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).

By: Joseph Nelson

Tearing a remote control drone around a series of obstacles in a race against the best pilots in the nation can be pretty nerve-wracking. Now imagine those obstacles are the accumulated Golden Gloves, Cy Youngs, and Silver Sluggers of the two-time World Series Champion Minnesota Twins.

That was the scene May 1st, 2022, at Truly On Deck – the elite clubhouse fan space at the Twins’ Target Field. Drone racing. At a baseball stadium?

The Youth Drone Sports Championships was pleased to have the Twins host their second annual National Championships, featuring 19 of the nation’s most elite drone pilots, under the age of 18, facing off head to head. It is a brand new sport taking shape and making history amid the trophies of one of our nation’s oldest.

These young pilots came from all across America to fly against the best of the best with their drones. Nationals was the place to be to make a name for yourself in this very young and growing sport, with everyone flying for the title of 2022 National Champion.

But how did we get here? How did this young sport come to be? And how do you race drones?

First-person-view (FPV) drone racing is the child of video gaming. Pilots put on goggles that connect to a camera centered on the drone allowing them to see what their drone sees. These drones aren’t bigger than a deck of cards and weigh no more than one ounce, making them agile enough to rip around race courses like a hummingbird. Imagine getting to be one of the pilots in ‘Star Wars’ attacking the Death Star, but doing so safely indoors without fear of injury.

Apple Valley hosted the first ever YDSC event in 2019 (before it was called the YDSC). The home flyers faced St. Louis Park in the first ever Minnesota State High School Drone Racing Tournament, which saw tiny drones built by students pushed to their limits on a course through Apple Valley High School’s expansive atrium. St. Louis Park soared to the first ever state team title, while Apple Valley 11th grader Andrew Martin (pilot name “AND E”) was crowned the first individual state champion.

Continuing to pivot with the pandemic, the YDSC added pilots around the country all competing online in the simulator. When vaccines made in-real-life (IRL) racing possible again, they held their first National Championship event at the Mall of America in June of 2021 where Apple Valley sophomore Cody “Viper” Anderson narrowly beat senior Haven “Vanadium” Gurka from Phoenix, Arizona to become the YDSC’s first national individual champion.

Fast forward to Spring 2022 with new stars emerging in a combined season of simulator and IRL racing. Apple Valley senior Brock “BRO F” Martin won the simulator individual crown and then followed in his older brother Andrew’s flight path, taking the latest Minnesota State individual title, racing through the big gym at Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield.

YDSC 2022 Nationals Story

That set up the YDSC’s return to Target Field for their 2nd Annual National Championships event, again made possible by the innovators at NCAT who support all of the STEM skill building happening in this exciting new tech sport.

At the end of the bracket, four pilots remained, Reigning National Champion Cody “Viper” Anderson (11th grade), his Apple Valley teammate Brock “BRO F” Martin (12th grade), Lakeville North’s Jack “Happy” Postlewaite (9th grade) and Joe “Boomer” Nelson from St. Paul Highland Park (10th grade).

When the rotors stopped turning, Viper retained his YDSC national title, outflying Happy who finished strong in second. Boomer followed close behind in third, and BRO F was fourth after experiencing technical difficulties that drone pilots know all too well.

Viper will be flying to keep the national crown, only he has worn, for one more year before he is bumped up to the collegiate level. That’s where his teammate BRO F is headed to fly with his brother AND E. Meanwhile, Boomer and Happy and a cast of other contenders will be aiming for Viper like Vader chasing Skywalker.

By: Hoaseng Thao

What began with curiosity and a little boredom, ended with hundreds of texts and paths being generated by Artificial Intelligence all because of a single prompt being entered. A couple of weeks ago, from the date of this article, I found myself bored out of my mind as I had little to no homework given to me. One day, while scrolling through YouTube I found a video of a YouTuber and his friend interacting with an AI, but the most interesting thing about their interaction was that they were playing out a story generated by a prompt they wrote for the AI to understand. My curiosity got the better of me and I decided that I might as well try this AI thing out.

