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Tech/Games

JOYSTiCK Reviews Ep. 15 ‘Portal’ – Holes in Logic, Logic in Holes

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By: Daniel Kendle

(This article was written a week prior to the events transpiring in the ‘Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’ article. Spoilers are also included).

Hey guys, welcome back to JOYSTiCK Reviews, and by golly-gosh, I sure do love being currently alive and free! It’s such a benign feeling; it’s as if I have… rights. Hope nothing changes within the next few days to possibly reverse my current elation.

Of course, the subsequent step to continue this high is to find a way to break apart reality so that way I don’t have to let my mortal form hold my soul hostage from true joy. Now, normally someone like me, Mr. Whatshisname, should go about this through, say (chuckles), the irreparable-breakdown of known physics or whatever, but unfortunately for still-human me, that’s not possible. So, I suppose I’ll have to compromise through virtual simulation. What am I talking about? Why, it’s the video game ‘Portal.’

‘Portal’ is a game released by Valve in 2007, commonly-cited as among the greatest video games made during the 2000’s. The premise consists of the player character being a testing subject for a fictional Portal Gun, allowing the use of teleportation through orange and blue portals (doy). Through this new tool, the object of the game is to complete 19 levels, each with their own puzzles and hazards to overcome.

In the game, portals work as follows: the player gets up to 2 at a time, an orange and a blue portal. They connect to each other, being shot out of the gun to a nearby wall. Then, the player can walk, jump, or fall through. Momentum is carried through if entered through vertical ascension or descension, allowing for further mobility.

In addition to the Portal Gun, you can also pick up and place certain objects, jump, and press buttons. These combined features open up a plethora of concepts that’ll often make you scratch your head at first, then eventually learn and adapt to. ‘Portal’ is one of those rare games who’s mechanics differ from what the human mind is adjusted to in real life; we don’t have teleportation, and the technology present in the game is entirely fictional as of now. This means that any new player will have to take time figuring out the game’s mechanics, which is quite beautiful.

‘Portal’s’ puzzles are great, and it’s clear the developers at Valve had plenty of ideas while making the game. 19 levels doesn’t sound like a lot (and it isn’t, more on this later), but each has intricacies that require full concentration and dedication to figure out the Portal system as a whole. Heck, mastering moving and portal momentum allows skipping some parts of levels entirely, a great way to reward those who put in the work.

I do think that the penultimate level, among another few, are pretty tedious to complete, but it’s always satisfying to reach the elevator at the end of each. The final level, however, is easily ‘Portal’s’ best. To explain, let’s dive into ‘Portal’s’ story; spoilers ahoy!

The game’s plot is simple: you’re a test subject named Chell who awakens deep inside Aperture Science Laboratory. You’ve been tasked to complete 19 puzzles in order to test out their new Portal Gun, with the promise of cake at the end.

As you complete levels, the omnipotent voice over the loudspeaker becomes more and more deranged, if still playful. You also experience various strange moments throughout your misadventures – a couple of stages feature broken, disheveled holes in the walls leading to behind-the-scenes lab equipment. Bloody writing from past test subjects also appears, stating, “THE CAKE IS A LIE.”

Finally, after finishing level 19 the voice attempts to kill off the player in a room of lava, but you escape and explore the rest of the lab’s interiors. Abandoned, you’re taunted by the voice until escaping, reaching a large room where GLaDOS lives: a self-aware AI who’s been the one over the loudspeaker since the beginning. Angered by your escape, you fight, dismantling her “personality spheres” by throwing them in a fiery vat and killing her.

The game ends with the player outside after an explosion, being dragged away by an unknown robot. Credits roll after the reveal that yes, there was cake indeed, and an ending song sung by GLaDOS plays: “Still Alive”.

‘Portal’s’ story is great, if a tad simple. Simple’s not a bad thing, however – plot beats are memorable and interesting, and the game has a sharp sense of humor; very dry and occasionally dark. GLaDOS has quickly become among my favorite fictional characters, let alone video game antagonists. I highly recommend listening to “Still Alive” on Spotify or whatever, because it’s a very experimental and interesting theme for the story’s villain. There aren’t many spoilers in it, except for the fact that the game’s antagonist survives (shocker, I know).

‘Portal’s’ story and gamplay are awesome, but if there’s 1 big drawback, it’s its length. At around 3 hours, the experience is very short, even with additional external content after the credits end. I’m glad there’s a sequel, but the first game’s short time leaves it difficult to enjoy replaying; with its few levels, knowing what to do for each is easy to remember.

