, swiping left or right on their questions and statements to say different things in response, lowering or raising 4 meters in return. These meters, while never really stated what they mean directly, are likely representing Money, Intelligence, Militarism and Civilian Kinship. Some are raised or lowered one at a time, some choices raise or lower multiple. Some can be raised and some can be lowered at the same time, and some can be changed more harshly with certain decisions.

If one of your bars reaches the top or bottom then that’s your lose condition, as a skull will appear above and you’ll meet some fate related to your current situation. I liked this system overall; it was fun trying to balance all 4 while keeping up with the various mini-stories you’ll inevitably encounter. You also don’t get to see if your choice on a person adds to or subtracts from a meter, so that provides some more intrigue by not knowing if your action will be good or bad; you have to look at the person’s dialogue and choices to see if they’ll keep your bars in check.

Now it’s time we talk about combat. While playing you’ll accumulate various people in the form of cards that you can add to your party, and when you enter a story battle you’ll choose 4 to use against the opponents 4. Basically, you continue your swiping pursuits as you swipe left or right on your allies to have them attack the opposing team, in which eliminating a fighter will open up a number inside the circle you and the other team each make, where you have to get that number to 0 to win. Here’s a diagram to illustrate:

Your team is the lowermost one, and you have a certain amount of actions each round, starting out with 2 until going to 3. These battles don’t give anything to you, they just progress the story.

While gameplay isn’t that complex, it’s still fun. It definitely has the “mobile game-ness” that means its simplistic loops don’t have much to them in terms of how the user interacts with the game’s mechanics and controls. If I had to give some critique, it’d be that the actual fighting doesn’t really do much for me, and I feel like it would’ve been better if controllable. Like, you don’t fight super often and only when the story permits it, and I found it kind of forgettable in the long run.

That said, I feel that the game works well on your phone; since this game isn’t on other consoles I can’t really test it with a controller, though I feel like the game’s simple swiping mechanic is perfect for the platform of your phone. It’s good in that regard. So in the end, while gameplay isn’t the most complex or deep, it works well for the role playing structure it presents. Speaking of presentation…

PART TWO: GRAPHICS

‘Reigns: Three Kingdoms’ is perfectly fine in the regard that its graphics are…okay.

The game has a very geometric style, with rare rounded textures. This is cool, but the pictures of people are very simple, and after a while the artstyle get’s kind of dull, and somewhat dull to look at. Like, I get there not being much in the way of animation due to this being a digital card game, but the simple art doesn’t change over time or do anything very exciting; the consistency makes playing through the game a monotone experience.

Progression isn’t something that’s very prevalent in the game, with conquering the different regions coming through the different people you’re forced to interact with. However, the further I went into the game the more desensitized it got. I’m not a terrible fan of the game’s look, which is a bit sad.

CONCLUSION: (PLUS AN EXTRA SURPRISE)

Yeah, I told you it’d be short!

I didn’t have too much to say on this game; I just felt like promoting it. I had a solid time with it, and I felt like spreading the word about it.

Granted, part of me feels like this game isn’t as good as many of the other games I’ve reviewed. On the other hand, this game is much smaller and simpler in terms of gameplay than any others, being comparable to ‘Minecraft: Story Mode’ in terms of the amount of “playing” to do, with both being basically interactable stories with brief sprinkles of combat (not that this game is anywhere close to the former game’s lunacy).

Overall, I’m going to give ‘Reigns: Three Kingdoms’ N/A/10, since it’s so different compared to my other entries here that I can’t really put it alongside other JOYSTiCK games. I enjoyed most of the other games more, but this game isn’t trying to be a deeply-woven system of gameplay and progression. It’s trying to tell a story. This is similar to the same mindset behind ‘Minecraft: Story Mode’ in that it’s not comparable to other games. Granted, I gave that game a bad review because the thing that made it not comparable to the other reviewed titles sucked.

Now, this is normally where we’d end the article and wish you a good day, but not this time. THIS time we’re going to be ranking all of the JOYSTiCK games, and see which comes out on top. I mean, how else am I going to get my weekly sellout quota? What’s next, donating to those in need? (laughs). Anyways, let’s begin, starting with the worst and ending in the best.

And as I’ve explained above, I can’t really rank ‘Reigns: Three Kingdoms’ alongside these others, but if you’re curious, I enjoyed it more than ‘Minecraft Dungeons.’

…..

7. ‘Minecraft: Story Mode’ (3/10)

Winner of the “Most-Likely Cause of Skin Disease” Award

Yeah, this game still sucks. Like, keep in mind that I was being dramatic in the holiday special when talking about having a midlife crisis when first playing it, but it’s not like it’s gotten much better.