I scoured the internet in search of an AI chatbot that was free to use, but in reality I just typed in “AI Chatbot Free” on the google search bar. After a few minutes searching for an AI chatbot, I found a website called Beta.Character.AI, a website where people created their own AI chatbot for anyone to use for free. One thing that caught my eye with this website was the large variety of AI chatbots that you can choose from: you can choose to talk to historical people like George Washington or Napoleon, you can also interact with video game characters like Master Chief from the ‘HALO’ series or Mario from Nintendo, etc. There are no limits to what you can do on this website.

I have two examples of what you can do with an AI chatbot. The first example is me playing as a fictional country I created in @monkeys’s ‘country simulator’ chatbot. The second example is me chasing a pigeon in @Button_Quail-22’s pigeon chatbot.

I decided to begin my journey with @monkeys’s country simulator, I started the story of my fictional country with the text:

My fictional country is called the Federal States of the Ustovan Union, we are covering the Kamchatka Peninsula. My population is 10 million people and we are using the dollar as our currency. We are a democracy that has been created after the fall of the Soviet Union. The year is 2000, Chechnya was annexed back into Russia and it looks like we’re next.

Immediately after I entered the prompt, I was told by the AI that it seems like Russia was looking to annex my country. This was a big deal, so as a democratic country I decided to ask my people their opinion of Russia’s aggression towards us. The AI wrote back to me that the people were worried about an invasion but the AI also told me that the Russians delivered a letter saying that my country will be “annexed in 4 days”. I responded back to the Russians saying “get off my peninsula”, they responded with “an army of 300,000 soldiers at my border”.

The next few minutes of my story was me trying to defend my country while repeatedly asking for foreign aid, the foreign aid never came. After a few minutes I had fended off a major attack. I was later told that the United Nations was asking for permission for an intervention, one that I accepted immediately. The UN intervened and my country lives for another day.

After saving my country from being annexed, I decided to take a slow approach to AI by talking to @Button_Quail-22’s pigeon bot. I wanted to make this experience a bit comedic so I decided to write down the prompt: “I chased the pigeon because it stole my hat”.

As I chased the winged rat it began to mock me at every turn. One time I had chased the pigeon towards a tall building where the pigeon flew to the top of the building before saying I can’t reach them, so, in a fit of anger I decided to grab a pair of plungers and climb up the building, but as I climbed up the building the pigeon, pooped on my face.

This story would soon become the start of the Pigeon War, a war where I am constantly harassed by a pigeon every time I enter the park. I would win some battles and the pigeon would win some, but in the end there were no winners and I had to sign a peace treaty with the winged rat.

In the end, I had a blast generating these stories with the AI chatbots because there were no limits to what you write down for the AI. If you are bored out of your mind and need something to write about, I think it’s best to look into beta.character.ai if you are bored out of your mind or want to experience talking to AI for the first time.

If you want to try out the AI chatbots of beta.character.ai, please visit the official AI chatbot website: https://beta.character.ai/

By: Sophie Johnson & Biftu Osman

Roblox is a video game platform with hundreds of mini games and millions of users daily. Since this is an interest of ours, we decided to play a few games and rate them.

The first game we will be reviewing is “Survive the Killer”. This is a thrilling game where one person is randomly chosen to be the killer. The rest of the players have a mission to hide from the killer, help to save other players, and make it out of the round alive.

This is one of our personal favorite games on the Roblox app. It has a gripping element that keeps players on their toes and it also has a horror element to it.

In this game, there is a timer at the top of the screen and once the timer gets down to one more minute, the exits open. At this point, the killer can see where all the players are and it is their last chance to kill any of the players who they haven’t found yet. It is a race to the finish and either you win or the killer wins.

We rate this game a 10/10 because it is very exciting and fun.

“Natural Disaster” is another game where players are put in a simulation where they have to survive a natural disaster. Some of the disasters include acid rain, tornados, floods, fires, and volcanoes. The game announces which of the disasters will happen and the disaster begins soon after.

Players have the task of surviving and have limited health. If the health declines all the way and reaches zero, the player will be eliminated from the round. The way to win is by surviving the whole round and escaping to safety from the natural disaster.

