Table of Contents

I AGAINST THE WORLD

PG. 23

THE HISTORY

OF MARIO PG. 7

HOW TO: FIX YOUR NINTENDO PG. 11

INSPIRATION OF GENERATIONS PG. 17

BASSI-IS FOR EDUCATION PG. 21

A WAR FOR THE AGES PG. 33

NINTEND-WHO? PG. 31

PERFECTION PG. 35

DROWNING IN TECHNOLOGY PG. 29

TOP 10: FPS PG. 24

Frank has seventeen kids, all from different moms. He is always drowning in the cash because of all the child support money he receives every month; much of which goes to video games and pizza. This is the first magazine he has worked on, when he isn’t working in journalism, he spends his time training to become a Jedi. Even with this busy schedule he finds time to home school his children, with only an 8th grade education. Of course Frank never really grew up any-where, he was raised in a parallel dimension where nothing exists and he just became Frank, as he is now.

John W. isn’t even real. He was created by Japanese ani-mators with the sole purpose of creating this magazine, and crushing people at Handball. To be honest I don’t even like him. Anyway, when John isn’t selling tye-dye shirts on the side of the highway he enjoys spending time with his sea monkeys and pet rock. But he won the bet between him and Frank, 19 illegitimate kids. Hah.

John A. is a time travel-ing robot from the future whose mission is to eli-mate John W. so he won’t have his 20th child, who will defeat the robot upris-ing. Shhh, don’t tell him. He likes taking long walks on the beach, having heart to heart talks, kittens, and making cookies.

John A

John W

Frank

OLD SCHOOL

MUSIC

MODERN

HEAD 2 HEAD

ELECTRONIC SECTIONS

History of

Mario

from the arcade, to our homes, to our hands, games have changed many forms through many years. But through the past three decades, there has been one franchise that has been a figurehead for games to come. From jumping over barrels, to jumping on

goombas, Mario has been the pixilated hero of two gen-erations. And it’s time we commemorate him in his plight against evil through the years.

In 1981, Mario, then called jump man, first hopped onto the videogame scene in the arcade game Donkey Kong. On a quest to save his kidnapped girl-friend from the rampaging monkey, gamers immediately dubbed the game a classic. This bode well for the Mario series, but no one knew just how good it was going to get.

Just a few years later in1983 Mario starred with his brother Luigi for the first time in Mario Bros. And in the twenty-six years since then, those two brothers have brought in millions of dollars on their shoulders. Nowadays, Mario is a trademark of the Nintendo Company. Nintendo learned early that putting a well-

known character into many of their videogames could attract more buyers. Since then, series like Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros, Wario, and others have had great success with Mario as an inspiration. Since that first game in 1981, the settings and char-acters in the Mario series have changed dramatically.

Donkey Kong1981

Super Mario Land1989

Super Mario Bros 21988

Dr. Mario1990

Super Mario World1991

Super Mario Kart1992

Yoshi’s Cookie1993

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island

1995

Hotel Mario1994

Super Mario RPG1996

From under water, to up in the clouds, Mario has fought his way into our hearts and into our TV screens, but he would be nowhere without the cast of characters that helped define him. Many stars, both pro and antago-nists, have built up a reputa-tion for themselves. Donkey Kong went on to have his own mini series of games along with Luigi and Princess

Peach. But their common an-cestor was that small Italian plumber. And now as many sit here waiting the release of the newest game in the Ma-rio series: New Super Mario Bros. 2 for DS, we should look back on the history of this heroic figure who gave a face to the technology of vid-eogame production. And as

the chances are that you’ve played at least one of Ma-rio’s games, you should look back also and see that he has also brought a little bit of happiness into your history too.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\By: John W.Picture: Softpedia incEditied: John Williams

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island

1995 Super Mario RPG1996

Mario Tennis2000

Paper Mario2001 Mario Party 3

2001

Super Smash Bros Melee2001

Mario Party 42002

Super Mario Galaxy2007

how to... FIXYOUR

NINTENDOIN SIX EASY STEPS

Tired of having to blow into the darn catridge all of the time? I’m here to help you fix your pin connector, for more endless hours of easy play.

Today, in the gaming world we have to realize that there are only a few gamers that will actually play the NES. But those few that are true fans of the cartridge it may be very hard to keep this system in shape because of the 72-pin connector. This connector is what does it all, the cartridge plugs into the the connec-tor on one end through “contacts” and then the motherboard plugs in the other end., and the image gets sent to your T.V. Over time this

connector’s pins will be-gin to depress so, over time the pins will not grab the game as easy causing it to be hard to see the games on the television. There are a few signs to no that your pin connector is non-functional anymore. Your screen blinks grey, your game may only work with a game genie, or the game will turn on but, the quality will be very bad.

1Unscrew the First Set

You must flip over the NES, and take a look in the four cor-ners and the top and bottom center. You will notice a total of seven screws. The order doesn’t matter but after you take off the screws, you have to flip it back over and take off of the top.