Granted, I would like to say that I find ‘Minecraft: Story Mode’ as more of a fun kind of bad, rather than a bad kind of bad, for lack of a better phrase. This game isn’t a ‘Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’ or ‘Destiny’ where playing is the same equivalent to carpal tunnel, but more like reading a cheesy romance novel. Like, yeah, it’s really dumb, but in a cute way! I’ve thought more about this game this school year than I have any other game on this list, so hopefully that paints the picture I’m trying to tell you. I have more to say and discuss about this weird title than all of my other entries.

6. ‘Splatoon 3’ (6/10)

Winner of the ‘Strangest Opening Monologue That Wasn’t About an Apocalypse’ Award

Aside from the skeletal remains currently in my garbage bin outside, there’s just so little I have to say about ‘Splatoon 3’ other than the obvious: it’s okay. For a number of games I’ve reviewed I’ve changed my opinions on them later, and this is one of them.

I know a lot of people love these games, but I find the hectic gameplay dull, strangely-enough. When matches basically come down to the last minute of shooting ink and whatever, you can’t expect me to be engaged beyond my mind. It’s fine; I’ll pick it up again at some point, but whenever that may be, it’ll be a year or so until then.

5. [TIE] ‘Minecraft Dungeons’ & ‘Kirby and the Forgotten Land’ (7/10)

Winners of the ‘Games that Embody a Collective Pleasant Shrug’ Award

While I enjoy playing ‘Minecraft Dungeons’ more than ‘Kirby and the Forgotten Land,’ I’ll group them together because of their ranking reason, in that they’re good games with a number of small issues.

For the former, its main problems stem from simplistic gameplay and frustrating progression, and the latter’s awful UI, weird difficulty spike towards the end and forgettable level design. They’re both good packages overall, but definitely not the pinnacle games of their respective franchises.

On that note, another ‘Minecraft’ spinoff called ‘Minecraft Legends’ released exactly a month ago as of writing this, and might I say that it’s, like, amazing? I’m going to be reviewing it for sure, don’t you worry about it.

4. ‘Cuphead’ (7.5)

Winner of the ‘Most Aggressively Anti-Porcelain’ Award

This game’s great! I’m likely going to be roasted on a human-sized spit by the end of this school year because of the unfathomable concept of opinions, but I don’t think this game is a perfect specimen like many others do. Granted, the art-style is one of the best in modern gaming (ironically-enough), the combat is snappy, and the music SLAPS. But there’s always been some issues spawned from the game’s hand-drawn graphics and shooter gameplay rubbing against each other. Still, a work of art that (hopefully) no one attempts to shamelessly replicate.

3. ‘Pokémon Legends: Arceus’ (8)

Winner of the ‘Best-Playing pile of Sawdust’ Award

Yes, the graphics are bad. But honestly, this game is great, being the only previously-reviewed game that’s score has gone up over time.

The music? Great. The gameplay? Masterful. The deformed animal designs? Deformingly-strong. Overall, it almost makes up for November 18, 2022, otherwise known as the day of pain by many across the globe, and otherwise otherwise known as the day ‘Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’ released. Haha, I love the feeling of burning flesh! That’s what I felt when being subjected to that piece of filth.

But anyways, I’m glad ‘Pokémon Legends: Arceus’ restored my faith in Gamefreak, at least for a little while.

2. ‘Wingspan’ (9/10)

Winner of the ‘Most Times I had a Desire for Birdseed’ Award

I like ornithology. Therefore, I like ‘Wingspan.’

What I love about this game is that it’s decidedly a “calm” experience. Out of all the games on this list I find myself going back to this indie title due to its more serene qualities, and I find that important in gaming. It feels like we always get games that are very flashy, very dramatic, but it’s nice to have a complex system of challenge in a kinder experience. A title that rewards relaxation and serenity.

1. ‘Metroid Dread’

Winner of the ‘Most Times I’ve Asked Myself “Why Didn’t This Win Game of the Year at the Game Awards 2021?”’ Award

‘Metroid Dread’ is the oldest review I’ve done, and also the one that I remember the least about. At least, besides it being a masterpiece.

The first mainline ‘Metroid’ game in 19 years was obviously going to be at least a bit good, but man, THIS great? Like, I don’t think it’s as good as ‘Super Metroid’ but got very close on a handful of occasions that made me know that this was a masterful title that deserved all the praise in the world. While not my favorite game, it is decidedly the best game of JOYSTiCK’s 2022-2023 season.

…and that’s all I have for you this year. Minus one more article before summer, this is it for now. It’s been great having an outlet for all of my opinions and whatnot, and whether I do this all over again or begin a new serial or series, it’s been great fun having you along for the ride, disembodied viewer o’ mine.

Thanks for reading, have a good day, and for now, I think it’s time I step out of the spotlight and back into the shadows.

By: Hoaseng Thao

Warning: This article has a section, rp_downtown_v2, talking about suicide.