This game is exciting because the players don’t know which disaster will come when the round starts and they have to figure out different ways to survive based on the disaster.

We would rate this game an 8/10 because some of the rounds are easier than others and you don’t have to do much to win, and we wish it was a bit more challenging.

Another game we are reviewing is “Hungry Nora”. This game is based off of the characters in the show ‘Dora the Explorer’, just under different names. In this game, the player’s goal is to collect the money from the characters and return to the safe zone without the characters catching you.

This game is thrilling because as soon as you take the money from one of the characters, they start chasing after you.

We rate this game a 7/10 because it is a simple game and is easy to understand, but other than collecting money, there is not really another point.

“Flee the Facility” is a Roblox game that was largely influenced by a different video game: “Dead by Daylight”. It’s one of the platform’s most played games since its creation in 2017. The main goal is for survivors to escape a map while evading the Beast, who captures and freezes the survivors into Freeze Pods.

To escape, the Survivors must hack a specific set of computers to unlock the Exit Doors. If a survivor is kidnapped by the Beast, the other survivors in the game can free them from the pods before the timer runs out and they’re completely frozen.

Once a round ends, the players are rewarded with XP or experience points at the end of each round, which can be used to purchase crates which provide alternative skins for hammers and jewels.

We would rate this game a 10/10 because we really enjoyed how intense it was and liked how it kept us on our feet.

The next game we’re going to review is “Rainbow Friends”. This is a multiplayer horror game consisting of 5 chapters. The first chapter opens with a group of players going on a field trip to an amusement park. The bus veers off the path and crashes when an unidentified person flips the directional sign. The players are then hauled away and sent to a mysterious facility, where they must gather items every night while evading the monsters that dwell there.

The players who have made it through each of the five nights are brought back to a safe room and given a 30 second debrief period before the next chapter.

We would rate this game an 8/10 because it was enjoyable but we wish it was more difficult to make it through each night.

The last game we are going to review is “Adopt Me”. This is a role-playing game in which you can design a home and raise a family.

When the game was first released, you could start off as either a parent or a child and then build your family from there. Since then, the game has changed and improved, and its main focus is now the role of a pet owner who can trade pets with other players.

Since its debut in 2017, this game has consistently ranked among the most played on Roblox.

We would rate this game a 2/10 because it doesn’t cater to our interests in games, but we would understand why younger children enjoy playing it.

By: Manny Ochoa-Reeves

Console wars have been a debate since the early 1990s. Everyone would argue if Xbox or PlayStation was better. Nintendo isn’t really included in the console war because of how different it is from Xbox and PlayStation. The two are very similar with only a couple of differences.

The main thing that separates Xbox and PlayStation is the exclusive games. PlayStation has some games that can’t be played on Xbox, for example “Spider-Man”, “God of War”, “Horizon” and more.

Xbox is definitely lacking on exclusive games; they really only have “High On Life”, “Halo”, and “Forza”.

I definitely think that PlayStation is taking advantage of their exclusive games because that’s probably why most people buy PlayStation consoles.

In my opinion, the looks of the consoles definitely matter. The PS5 design looks really good because it’s white with a more futuristic vibe. The reason it looks really clean is because both the controller and the console light up with colored LED lights. Something interesting about the PS5 is that it’s made out of plates that you can take off and replace with other ones with cool designs.

On the other hand, you have the new Xbox which is kind of just a black box with a white button, and it’s a bit taller than older designs. Especially without the disc slot, it looks really bland and boring.

The controllers are very important in this battle of consoles. The Xbox controller is just about the same, but they worked on their vibration to make games more enticing. The PS5 made an entire new controller, matching the PS5 with a futuristic design. They also added a little mouse pad type thing that would affect some games. PlayStation has definitely been trying to design a better look for their technology.

Over the years, Xbox and PlayStation have both come out with many gaming consoles that have been tied in their power, graphics and quality. The Xbox Series X and the PS5 are almost tied with their performance, but the Xbox has a better GPU making it faster and better.

