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Piranha Plant and Laying the Seeds for the Future of Super Smash Bros.

Opinionated News
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Indeed: as of this week, the game’s first DLC fighter, Piranha Plant, has gone live. Since its inception in 1996 on the Nintendo 64, the Super Smash Bros. series’ biggest draw — its hook that no other games can swing — is that it is the ultimate crossover (sorry, Marvel) of Nintendo characters. In no other game can stealth operative Solid Snake be slapped around by a sentient pink puffball. That description could even be referring to multiple characters, which shows how diverse the Smash fighter roster really is. Now, we’ve gone into ultra instinct diverse with the addition of Piranha Plant as the first of the DLC characters. Nobody expected this. Piranha Plant didn’t even expect to be included — it always shrubbed it off as some warped kind of pipe dream. But here we are, as its vines are being unleashed in Smash the world over. There is…

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The Lost Art of Arcade Games

Editorials
Video game Ms Pacman and Galaga

I have one goal in my lifetime, and that is to own a Ms. Pac-Man arcade machine (with Galaga of course) at some point. With today’s technology, arcade games can appear to be obsolete. We have televisions and consoles that produce lifelike graphics, and video games are going places they have never been before, especially once VR becomes commonplace. But we shouldn’t forget arcade games of the past, the roots of modern-day gaming as we know it. Walking into an arcade is a lost art. Today, kids can pull up a game on their phone and play anywhere at any time they want, usually during school or times when their focus should be elsewhere. I was never an arcade child myself, but I have heard the war stories that have been passed down to me. People would flock to the arcades after school with quarters they saved up, taking turns…

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Prediction: VR is a Hop, Skip, and a Killer App Away From Changing the Game

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Simspon VR cover

Throughout the history of gaming, there have been a select few technological turning points that changed the direction of video games forever. You could say they include: the introduction of arcades, the arrival of home consoles (and subsequently, the death of arcades), and the leap from 2D to 3D graphics. These advances changed the landscape of games and decided the next playing field that they would exist on. After 3D graphics, though, what is leap is left? Have they all been leapt over, or is there yet another one that will change the direction of gaming like its predecessors before? Well, to better understand the scope of things thus far, we can divide advances in gaming technology into two categories: revolutionary and refining. “Revolutionary” includes the aforementioned leaps that we just talked about; the ones that introduce a whole new level of play. “Refining” refers to the steps taken along…

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Why is ‘Super Smash Bros.’ Adored by All?

Editorials
Captain Falcon

The first Super Smash Bros. changed the game (pun intended) when it came out in 1999. Never before had characters across other games come together like that. The concept of the game was relatively simple: various characters duke it out on stages designed after each character’s respective games. Who would’ve thought how much impact this would have on the gaming community. There are so many things that make Smash Bros. adored by the gaming community. One of the first is the story mode. Having to battle your way against enemy after enemy on their home turf with limited lives can be challenging. All of the times you get eliminated off that stage makes it worth it when you complete the story in full. That Master Hand was such a tough last opponent, and watching the hand explode and crumble away is such a satisfying feeling, no matter how many times you defeat…

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Do We Lose Something by Playing Together Online?

Editorials
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In the beginning, if you wanted to play video games with someone, you had to do so sitting next to each other. As technology has evolved, so has multiplayer — not only can you now play with others online rather than in-person, playing online is now the multiplayer standard. PC games were the early adopters of online play due to the convenience of being on a system that inherently connects to the Internet by design. Consoles, however, had online play come at a slower pace. Many people were still playing splitscreen multiplayer on consoles when PC users were playing online. The turning point for online play on game consoles was Xbox Live on the original Xbox, most notably with Halo 2 becoming an online phenomenon. As times progressed, game consoles have caught up and are now fully online-enabled with streamlined services (including streaming), eliminating the need for in-person multiplayer. You don’t…

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Waluigi, the Purple Sheep of Nintendo

Uncategorized
waluigi

The rivalry of Mario and Wario has become a classic feud in gaming, dating back to Wario’s first official appearance in 1992’s Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins on the Game Boy. Wario’s name itself is brilliance as a corruption of Mario: it takes the Japanese word, “wa,” meaning “bad,” and corrupting Mario’s name with it. Further, “W” works as an upside down “M,” suggesting an inversion of Mario’s character. Lastly — oh yes, there are three layers here — putting “War” in the name hints at Wario’s more brash, abrasive nature compared to to Mario (this is more likely a coincidence, but still a pretty neat linguistic side effect).  Since his introduction, Wario has starred in several games of his own, including the successful WarioWare franchise. Though he may have become less of an antagonist and more a quirky, garlic-eating weirdo over the years, Wario has become a staple of…

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The Lost Art of Renting Games: Blockbuster

Editorials
Blockbuster

I know it is irrelevant and it’s 2019, but I’m going to say it anyway; I miss Blockbuster. There was something magical about going into a Blockbuster as a kid, and I feel sorry that children of this day and age will have no idea what Blockbuster was or even the concept of how it worked for that matter. “What, you went into a store to find games or movies to rent, and if you couldn’t find it you had to settle for another?” Yep, that’s the way we had it back in the day. Simpler times. Nowadays, video game rentals are pretty much non-existant. If you want to test out a game you can download the trial version and play it on your system. If you like it you can go out to the store and buy the disk or even buy a downloadable version on the system itself.…

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Super Smash Brothers Ultimate Breathes Fresh Life Into Unlockables

Editorials
Mega Man Classic

Having released on December 7th of 2018, we have once more been blessed with another entry in the Smash Bros franchise. Bringing back the entire playable roster across the previous four entries, Super Smash Bros Ultimate boasts a hefty 74 playable character roster, with an addition to online features and new modes. Starting the game you are given a handful of characters instead of a huge array to blindly choose from; Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Yoshi, Kirby, Fox, and Pikachu. In a nostalgic throwback to the N64 version, these eight fighters mirror the starting roster of the game that started this insanely popular series. If you choose the new World of Light mode, in which you start with only Kirby available, you will then have to rescue each of the other fighters. Saving those fighters will unlock them for all other modes. This method can be extremely tedious, especially…

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