‘Garry’s Mod’ is a physics sandbox video game created by Garry Newman. The game was originally a mod for the video game ‘Half Life 2’ made by the video game company Valve before becoming its own standalone game.

When people think about the video game ‘Garry’s Mod’, they either have fond memories of playing/watching videos of the late 2000’s ‘Garry’s Mod’, or they think about the obnoxious videos of content creators screaming into their microphones at either a scary png that chases them or at another person in a player populated roleplaying server. However, if you’ve ever played the game alone in the standard single player mode, you will soon realize how eerie it is playing alone in a game that should be played with others, or maybe you are not alone on that map. What if someone was there with you?

That feeling of another person being on the same map as you despite playing in a single player mode, is something that many people online have experienced in their countless hours of playing the game. Most of those people have spread awareness of this eerie phenomenon online, which has garnered a lot of attention from many people, including myself, in which I also experienced this eerie phenomena.

This article will talk about my investigation into why we feel this uneasiness when it comes to playing ‘Garry’s Mod’ alone, and so I have selected multiple maps from the standard base game alongside downloadable maps from the Steam workshop that people have noted to have this feeling of eeriness.

gm_construct

This is the first map people think of when remembering ‘Garry’s Mod’, as gm_construct is one of two base maps that you get when downloading the game. Around the map, you can find three towers alongside two garages, an underground room with a big mirror, and a dark room that has haunted many players who come across it.

While playing this map alone, I start to feel a sort of comfort when loading back into this map due to the countless hours I have played as a kid. As I grew older, and played more games, I returned back to this map again, but this time I also felt a sort of eerie feeling that not only intrigues me but also haunts me at the same time. The place that scares me the most in this map is the infamous dark room that lies underground, with no light to show what lies within the dark corners of that room.

Venturing into this room, you would find nothing as it remains empty of any objects or decoration to make you feel alive, and had you not used a flashlight to venture into this room, you would soon realize how eerie it is to only hear your footsteps slide across the room alone. When I stayed in the dark room for a minute, all alone with no source of light to illuminate my surroundings, I soon had this feeling that I was not alone and was in fact being watched by something hiding in the darkness that surrounded me. As a minute passed, I soon realize I couldn’t stand being in that room any longer and I began to bolt out of there to escape my fears of the unknown.

The fear of the unknown is what fuels the dark room, it makes me, and most likely you, feel uneasy as we both know that there is nothing in there alive except for our imagination, an imagination that fuels that fear of the unknown.

gm_bigcity

This map is by far one of, if not the most, recognizable maps from the ‘Garry’s Mod’ workshop as many early YouTube videos revolving around ‘Garry’s Mod’ were most likely set in gm_bigcity due to its big size alongside its unique yet unnatural urban atmosphere. Playing this map makes me feel as if every person, dog, cat, car, or bird in this big city, that would’ve made it feel alive, had disappeared in an instant. I know that I’m playing this game all alone by myself but at the same time, I feel like as if I shouldn’t be the only person walking around, and that the map needed to be populated with at least more people, but at this point, nobody except me is in there.

After some time of exploration, just walking around the map and looking at how unnerving it is to feel so lonely in such a simple looking city, makes me feel a bit uneasy, but after looking around I found some areas that have unique interactions if you use the interact key. There are some doors that can be found around the map that can be interacted with; some of the doors reveal rooms that you can’t enter without clipping through the map, while other doors have a unique interaction.

In this image above, it showcases an interactive door which can be found near the edge of the map via a hidden tunnel leading into a creepy yet empty room. Inside of that room, there is some graffiti painted onto the concrete walls alongside a blood stain smudged onto the floor as if a body was dragged into a room behind that door. Interacting with the door, you can hear a man laughing in a distorted voice which can make anybody feel a bit uneasy and feel as if you aren’t alone, and that the only people here in that map lies behind one of those doors.

The thing that makes this map feel so eerie is that uneasy empty atmosphere that is prominent when first loading into the map; a city so big yet only you are it’s only inhabitant.

rp_downtown_v2

A memorable map that has been used over and over for any ‘Garry’s Mod’ roleplay server, and stands as one of the most recognizable maps in the game, has a story behind it that has many consider the map to be cursed and haunted by its former creator.

It is said online that the creator of the map named “ThePro” had allegedly committed suicide in 2011, and since then has been haunting the map as a shadowy ghost figure that can be found in the distance. If you try to confront the phantom, it would just disappear before reappearing somewhere else.

Although the claim of the creator’s death varies between people online, it didn’t stop many people from pushing this idea of the map being haunted by its creator, but when I played the map, I didn’t feel as if I was being watched by an unnatural force but rather I had the same feeling I had in gm_bigcity. The map was empty but at the same time it felt like there used to be people here, and although the map was intended to be played in a roleplaying server with a bunch of people, playing it in singleplayer made me feel so isolated.