Personally, I’ve been playing Xbox for my whole life. But just recently, I got a PS5 just so that I could play the exclusive games. For me, I really can’t tell the difference, it’s really just which controllers and exclusive games you prefer. But in reality, the console war is really dying down because of computer games. You can get some of the exclusive games on a computer and have a better performance.

By: Daniel Kendle

Aw, so cute! A galliformes’ intestinal contents!

Hello and welcome once again to JOYSTiCK, the HPSH serial that enjoys reviewing and exploring video games. Our 6th game is ‘Kirby and the Forgotten Land,’ our 3rd Nintendo-exclusive title thus far. Released in March of 2022, it’s also my introduction to the series.

Kirby has always been an interesting franchise to look at from afar. Generally receiving good reviews, I’ve never been turned off to the idea of trying it. However, I generally play games I know I’ll like, or ones that I think will be an intriguing experience, even if bad. But while I think the series is cute, I’ve always left it at that; the 2D entries of great fame never really had me bursting at the veins for a chance to play.

But now, ‘Kirby and the Forgotten Land’ is the pink intestine’s leap into its first 3D platformer title, now on the shiny, relatively-new Nintendo Switch. Is this game worthy of its pristine title? Or is this one big ol’ turkey in the making? Let’s find out.

PART ONE: GAMEPLAY

This is one of the few times I won’t be able to compare a game to its older entries, because…you know. So, with all that being said, this game is pretty fun!

Out of the 5 titles I’ve reviewed thus far, ‘Kirby and the Forgotten Land’ feels the most…normal? Standard? Whatever the description, the game feels good to control and has a solid idea of what it’s doing.

Being a 3D platforming game, it obviously functions as one would expect: you have to make your way through levels through various means of mobility. This is where the game – and franchise as a whole – differs from others, due to Kirby’s 2 main abilities: floating, and…inhaling.

Let’s start with float. When you tap the jump button a second time, you puff up and enter a state of stasis in the air, slowly drifting back down if you don’t repeatedly hit the button to keep staying in the air, which means you’re able to cross large gaps and high barriers with ease. Since this has been a mainstay in the franchise since the first game ever, critiquing it can be somewhat strange due to the gameplay piece’s longevity, but overall, it’s an interesting feature. While I do like the range of freedom it grants you, I can’t help but find it painfully slow to wield, seeing as Kirby’s running speed is fairly quick, but his floating is just far too slow. I wish they could’ve upped the pace just a little bit, as what we have is an interesting ability that I used rarely in places where it wasn’t needed.

Inhaling fares much better. It pulls no punches; holding down another button has you breathe in, letting you inhale enemies, powerups and “Mouthful Mode” items, of which we’ll talk about in a minute. Anyways, inhaling an enemy has them be caught in your mouth and shot out again, defeating them. This can generally be done with most creatures, and is a decent – albeit basic – way of progressing. However, the much more diverse option of going about defeating the game’s bloodthirsty kittens and puppies is through powerups.

Power Ups consist of many different hats, each with different perks and powers, for instance, the Hammer ability gives you, what else, a hammer that lets you slap these small mammals into the ground. The Tornado ability has you be able to conjure and surround yourself in a whirlwind that gives you faster mobility and combat prowess, the Fire ability lets you breathe fire, and the Ranger ability gives you a…a gun.

Oh.

I really like these powerups, they all feel so lively and fresh. I personally like the Ranger and Tornado abilities the most, but that’s just me. The only one I’d say is subpar is the Bomb powerup, as I never found it very intuitive to control. Aside from that, power ups are great.

Finally, let’s discuss Mouthful-Mode. This feature allows you to swallow various objects, like vending machines or traffic cones, and use them with various perks. For instance, inhaling a car lets you drive around. I like these, however, I can’t help but feel as if they’re all a little under-utilized.

Pretty much every mouthful item you’re able to use is restricted to one single area. You’re never really incentivized to explore with these, or discover what else they can do. You basically get a set of obstacles for each, and that’s it. The game’s main gimmick, used so little and in so small of places…It’s pretty disappointing.