Despite this, ‘Portal’ is a fantastic experience, and I completely get the hype for it. For being 18 years old, the package runs well and holds up, even graphically. Hiccups in some puzzles and its runtime lead me to a fitting score of 8/10, which I think is fair.

But that’s that: I’ve been rambling for a while, so I think a nice walk is in order for me! Recently I saw a gingerbread house out in the woods; a visit may be in order for me soon. Until next time my friends, thank you for reading.

Books/Art

Book recommendation: ‘Tender is the Flesh’

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By: Munira Ahmadad

*Warning: This book contains graphic descriptions of violence, includes depictions of sexual assault, and contains characters that may be considered to represent anti-semitic stereotypes.

‘Tender is the Flesh’ is a horror novel by Agustina Bazterrica. The story takes place in a dystopian society where a disease causes humans to be unable to consume animal products or flesh anymore. Not that long after the event, the human population turned to cannibalism for an industrialized replacement of animal meat. This is referred to as “the Transition”.

Humans are bred for consumption identical to how animals were and are referred to as “heads”. The majority of the human product in first world countries is advertised as “special meat”, and the Transition is easier on those who have the privilege to not have to think about where and how they got their meat.

The protagonist is a man named Marcos who works directly in the industry who struggles with his relationship with his wife after the death of their baby. At his job, Marcos was given a first generation pure female head as a gift.

The novel aims to comment on the bleakness of real life society with how the Transition impacted marginalized groups first and the hardest. The message wasn’t that eating meat is bad, but it prompts the readers to consider their own internal ethical conflict and how we oftentimes think around discomforting knowledge and try to disregard it.

The story parallels the real life horrendous aspects in the meat processing industry. Not only do slaughterhouse workers operate in physically dangerous environments, the mental toll of having to constantly disconnect with what they are doing leads to emotional dissonance, and the abusive workplace causes slaughterhouse workers to often turn to maladaptive coping mechanisms according to the National Library of Medicine. The majority of slaughterhouse workers are people of color both in the book and in real life. Slaughterhouse employees are mostly migrants in real life, making up 70% of the workforce in the UK.

I recommend Bazterrica’s novel to anyone who enjoys splatterpunk horror in particular, but I would say that it’s relatively grotesque with its descriptions, and some readers might find it excessive enough for the book to be put down.

Travel/Food

Energy drink review

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By: Max Cahoon & Norah Hoglund

Energy drinks are a good way to boost your energy during the day, especially if you don’t like drinking coffee or tea. There is a very large variety of energy drinks that are made in the world, so we are reviewing some of them to decide which one is the best.

We only tried one flavor of each brand, so we are judging based on the quality of the brand and the flavor we chose. If you are looking for new flavors or new brands of energy drinks to try, then you should read this article and learn about these 5 brands of energy drinks: Bubbl’r, Alani, Celsius, Red Bull, Bloom, and Uptime.

Bubbl’r: we tried the triple berry breez’r flavor. It’s a pretty mild taste, it tastes like sweet berries with a slight bit of tartness. Something we like about this brand is there isn’t too much caffeine in the drinks, only 69 mg per can. Also, it is all natural caffeine. This drink has no sugar, it is sweetened with erythritol, which has way less calories than sugar. Bubbl’rs are also vegan, soy free, gluten free, and immune boosting. Our rating is 8/10 considering the benefits of it and the middle grade taste.

Alani: the flavor we tried of the Alani was cosmic stardust. This flavor was very good, it tasted like a sweet candy, but it wasn’t too sweet. It wasn’t tart or acidic. An Alani has 200 mg of caffeine, which is quite a lot. There is no sugar because it is sweetened artificially, which gives it less than 15 calories. Our overall rating was a 8/10, it’s very good flavor wise but just wasn’t our favorite. 

Celsius:the flavor we tried was Fuji apple pear. It tastes like apple and pear but with a little bit more sweetness. There is also a little bit of tartness. There is 200 mg of caffeine. It has a little bit of the same acid taste as the Red Bull, but it’s not nearly as powerful. It is sweetened with artificial sweeteners. Our rating is a 7/10.

Red Bull: we tried the original Red Bull flavor and it tastes like a fruity candy with battery acid in it. It is very pungent and strong flavor wise. The Red Bull has 80 mg of caffeine and 26 g of sugar, which makes sense because it’s an extremely high power energy drink. Putting sugar in an energy drink kind of defeats its purpose, though, because most people drink energy drinks to have energy without consuming a lot of calories. Our rating is a 2/10.