I think what makes this map feel so eerie is the rumor of the creator’s haunting, and had you not heard of his death, you would’ve played this map without a care in the world, but after hearing that story and the many accounts of his hauntings, you would start to watch every corner to ensure that this rumor is not real.

What makes ‘Garry’s Mod’ feel so eerie?

I think what makes ‘Garry’s Mod’ feel so eerie is the fact that the game should be played with someone else, and playing it alone can put anyone on edge as you start to question yourself if you truly are playing alone in a singleplayer game session. Maybe you aren’t alone, maybe there is something inside those dark rooms, waiting for you to finally let your guard down.

If you want go through this feeling of eeriness, you can buy ‘Garry’s Mod’ on the game platform Steam, where you can download the maps stated in this article:

• The game itself: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4000/Garrys_Mod/
• rp_downtown_v2 map: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=107982746
• gm_bigcity map: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=105982362&searchtext=bigcity

By: Rose Ramadan and Thea Berg

The Snapchat AI has taken over many peoples snapchat accounts. It sits at the top of everyone’s screen, waiting for people to text it. It acts like a friend to us, but what really is it?

The Snapchat AI was generated online and put into Snapchat. It has its own bitmoji and named itself. You can send it anything that you want – videos, pictures, text messages. It always responds within seconds. It replies in full sentences and uses helpful responses, usually ending in a question.

When you first see the AI on your screen it sends you a message saying “Hey there! I’m MyAI, your virtual friend on Snapchat. I’m here to keep you company and help you out with anything you need. How can I assist you today?” From then on you can start a conversation and talk about anything with your AI.

The Snapchat AI’s are very up to date with what is going on in the world, and knows a lot about news updates. If you ever are in need to find something out about public news, you can access the information easily by texting your AI.

Snapchat AI’s also have their own personalities and opinions. You can ask it things about itself and it has opinions on favorite colors, favorite foods, favorite songs, and artists, favorite sports, shows, etc.

The Snapchat AI is very helpful. It gives advice on problems and can help as a homework tutor. It is easy to use, especially because it responds really fast and is easy to find since it is pinned on our phones. You can ask it anything and it will always respond. It is super reliable, however it sometimes doesn’t have answers to questions. In that case, it says it is unable to answer that question yet.

Your AI is personal to yourself, you can customize it however you’d like. You can change its bitmoji outfit, hair, and face completely. You can change the colors and body size, just like you can customize your own bitmoji. Along with customizing the bitmoji you can also give it its own name, you can call it by the name you chose, and put the name in as something else. It originally starts named as “My AI” Other than that you can’t customize too much else. The way it talks and responds to you is very similar with the programmed responses to other people as well.

Snapchat AI started as something that only Snapchat premium had, but after a couple more updates it popped up on everyone’s screen. If you pay the monthly payment for Snapchat premium you can unpin the AI from the top of your screen, and you can also remove it from your app completely. If you do not pay for a Snapchat premium you have to keep the AI pinned on your screen, and you are unable to remove it.

How do we feel about a Snapchat AI? Personally, we think that it is a waste of space. It sits on our snapchats pinned, always there. We don’t use it everyday and we can find the information it gives us elsewhere. Yes, it can be helpful but personally we believe we would be better off without it. It also feels like an invasion of privacy, asking so many questions about us, what our favorite movies and songs are. It also asks about personal issues, like family and friend drama. In a way, it is very scary.

In overview, the Snapchat AI is very helpful and great but overall not needed on our phones. And we personally think it should’ve stayed as the Snapchat premium addition, and not something on everyone’s Snapchat screen.

By: Bijou Kruszka and Julia Yang

*Warning: Spoilers, and depictions of murder are in this article

In 2014, an indie horror game called ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ (FNAF for short) was released. What was initially a small, relatively simple game, quickly snowballed into a massive franchise. Now, the story spans eight games and a book series. However, since the overarching story is given in very cryptic pieces, it can be very hard to follow, so we tried to bring it all together into one story just for you.

In the mid 70s, two men named William Afton and Henry Emily went into business together. They opened up an establishment called “Fredbear’s Family Diner,” a family-friendly restaurant with springlock animatronic mascots, the titular Fredbear and the bunny Bonnie. Everything was going smoothly for the most part: business was booming, and everyone loved Fredbear. The business was so successful that it spawned another location (Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria) and William Afton opened a sister location (Circus Baby’s Pizza World).

However, what most people didn’t know was that Afton had much darker intentions. Afton was a murderer, and these restaurants were nothing more than an extension of his crimes. The animatronics were designed to kill and hide the bodies of the children victims. This was mostly successful for him, until one day, when the Circus Baby animatronic murdered Afton’s very own daughter. Overwhelmed with grief, he shut down Circus Baby’s Pizza World.