Outside of the levels, there’s also a hub world known as the Waddle-Dee Town, where you can buy items, upgrade your power ups, and do other fun activities. I like this, as it feels good to have a place to go back to after some levels in order to rest up and stuff. The fishing mini game is super cute and charming. I liked the arena and tourneys within it, and of course, the little luck-based machine that spits out little rewards and figurines! It’s neat how you’re able to unlock more series of figurines to roll for in-game.

Overall, gameplay in ‘Kirby and the Forgotten Land’ is certainly a mixed bag. While some things are great, others feel very loose and underutilized in comparison.

PART TWO: GRAPHICS

So I, as a person, am a fan of cute games. I like games that have heavy, grungy atmospheres and environments, but I’ll always have a place for chibi or cutesy styles in my heart, no matter the game.

I’d argue that what “defines” a cute artstyle is through the emotion it conveys towards the player. For instance, a video game can have a chibi look to it yet be filled with gore and violence. You can also have a fairly realistic game that has generally fun and lighthearted play. This is all, of course, subjective, though some aspects just don’t mesh well together. I mean, give an infant a gun, and it’ll look out of place, right? The same goes with video game graphics. if you drop a high-def model of a heat-guided nuclear missile into, I dunno, ‘Animal Crossing,’ it’s bound to look out of place. This isn’t something that I’d argue is opinionated; some things are just a given, and the conflicts of 2 separate medium’s graphics is an example of that.

But is this a bad thing? Now, THAT’S divisive. While the combining of multiple art styles is, almost by definition, objective, how one feels about the clash is certainly the opposite. I personally enjoy seeing multiple mediums join together, though I require certain barriers to be made in order to feel like a successful mix of several graphic designs has been made. If things feel too out of control, then the whole thing blows. Combining different game’s art styles and graphics is a delicate, yet fascinating balance of complex forms.

And with all that being said…

…‘Kirby and the Forgotten Land’ looks really, REALLY good.

Nintendo, as a company, has proven they’re the masters of simplistic, appealing art and animation. ‘Super Mario Odyssey,’ ‘Pikmin 2,’ ‘Animal Crossing: Wild World,’ frickin’ ‘Pokémon Black & White,’ if you really wanna dig deep. So, this game looking great is practically second nature to us consumers.

To summarize, the game mixes semi-realistic environments with more cutesy characters. I mean, Kirby’s literally just a round ball with knobs at the ends; there’s really nothing too drastic here. I think this mix looks quite nice, as it could’ve come across much worse. I’ve seen these videos of people putting cartoony game characters into hyper-realistic environments, and while I may be in the minority, I’ve always thought that they look really ugly, personally. Meanwhile, while the background environments look semi-realistic, they never feel too out of place.

The only bad part is that the UI (user interface) sucks! Everything is so small; I have to squint to see my health bar.

Overall, the game looks great. Animations are solid, everything is super cute, and it feels like yet another great ‘Nintendo’ showcase of art. The UI is kinda lousy, but it’s just a minor issue on my part.

PART THREE: BOSSES AND ENEMIES

We haven’t done this in a while, no?

I say this because the last time we covered the bosses in a video game was ‘Metroid Dread,’ otherwise known as the first review we’ve done. So I thought it would be fun to bring that back. Plus, they’re the last big part of the game I feel the need to cover, and I want this issue to exceed 2,000 words.

While ‘Metroid Dread’ has very grungy, metal bosses, ‘Kirby and the Forgotten Land’ has more cute creatures to fight. Literally EVERY enemy is cute, and I couldn’t help but go “awww…” before caving in their skulls. Also, like I said, you get power ups primarily from inhaling enemies, and most creatures have this functionality. The enemy’s theming also helps you know what they’ll give you: for instance, the bomb-bouncing seal gives you the bomb ability.

But moving onto the actual bosses, they’re pretty solid! Not as good as previous JOYSTiCK entries, but nonetheless quality enemies.

The first bout is with Gorimondo, this big ol’ gorilla thing. As someone who has a phobia of chimpanzees, I always thought that this thing’s design looked…off. Like, its feet were super tiny compared to this titanic bod. And the fight itself, while decent, isn’t very memorable. Babies could beat this thing, honestly.