Bloom: the flavor we tried of bloom was raspberry lemonade. It tasted exactly like it was described, like sweet lemonade with a little bit of tartness from the raspberry. Bloom energy drinks are definitely on the healthier side for energy drinks, as they contain lots of vitamins and 180 mg of natural caffeine. There is no sugar, it is sweetened with sucralose which is a good alternative for sugar. We rate this one 8/10.

UpTime: the flavor we tried was white peach lemonade. It has 142 mg of natural caffeine. Uptime is different from the rest of these energy drinks as it has no sugar and is sweetened with natural sweeteners. Some people won’t understand how good and important that is for an energy drink to still taste really good without any artificial sweeteners or sugars. It tastes like sparkling lemonade with a hint of peach, and it’s actually really good while also being relatively good for you. Our rating is a 9/10 and for good reason. If you wanted to try a new energy drink we would recommend this one the most. This was the first time we’d ever heard of this brand and it is our favorite brand for energy drinks now.

Tech/Games

‘A Hat in Time’ review

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By: Persephone Pond

‘A Hat in Time’ is a 3D platformer game released in 2017 and developed by an indie studio called Gears for Breakfast, and published by Humble Bumble. In this game, the player plays as a young girl called Hat Kid, who loses her fuel for her spaceship and needs to collect all the pieces to get home.

There are 4 different areas of the planet that these fuel pieces land on. Each area consists of 4-7 different levels plus a boss fight; each level gaining a lost piece of fuel until the player eventually collects all 40 missing pieces and are able to get back home.

The first area is a large town built around a volcano called Mafia Town. The enemies in this area are caricatures of stereotypical Italian mafia members, and while fighting through each level, the player gains more information about their backstory and how Mafia Town came to be.

The second area is a movie studio, where the player meets 2 rival directors fighting for an annual movie award. The first director, The Conductor, is a Scottish murder mystery director with a tendency to direct all his movies on trains. The second director is a disco themed penguin who strives for fame and only fame. Both characters recruit the player to act in their movies, so the levels in this area are more story driven.

The third area is the Subcon Forest, where the player is introduced to an evil spirit who is known by the name The Snatcher. When he steals the player’s soul, he offers contracts to do his dirty work around the forest for the soul to be returned. The forest is spooky and there are a few horror-esque levels in this area.

The final area is the Alpine Skyline. This is a beautiful landscape inhabited by giant goat creatures, who are cared for by smaller, humanoid goat creatures. The player must retrieve pieces of fuel from different areas that all require different skills, and through these levels the player is introduced to the dark lore of the land.

All of the levels in this game are creative and very well thought out, and the level of detail in each individual character’s story is wonderfully fleshed out. The author of this article fully recommends the game and on a scale of 10 stars, easily rates it a 10.

‘A Hat in Time’ is available on consoles such as Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Playstation 4, and Microsoft Windows. In addition to the vanilla game, there are 2 DLCs available on all the same platforms. These DLCs add 14 total more fuel pieces to collect, and add a higher difficulty to the game if desired, and add 2 new areas to the planet with wonderful stories and characters.

Tech/Games

HOW TO GET ALL ‘ACE COMBAT 7’ “ACE” SKINS

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By: Hoaseng Thao

‘Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown’ is a video game made by Bandai Namco, and if you’ve ever played the campaign, you may have seen certain enemies with names on them.

These named aircrafts are actually ace pilots and as a brief explanation to why they’re called an “ace”, an ace is a pilot who’s shot down five or more aircraft in aerial combat.

Each enemy ace flies their own aircraft so by downing one of these aces, you can unlock their unique skin for that aircraft, however if you want to fly around with the skin, you do need to finish the main campaign first.

There are a total of 24 named aces throughout the campaign, but they don’t appear right away as they require a couple of steps to be spawned in.

In this guide, I’ll show you how to trigger them, and what’s the best way to unlock them.

I’ll start off in chronological order of the campaign, starting from mission 1 to 19. I’ll also show the name of the ace, and their specific aircraft.

Mission 1 “Charged Assault” | PYRO | Mig-21

To unlock this ace, you need an aircraft that can equip a special weapon that can launch multiple missiles, any variant is fine. The trigger for this ace is that you need to kill at least the third wave of bombers in one volley.

Mission 2 “Charge the Enemy” | JESTER | Mig-29

Enemy ace “JESTER” can be triggered when you destroy the control tower right after destroying all radar vehicles, but before the drones spawn in. As long as you destroy the radar vehicles before the drones spawn, you’re good to go.