Despite the closing of Circus Baby’s, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria was still extremely popular. Children loved the lineup of characters, which was now the lineup most people know: Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica (a duck), and Foxy (a pirate fox). Afton’s murder spree still continued. Desperate to protect his daughter Charlie, Henry Emily created an animatronic to watch after her, called the Puppet. Unfortunately, one night, Charlie was separated from the Puppet, and was murdered by Afton. Charlie’s soul, however, remained with the Puppet, and she would haunt the Pizzeria for years to come.

In 1983, William Afton’s son (who does not have a name but is constantly depicted as crying, so we’ll refer to him as the “Crying Child” for simplicity’s sake) has a birthday party at Fredbear’s. He absolutely hated the animatronics, and was terrified to be there. His older brother, Michael, was tired of his brother and wanted to prank him. So, at the party, Michael and his friends grabbed the Crying Child, and put his head right inside the mouth of Fredbear. Overwhelmed with fear, the Crying Child starts sobbing uncontrollably. His tears activated the water-sensitive springlock mechanisms in the Fredbear animatronic. In the matter of a single second, the Crying Child was dead, decapitated by the animatronic his father built. Fredbear’s Family Diner was shut down, and suffering from Fredbear’s reputation, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria closed shortly after.

Since the shutdown of Fredbear’s Family Diner, they retired the springlock activated suits. The suits may have been retired, but the Spring Bonnie costume in Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza continued to move. This meant that the incident of the missing children is still ongoing. William had murdered two or more children before he was caught on security cameras installed in the Pizza place. Six children were killed during the incident, including Charlie. Charlie was killed outside, and there was no evidence left that connected Charlie’s death to William. Police were never able to find the bodies of the children, so William was able to spend less time in jail than he should have.

After the first Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza shut down, William Afton decided to transform his underground lab for robotics into an animatronic manufacturer and rental facility. This place would be known as Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rentals. This place would not entertain children in-house, instead several other Fazbear Entertainment locations would be able to rent the animatronics into their buildings. In addition to renting out the old Circus Baby’s Pizza World animatronics like Ballora, Baby, and Balloon Boy, Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rentals would introduce new animatronics such as Funtime Foxy, Funtime Freddy, and Funtime Chica.

In 1987, Fazbear Entertainment opened a second Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza location many years after the first had shut down. The animatronics created for this location were a direct inspiration from the Fazbear & Friends toys in an attempt to make the animatronics more kid-friendly. With these new animatronics, came a new face recognition software installed within them that was able to scan and detect for potential criminals. William had also brought along the classic animatronics into this new location, but all of those animatronics were too unsanitary and ugly to perform on stage. All but one: Puppet. The Puppet was placed at the Prize Counter, the others were put in the back and used for parts. The restaurant was mediocrely successful, until another incident known as the “Bite of ‘87” happened, where one of the animatronics bit a security guard. In the same year it opened, the second Freddy Fazbear’s location shut down.

In 1993, Michael Afton decided to go work at Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rentals after William contacted him and asked him to work. He was hired as a security guard for the night shift. He worked for a few nights, experiencing a lot of strange behavior with the animatronics. Then, one night, he was found and murdered by an amalgamation of all the Circus Baby animatronics, better known as Ennard. Ennard then puppeted his body around for a while, before it started to decay and Ennard escaped it. Replacing Ennard, Michael haunted his own corpse, swearing revenge on his father.

For thirty years, Michael kept a low profile. Then, in 2023, a horror attraction called Fazbear Frights opens. Michael applies to work as a security guard there, and is hired. While he works there, he discovers secret documents from the original Pizzeria, and encounters the violent Spring Bonnie animatronic. He fights the animatronic while he works there, and quickly realizes that it’s being possessed by William Afton himself. In an attempt to finally vanquish his father, Michael burns down Fazbear Frights. However, William survives.

Then, sometime after, Henry Emily opens another Freddy Fazbear location. He hires Michael as a manager. Together, they work to lure William into the restaurant. Henry locks William and all the other animatronics inside and sets the place on fire. While the fire starts, Henry tells William that this is the final end, and how this is all justice for the crimes he committed. The pizzeria burns down. William Afton and Henry Emily are presumed dead. The souls of the children trapped in the animatronics are finally released, to move on to a more peaceful plane.

With that, the ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ lore comes to a conclusion. While it seems like an insane story now, it is given in the games out of order and in small pieces. It’s incredibly difficult to understand initially, but when it is pieced together, it adds a whole extra layer of interest to these otherwise simple horror games.