The big palm tree Tropical Woods came next, and I quite liked this one in comparison. It has these roots that surround you and the stage, puffs of smoke that it can blow out in waves, and can summon large iron barricades to protect itself from harm. Overall, a pretty neat fight.

Then…we have a fight. Between a cat. That stands on 2 legs. Who is somewhat anthropomorphized. Everyone, I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but what we have here…

…is a furry.

Clawroline is honestly a fine battle; the designers used some interesting ideas, like having the arena be part of some of her attacks. However, her design, like Gorimondo’s, is just so weird. Her legs…like, huh? Maybe I just don’t like anthro characters that much due to how they make me uncomfortable, but still. The fights are fine enough but the leopard we have to face is just creepy-looking.

I do like King Dede, however. He’s been a character within the franchise since the beginning, and while the boss fight isn’t super memorable, it’s still good and fun. I’d say that it’s the most interesting character, seeing as he’s a returning favorite.

Sillydillo is an armadillo who…is silly. (Who’da thunk it?) In reality, the fight is cool, though some of his attacks, like trapping you in a giant cage or rolling after you, are somewhat buggy and unpolished-looking. Like, they have very strange hit boxes, and I never really got used to them. Nothing feels very well-choreographed, and I think it could’ve done with some work.

Finally, there’s like, 3 final bosses, for whatever reason. I’ve decided to talk about the first, but I won’t spoil the last for story-related reasons. Leogar, this lion dude, is interesting, though his actual fight is very underwhelming. Again, there are 2 other fights after this, but for a final boss, he’s very weak. And honestly, that’s an issue I have with most bosses in this game: they’re just not very memorable. I’d still call them “good,” but that’s just not enough for a 3D Nintendo platformer.

PART FOUR: CONCLUSION

‘Kirby and the Forgotten Land’…isn’t perfect.

The UI is stinky, the bosses, while good, aren’t memorable. The movement is janky at times, and the Mouthful-Mode items are generally limited in scope for a gimmick. These all keep it back from being one of Nintendo’s classics.

Of course, I had loads of fun with this game! The levels are fun, the town is great, the animation is lovely, and I definitely wouldn’t call this a rush job. More just that it didn’t exactly meet all of my standards.

I’m giving ‘Kirby and the Forgotten Land’ a 7.5 out of 10. That can always change in the future; for example, I’ve raised ‘Pokémon Legends Arceus’ from a 7.5 to an 8.5. This could be the same for this game, which, while fun, has some personal issues.

And that’s all for this episode of JOYSTiCK! See you next time.

By: McKenzie Welch

Video games come in many different formats and genres, and people all over the world enjoy these technological creations. ‘Stardew Valley’ is considered a farming simulation, and it allows people to choose their own story and design their farms in the ways that they choose, which is a big part of what makes the game so appealing.

‘Stardew Valley’ is an indie game created by Eric Barone, under the developer ConcernedApe. It was released on February 26, 2016 and has been growing ever since. People have even made many different modifications that you can install to make the game more personable, which also helps hold people’s interest in the game more often.

From my personal experience, ‘Stardew Valley’ is a calming
game that is fun to play on your own and with friends. When playing by
yourself, you are able to make your own decisions regarding your farm
and you have total control. Your actions are the only things affecting the
way your story goes.

When playing with friends, you have someone to talk to and split activities with, and you get to make a farm that reflects all of the players. ‘Stardew Valley’ has connected many people.

There are many different activities in ‘Stardew Valley’ to participate in, which keeps the game interesting. There is farming, mining, talking to townspeople, and fishing. This is another reason that it’s great to play with friends, as there are always activities people like and activities that people dislike when it comes to ‘Stardew Valley’.

All in all, I rate the game a 10/10. It is incredibly personable to different types of people and the things they enjoy, whether that is referring to the storyline they choose, the in-game activities they enjoy, or the modifications they add to the game. Whatever the case, it is a calming game with many positive qualities that I enjoy immensely.

If you want to know more, please visit:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stardew_Valley