Mission 3 “Two-pronged Strategy” | BAYONET | F-16C

“BAYONET” can only be triggered when you down four aircraft within two minutes, so the best way to achieve this is to use an aircraft with long range weapons. “BAYONET” will spawn behind the Arsenal Bird.

Mission 4 “Rescue” | RONIN | F-15J

“RONIN” is an F-15J that can be triggered when you fly below 200 meters during the stealth section, after that you can find him in the North.

Mission 5 “444” | FANG | F-15C

For “FANG” to spawn in, your aircraft has to take on at least half of your health for them to spawn.

Mission 6 “Long Day” | KITTEN | F-14D

To unlock “KITTEN”, you’re going to have to just fly through the tunnel at the western base, then they’ll spawn in.

Mission 7 “First Contact” | FAUCON | Typhoon

This ace is pretty easy to trigger, as you’ll need to eliminate all non-target enemies and they’ll spawn in to intercept you.

Mission 8 “Pipeline Destruction” | GAZELLE | F-15E

“GAZELLE” is one of the trickiest ones to trigger, as you need to destroy all oil tanks before the timer runs out. I recommend using aircraft that can launch bombs with a large radius. “GAZELLE” spawns alongside the drones.

Mission 9 “Faceless Soldier” | SPIDER | F-18F

In order to get “SPIDER”, you need to shoot down at least half of the non-targets for them to spawn. The best way to achieve “SPIDER” is to use air to ground missiles, as you can just shoot and forget.

Mission 10 “Transfer Orders” | LOUVETEAU | Gripen E

Just like for “BAYONET”, this one is time based as you need to defeat all SAM sites within five minutes so you’ll need a fast aircraft. “LOUVETEAU” will spawn from the east alongside other Gripens.

Mission 11 “Fleet Destruction” | IBIS & CHASSEUR | SU-33 & RAFALE M

There are two aces in this mission, “IBIS” and “CHASSEUR”. To get “IBIS”, you must fly through the cores of the sea platforms, and they’ll spawn near the Erusean Fleet. For “CHASSEUR” you’re going to have to destroy all fighter jets on the northern platforms before they go airborne, only then will they spawn.

Mission 12 “Stonehenge Defensive” | WALRUS, FOUDRE, BUFFLE | SU-34, MIR-2000-5, A-10C

There’s a lot of aces in this mission, so to be brief, “WALRUS” can be triggered when Stonehenge has taken no damage, “FOUDRE” will spawn once you fly underneath any of the Stonehenge turrets, and “BUFFLE” will spawn when you destroy the three A-10Cs from the east.

Mission 13 “Bunker Buster” | COMET | MIG-31

“COMET” is pretty easy to do, just get a fast aircraft and just target the bunkers, but the only problem is that “COMET” does spawn behind you when the ICBMs launch.

Mission 14 “Cape Rainy Assault” | GLADFLY | SU-47

Just like in ‘Star Wars’, the trigger in this mission is to complete the trench run within 2 minutes, so equip a fast and agile aircraft for this one in order for “GLADFLY” to spawn.

Mission 15 “Battle for Farbanti” | BOGEN & SERPENT | F-2A & SU-37

“BOGEN” is pretty easy, so target the Aegis ashore platform and they’ll spawn in, but intercept him quickly or else they’ll flee south. For “SERPENT” to spawn just get around 15,000 points before the timer reaches five minutes, and he’ll spawn in.

Mission 16 “Last Hope” | AXEMAN | SU-45S

Achieve at least 10,000 points in the first section of the mission for “AXEMAN” to spawn, however identify them first before shooting.

Mission 17 “Tyler Island” | MANTIS | F-35C

For “MANTIS” to spawn in, you need to fly above but also very close to the mass driver, only then will they spawn in when the bombers arrive.

Mission 18 “Lost Kingdom” | LYNX | YF-23

“LYNX” can be triggered when you destroy all targets leading to Shilage castle within three minutes, however if you don’t engage them, they will flee southward.

Mission 19 “Lighthouse” | TEMPEST & CALAMITY | F-22A & SU-57

These two are fairly simple, so to trigger both of them, you need at least 20,000 points for them to spawn in. “TEMPEST” will specifically target you while “CALAMITY” will try to flee south.

That is all the named aircrafts in ‘ACE COMBAT 7’, and I hope this guide will help you collect them all!