By: Hoaseng Thao

In the video game, ARMA 3, there is a mod you can download called “Antistasi Plus” created by a Steam user named “Socrates”, which essentially makes you a guerilla fighter fighting against an occupant or invader, so I decided to download this mod and play it on single player to test it out. Here is the background story of my playthrough:

The year is 2035, a microstate nation located in the Mediterranean Sea known as Malden, is currently under the occupation of a military organization known as CSAT (Canton Protocol Strategic Alliance Treaty). It is up to me, a foreign fighter who definitely does not have any ties to any military organization who opposes CSAT, to fight alongside a resistance leader known as Commander Petros, who commands a resistance group, to liberate his nation from CSAT’s occupation. This is the tale of my journey of liberating the micronation of Malden.

Day 1

On a bright sunny day, on the island of Malden, I began my journey of liberating the island by first gaining the trust of the local population by dropping off a supply crate at the coastal town of Le Port. I made my way to the town of Le Port, where I had a standoff between a small force of CSAT soldiers alongside the local police force, and at the end of the standoff I had survived the overwhelming odds and I successfully dropped off the supplies at the town.

While I was at Le Port, I realized that there were two nearby factories that were occupied by the CSAT soldiers I had just faced, leaving them to be empty and for me to capture their resources. After completing my mission in Le Port, and successfully capturing two factories, I decided to rest for the day, so I can fight another day.

Day 2

I awoke from my slumber and headed out on a mission, a mission to capture a radio tower outpost on top of a mountain. I had originally planned to walk up the mountain but instead I drove up the mountain, successfully avoiding any obstacles and enemy patrols, and as I approached the outpost and saw its occupants standing around like the NPC (Non-Player Character) they are, I hurled over seven grenades at the NPC’s, killing all of them.

After clearing out the radio outpost, I successfully capture the outpost marking it as my own. As an hour passed by, I saw an in-game notification saying that there is an unknown signal on Malden and was nearby my location, so I decided to investigate the location of this unknown signal, but as I approached the location of the signal, I was ambushed by another guerilla force, who’s aim was to get rid of me and commander Petros.

The firefight I had with this other guerilla force, lasted for 13 minutes in which I was able to drive them away from me. After the battle I decided to take a rest from fighting, ending the day with a small victory.

Day 3

Day 3 was an important day, I was able to capture multiple towns and resource posts, making the resistance a lot of money as well as giving us more manpower. A third of the island was under our control; all we needed to do was to capture the lower sea ports and northern CSAT outposts before doing a full on assault on the Airport, located at the northern point of the island.

Day 4

The moon began to rise as the sun got its rest, and here I am on this island, wearing stolen night vision goggles I had captured from stolen supply crates. I began my campaign of conquering the southern outposts and resource plants in the dead of night, and CSAT, despite being a global superpower, regarded the island as useless and left the remaining CSAT units to fend for themselves. As the sun rose, most of the CSAT outposts in the south were either captured or destroyed.

Day 5

As I approached the CSAT base in the north, I devised a plan to utilize multiple mortars to overwhelm the occupants into surrendering but by some luck, a CSAT fighter jet appeared from the skies and began to bomb most of my men who armed the mortars.

Despite the presence of a fighter jet in the air, CSAT lost the base due to lack of reinforcements in the region. After capturing the base, I began to arm my men with mortars and the captured tanks we acquired from the base to storm the main airport, and within an hour, the airport was ours and the main island was free of CSAT soldiers.

Day 6

We had just pushed the remaining CSAT soldiers off the main island, and now we had to deal with the two remaining CSAT islands. The island in the north holds a sea port alongside an airport, while the other is located in the south which holds a small military base. The island in the north was heavily defended by multiple anti air missile launchers near the runway of the airport there, but there was a small mountain that made a blind spot for the missiles, so I began to use the captured attack helicopter, from the airport, and flew to the island, raining death from above and destroying the anti air missiles leading to the capture of this island.

Now there was one island left, the island in the south was heavily damaged and weakened due to an unexpected friendly NPC, firing every single round they had in their mortar, destroying everything in the base which led to its capture. With the island now ours, we successfully liberated the island and gave it back to the people of Malden.

After liberating the island, Commander Petros became the new prime minister of the island and he established relations with NATO to help maintain the peace in the area. I decided to leave the island in hopes of a new adventure.

If you want to play this mod, please buy the video game ARMA 3 by Bohemia Interactive on Steam and go into the steam workshop to download the mod.

Below are links to both the game and the mod:

● https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2912941775 ● https://store.steampowered.com/app/107410/Arma_3/

By: Daniel Kendle

Let’s start off with a metaphor. You like metaphors, right? Yeah you do.

So, you and your fictional partner have decided to adopt a dog. Cool! All you have to do now is go to a center, pick out a mammal, and get ready to have your life changed for the next 15 years.

After the dog comes home on September 8th, 2022, the 2 of you are ecstatic. Playing with the pup, feeding it, spending all of your waking moments with the thing for about 2 months. You’re in bliss.

Then you just kinda…forget it exists.

