Some Thoughts on Some Things

  When Ghost of Tsushima dropped back in July it was a smash hit, selling 2.4 million copies in the first 3 days of its release. The game touts beautifully flowing combat and landscapes in an homage to classic Japanese films. It also tells a gripping story, with the player taking on the role of Jin Sakai, who must defend his homeland from a Mongol invasion. Once one finished the story, however, there wasn’t much more to do in Tsushima. This was the main thing detractors would point to when criticizing the game. Many people (including myself) beat the game in the first week of its release and then had no reason to pick it up again. So, Sucker Punch got back to work and brought us Legends, a new online multiplayer game mode that gives players a reason to return to the instant classic. Ghost of Tsushima: Legends, was released on October 16 th , and allows players to play in groups of two or four. The two-person game mode contains new story missions that players can complete to get n...

  The NBA season just ended with the Lakers beating the Heat in the Finals. Really though, it ended in June last year, when the Los Angeles Lakers traded for Anthony Davis. Once LeBron James got his hands on arguably the best two-way big in the game today, anyone who had been paying attention to basketball for the past decade or so could have guessed how this season would end. LeBron isn’t getting any younger, but he doesn’t seem to be getting any older either. That means teams with championship aspirations are going to have to beat Los Angeles this offseason, or they’ll have no hope of beating them in the playoffs (barring—basketball gods forbid—catastrophic injury). In no other major sport does the preseason favorite win the title as often as in basketball. With so few players per team, the talent level on each team goes much further in deciding the results than in, say, football which has about 50 players on a roster. With the 2021 season rumored to start in January, the next th...

  “Author, singer, dancer, exotic olive oil taster, it’s me baby” croons Ariyan Arslani—better known as Action Bronson—on the second song of his latest album, Only for Dolphins. The song is called C12H16N2, the molecular formula for dimethyltryptamine (DMT): a chemical substance which can be consumed as a psychedelic drug. References to Bronson’s hallucinogenic exploits are nothing new for the chef-turned-rapper, which is unsurprising since you’d have to be tripping balls to even consider leading a life like the one he has. As he states in the song, Bronson is man who wears many hats—a jack-of-all-trades in a time when everyone else is trying to fill a specific niche. He consistently makes outlandish statements in his music that the listener knows can’t be true, but somehow believes anyway because of his penchant for doing things that seem unlikely or impossible. “All around the world I’m known by different names, never the real one” -Action Bronson on Golden Eye Action Brons...

Among Us is the latest mobile gaming phenomenon, and it’s liable to have you and your friends stabbing one another in the back and levying paranoid, McCarthy-esque accusations. It’s a game about trust and, more importantly, a lack thereof. The game is set on a spaceship, and the design is simple—you start with ten players, most of whom are crewmates, and are given various tasks to complete. One or two of the players, however, will be imposters tasked with sabotaging the ship and killing the crew. The objective of the game as a crewmate is to complete all the tasks or find out who the imposters are and vote them off the ship. As an imposter, the player will attempt to kill all the crew members or sabotage the ship’s vital systems, all while trying to fool the crew into thinking you’re one of them. As a crewmate, you can complete various tasks to win the game for your team. These tasks, however, take a bit to complete and block the player’s screen while working on them. This means t...

  Neji Hyuga is undoubtedly one of the most beloved characters in the Naruto franchise, which made Soleil’s decision not to include him in the Shinobi Striker roster for over two years a puzzling one to say the least. Each new season, fans of the game would ponder about who the new DLC characters would be, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a discussion that didn’t include Neji. On September 25 th , the Shinobi faithful finally got their wish, and Neji Hyuga was added to the game as part of season three. Given how long fans of the game were practically begging for Neji, the reaction to this most recent DLC has been surprisingly critical. Recently, the new characters have been trending towards more overpowered abilities, and people were probably expecting the same here. Considering Neji’s role and power level in the manga/anime, however, Soleil made a well-balanced character with interesting possibilities. Neji’s DLC also comes with some fresh outfits and hairstyles that players ca...