March 31, 2022
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
People who are not too knowledgeable about games may be confused about how someone would stress over games and all that goes on in them, but when you start to play XCOM: Enemy Unknown for yourself, you will see how entertaining it really is. Most engagements will leave you on the edge of your seat, whether you lose a soldier, or they survive to fight another day. In the case of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, every choice that you make can be the very last, whether the mission ends in victory or absolute defeat. You play as the “Commander” of an anti-alien military force fighting back the invading forces trying to take over Earth.You must command soldiers on the front lines and bear the results of good and bad calls alike. Your foes’ strengths and weaknesses are a mystery, but despite the challenge, you must find a way to stop them before it is too late. Every new encounter with an alien type introduces a way to learn and counter-play to defeat them. The game plays out like an overly complicated form of chess where each side takes turns moving their units, with each unit being different and having a certain number of roles during each mission. You can upgrade your soldiers with better armor, better weapons, unique gadgets, and attachments.Sadly, with all these new tools for dealing with the alien threat, there is a bigger threat: Time. Everything takes time, especially researching new tools, building new facilities, and recovering soldiers; that time is what you may lose if the aliens decide to launch an attack on a city and you must make the choice of continuing to research or send your soldiers in without that upgrade you were considering. If enough cities fall, your elite XCOM military unit will be shut down, and the game is over. Available on all Xbox and PlayStation consoles, PC, and on mobile devices.
—Will Kosmal, Gaming Editor
Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century takes place in the year 2049 where we meet Zenon Carr, a spunky 13- year-old living in space. Life is good on the space station until she finds herself in trouble, and her parents send her to live on Earth. This is Zenon’s worst nightmare. She must mitigate a phobia-prone aunt and the savageness of middle school on planet Earth. If this isn’t enough of a crisis, Zenon soon discovers an evildoer plans to crash the space station. She must get back to space to save her home AND not miss her favorite pop group’s first space performance. The stakes are high, apparently. You won’t want to miss how the action unfolds. Available to stream on Disney+.
The kids of Mom’s Got a Date with a Vampire are in a pickle. Adam and Chelsea Hansen, brother-sister duo, have plans for a fun evening, but they’re grounded. Adam can’t possibly miss his concert, and Chelsea finds her boyfriend too dreamy to bail on their date. As fate would have it, their mom has a date on that same night. It would all be perfect, except their little brother uncovers that mom’s date is really a vampire. The new mission of the night turns into saving Mom Hansen from the undead! Enter the vampire hunter. This movie is advertised as a horror-comedy; there’s not much spook, but plenty of laugh-worthy scenes in all its ridiculousness. Available to stream on Disney+.
When I began college, I was still struggling in high school. My grades dropped. Topics held no interest. I felt stressed out because I wasn’t going to understand the basic things that most others my age had learned already, leaving me in a feeling of hopelessness and low self-worth. However, as a college student I excelled. The difference? Self-confidence. Anything we do in life requires it, but many of us lack sufficient levels of it. How can we practice building our self-confidence in a way that it empowers and sticks with us, enabling us to be accomplished in our life goals?
For anyone still recovering from Netflix’s offensive adaptation of Cowboy BeBop, just remember that the original masterpiece is also available to stream. While we binge the show, let us indulge ourselves in a popular dish from the first episode: bell peppers and beef. It’s delicious, simple, and open to interpretation, so here’s my version.
As winter dies, and as the sacred sun becomes common, the season of Spring brings forth its bold, amiable appearance. She shares her gospel of warmth and abundance of greenery. Snow becomes water, water becomes mud, and muddy water becomes part of the Earth, residing deep within the groundwater catacombs. The moist Earth which was once water, which was once snow, nurtures and gives birth to ground flowers of all colors, grass of great green, and insects rising from hibernation. Soon, the trees will no longer be gray skeletons of their former selves, soon the sun will no longer hide itself in shyness, and soon the summer birds will return to take residency in the north once again. When Spring arrives, she will turn the air into a warm and delightful scent, as prior to her arrival,the air was crisp and empty like a vacuum. The Sun will shine brighter and share his vitamin D, and the waves on the beach will roar once again. Grass will be able to be walked on again, and the sound of the leaves will be heard. Oh, Spring…please come sooner.
With spring break occurring last week, spring itself is due to finally come at last. The following travel story includes my spring-break travel experience.
Robert Downey Jr. has had one rollercoaster of a career, from an immensely popular and critical youth to a struggle with drugs and bad run-ins with the law. His life did improve at the same time as he started to take on one of his more prominent roles: Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man.