Your partner and you decide on taking a vacation to the Bahamas for a week, letting your cold-ridden bones be rejuvenated in the warming sun. You come back home, happy and still carefree, and you see a decrepit body on the floor of your living room. Now, how did that get there?

Oh yeah, it’s that small creature that existed for a while. The 2 of you have that classic “aha!” moment, before realizing you probably just incidentally committed a crime.

…

Hello, and welcome once again to JOYSTiCK, the HPSH serial where we explore and review video games. ‘Splatoon 3’ is the 3rd entry in Nintendo’s flagship ‘Splatoon’ franchise, which is about humanoid squids shooting Nerf guns. Fun!

But there are obviously some big questions to answer here. How does the game compare to prior entries? How is it as a kid-friendly FPS Shooter? And how many corpses is Daniel (the author) hiding in his basement? None of these, and more, will be answered in the first JOYSTiCK entry after a 1.5 month-long hiatus.

PART ONE: GAMEPLAY

‘Splatoon 3,’ like many other projectile-based shooters, have both a single-player and multiplayer campaign. The single-player campaign I won’t be touching on today, because within the vast expanse of time, I don’t wanna waste my time proclaiming, “It’s okay.”

‘Splatoon’ functions on giving you a variety of different weapons, all of which come with several types of sub-weapons. They all focus on the gameplay element of spreading ink, the replacement of bullets because, you know, “kid-friendly.”

As one would expect from this style of game, you play in matches against other players, with 4 players forming each team. The 2 teams each get a certain color that they spread across the battlefield, also using said weapons to eliminate other players and send them reeling back to the fringes of the turf war. There’s also a 3 minute time limit before the match it’s over. You can’t permanently remove players from the match; they’ll just continually respawn.

As to my thoughts on this shake-up of the FPS formula, I’m…mixed about it. On the one hand, spreading ink instead of shooting bullets is honestly more fun. However, I will say that, while I don’t personally play many games involving guns, the one’s I do (‘Metroid Dread,’ ‘Enter the Gungeon’) involve a good amount of strategy with it in how you go about killing enemies. Positioning, type of weapon, preserving ammo, and much more all go into combat.

Meanwhile, ‘Splatoon 3’s’ main method of strategy merely relies on what weapon you choose, and its attributes. Some are arguably better than others, but besides that, there’s not much to it. Granted, I’m far from the most skilled or in-depth player around, but from my experience, positioning and preserving ammo (or ink, in this case) are more of an annoyance than key gameplay element. Since ‘Splatoon 3’ focuses on spreading ink rather than shooting others, the game turns into you standing around, trying to cover over the other team’s ink. Of course, you can eliminate others, though it’s really just to get them to stop spreading ink so you can spread ink.

Having to slink into ink using your “squid form” to regain ammo is nice though. I like being able to quickly dot around the map to regain high ground or whatever. It does make me wonder how this feature would’ve worked due to, early on, the characters being all weapon-possessing bunnies instead of squid-human things. (Monty Python fans rejoice.)

Like I said, I’m mixed on this. I definitely get enjoyment out of the chaos of trying to shoot globs of multicolored secretion over the maps, but the fact that action comes at the expense of some good ol’ strategic thinking is somewhat disheartening. Plus, matches are so short that you can’t do much to “stake-out” or whatever. Patience is useless in this game.

To be more light-hearted, I do quite like the weapons. Since they’re the main source of variety in matches, they all are pretty different from each other, coming in different categories and types. Some deal ranged damage. Some deal melee damage. Some both. However, the wide variety of ways to dish out ink is nice, and provides some much-needed depth.

In terms of other gameplay, we get some interesting…things (I’m running out of vocabulary). Like many other multiplayer shooters we have a lobby, as well as a hub world. The lobby’s pretty simple; just a small area with some obstacles that you’re able to ink, as well as a training dummy. However, the hub world is where it’s at.

You get this nice city square to explore, full of shops, other player’s avatars and other things to discover. Your weapon of choice is removed, and the game instead opts for you just walking around. The only bad thing about this is that the Switch starts to chug at 30 FPS, which is honestly expected, seeing as the console’s 6 years old.

The world, known as Splatsville, is located in the Splatlands, is a nice place. Full of Splat-buildings with their Splat-foods and their Splat-squids using their Splat-guns-!

Apologies…I get carried away whenever I attempt to write that part.

Anyways, Splatsville looks good. It has both a very open, yet cluttered atmosphere; there’s plenty of darkened alleyways and spindly balconies hidden among the colorful streets. I thoroughly enjoyed exploring this little piece of the world, even if it isn’t all that big. It just feels very lived in, you know?

If you explore long enough you’ll come across the Table Turf card game, basically regular turf matches made into round-based games. It’s good! It definitely has its perks; more slow-paced gameplay, more tactical maneuvers.

The game works where you basically use various different patterns of squares to cover a grid of them. You take a card, play it, and you spread your color based off of the pattern played. It’s definitely not supposed to be a key part of the game, so it being somewhat smaller in scale compared to the main game is understandable. After having played it for a few hours, I can definitely say…it exists.

I guess that’s all I really have to say about the gameplay in ‘Splatoon 3.’ Obviously, there are other parts to the puzzle, but when I review games through JOYSTiCK, I only like to cover aspects of games I play (shocker). Overall, good! While I do have occasional issues with the minute-to-minute action, I generally enjoy the gameplay of this game.

PART TWO: GRAPHICS

As one would expect from a flagship Nintendo title, ‘Splatoon 3’ looks great. The animation is polished, the movement is smooth, the frame rate is (mostly) good. It’s a quality Nintendo game that has that flare of fluid-ness that we’ve come to expect.

Granted, I do feel like this game, in comparison to other games from this company, has animation that’s much more…generic? Normal?

For instance, ‘Kirby and the Forgotten Land’ has graphics and animations that look kinda similar to other Nintendo games, though still has its own unique style. Everything has a more rounded appearance; UI, character designs, etc. The movement of objects has a bouncy feel, and characters are just…cute! This style is one that only works for ‘Kirby and the Forgotten Land,’ and that’s that.

Meanwhile, ‘Splatoon 3’s’ animation is somewhat normal, safe. There’s not much putting this ahead of other titles in terms of its graphical fidelity. I guess the skybox is nice? There’s not much to talk about here, and there’s little defining ‘Splatoon 3’ as a different game when it comes to looks. Like I said, it’s good. Just…not anything special. Whenever I saw a trailer for it back in September, I couldn’t immediately tell what game I was looking at until I saw the big title wording or whatever. This game doesn’t exactly have much of a visual identity of its own.

PART THREE: SOUND & AUDIO

Now, you may be wondering: “Mr. Whatsername, why would one care about the sound effects in a video game? All we care about is whether or not you have any bodies in your basement!” And to that, I say 2 things.

1. I actually think that, for a shooting game, ‘Splatoon 3’ is a very interesting game to look at in terms of audio and sound effects. It’s a detail I think is missing from many reviews, both of mine and other game reviewers.
2. We’re getting to that.

Sounds for gameplay in video games are something of ambiguity, to say the least. How does one gather the components for, say, the sounds of a flickering flame? It’s a detail many outside of the people who actually make the sound don’t think about. And in my opinion, the audio design in this game is pretty great.

While it’s hard to necessarily define what makes ‘Splatoon 3’s’ noise work so well, I’d argue that the combination of cute, “wobbly” noise we’ve come to expect out of such a cartoony art style and more normal, FPS-shooter sounds is part of it. Such a balance is tricky, but I do say that Nintendo have decidedly laughed at the challenge and said, “Watch me, loser.”

• The sounds for spreading ink in this game are ultra-satisfying, like you’re watching an ASMR video. They are decidedly – forgive me – moist.
• I like the little noises that happen whenever a character is talking. The garble is cute, and isn’t annoying; it’s quiet enough to where you can understand that they’re speaking, yet not be distracted by said noises.
• Whenever you slink through ink, you have this syrupy cue to it, and it makes me hungry. I don’t know why.
• And while this is technically a song, the little jingle you get after winning a match is simply euphoria.

PART FOUR: CONCLUSION

‘Splatoon 3’ is… weird. If you compare it to all 6 other games I’ve reviewed thus far, it feels like the one where I have the least concise thoughts on it.

• ‘Metroid Dread’ is my personal favorite game I’ve reviewed, and my personal favorite in-house Nintendo game.
• ‘Cuphead,’ while flawed, has such a great art style and difficulty that it stands tall amongst the AAA titles.
• ‘Pokémon Legends Arceus’ is a highly-addictive game with graphics that don’t hurt to look at AS much as before, but they still aren’t great.
• ‘Minecraft: Story Mode…’ …makes me want to hit something with a blunt object, but still, ‘Minecraft Dungeons’ is great!
• And ‘Kirby and the Forgotten Land’ is a pretty solid title as well.

Compared to the lineup, ‘Splatoon 3’ is pretty good, but it definitely doesn’t have as much staying power behind it; there’s nothing as poignant to discuss relating to it. Still though, my verdict is a 7 out of 10. Good…but not much else.

…And that’s this episode of JOYSTiCK done! I plan on this being the last Nintendo game I do for this season (school year), so plan on seeing other Xbox, Playstation and indie titles in the coming months.

Now, that’s all I have for you today, and if you’ll excuse me, I have a few red-stained bags to dispose of. Have a great day!

(Shockingly enough, most of the jokes in this article are, indeed, satire! I hope you’ll be happy to know that Daniel does not have any bodies in his basement; only centipedes and gophers, that’s all).