2Unscrew the Second Set

After the top is off you can see a metal shield called the RF shield that is above the cartrdge holder. Nex there will be a total of seven screws, that you will have to unscrew, again the order doesn’t matter, but make sure you do this carfully. You will see two, in the back two on the left, and three on the right.

3Remove the RF Shield

Next, you have to remove the RF shield, this can be a little tricky because you don’t want to damage any of the parts un-derneath. The first thing that you want to do is tug foward to loosen the back up, followed by pushing back and then lift-ing up and the shield should come off very easily.

4Taking Off the Cartridge Holder

The next part is unscrewing the six screws two in both of the top corners, and then one in each bottom corner. You have to remember which order you screw in the back beacuse they are different sizes and only fit in the correct spot. Now, there is a spring in the front that con-trols the holder and you have to be sure not to break it when you take it out.

5Removing the 72-Pin Connec-tor

This is what does everything connect-ing the game to the T.V. Now, removing it isn’t an easy task because you can easily slip up and break the mother-board. You have to grip the back of the connector and just tug back, don’t be afraid because you will need some force to take it out. You have to remember to which direction the connector is facing so you know how to

6Working On the Pin Connector

Grab a pin, a good pair of hands, and a well lit area because you will need all of this to fix you pin connector. You will notice two sections of connectors, a single row and a set of two rows, you will be working on the top single row (shown on left). First, you have to look into the top part of the single row and look into the black cover and you should see a contact with two prongs on the end. As well as a slit down the middle of the contact that is used to seperate the prongs, this is where you are to place the pin. After you put the pin in you will then lift to the right bringing one of the prongs up. BE CARFUL: you can easily stretch it to far up and it will ruin the connector, so don’t force it. Next, you will have to go back in and then you should lift to the left and then you will do this a total of 72 times on the thirty-six contacs (2 in each). Finally you have to look down and then see if they are just about even all the way through, and then you should be finished.

*Be warned it is very easy to mess up this step

Fin.1. Put back the 72-pin connector to the motherboard (double rows connect)2. Next you should put the cartridge holder back (remember the screws, spring)3. Test the cartridge (shown on left), you should notice the game being a lot tighter and then very hard to pull out.4. Put the RF shield back same front to back.5. Then Put the cover back on (remember to flip it over)6. Have fun

The Inspiration of the Generations : We begin as the world was created, with noth-ing: then after many years of work, great idea, and amazing imaginations video games have come a long long way to become one of the worlds most exciting forms of entertainment.

BY FRANK G. | PHOTOGRAPHS BY FRANK G.

BBoop, Beep. Over and over Rosario Garza, a full-time teacher hears the steady rhythmic beats of the pong paddles; go back and forth until click: she makes a swift move to bounce the ball across the screen and it flashes from edge to edge. Then, out of nowhere she feels her body completely relieve itself of its stress because she just scored the final point to win the match. Hours of playing probably the most memorable game have paid off: PONG! These simple sounds of Atari being played are what kept kids in the seventies in front of the television for hours on end. It only took two simple rectangles, with a floating ball on screen and only one level. In today’s gaming world, “With ever-evolving graphics, storylines and characters, it’s harder to keep a gamers attention with 8 bit arcade games from the days of yore,” says Matthew Milner, an avid gamer old enough to remember that when a game wouldn’t play, blowing out the cartridge always did the trick. Here’s what they’ve been through. In 1972 Atari released its first console, The Atari, which, Garza says, was simply, “two knobs on a green and black screen.” Even though Pong wasn’t the first video game to be created, it was the first to be played at home and it was just as simple as controllers could be. There were no buttons like today’s controllers; the knob is what was in com-mand of you either winning or losing the game.This game was a simplified version of Ping-Pong that you would turn the knob controller and the paddles would go up or down. The game would volley back and forth until a player obtained the set number of points to win that match. That’s all The Atari produced: very simple but fun games for the people to play at the time. Milner states that, “Even though games have gotten higher expectations, they also lead to more advanced controls but will always payoff with more fun and joy that comes with play-ing.”In the next couple years, the game started to get a little more complex, and around 1980 Atari (still at the head of the pack in video games), came out with the joystick controller and a new console. Along with the original Atari, Rosario Garza and her hus-band had this new Atari console with the more

advanced joystick controller and the ability to change games but simply inserting a different cartridge into the console. “Missile Command, that was a fun game, you used the joystick to control the command and the button to fire” Garza says.“Missile Command was a popular game with the joy-stick that Atari produced. Simple enough, yet this was really fun because these games were so new and excit-ing to people. Now, there was an exponential change from the Pong graphics but it still was not much using today’s gaming standards. They were still basically very pixilated boxes or lines with no rounded edges. As Milner says, “The graphics in today’s games have come so far that it is very hard to tell if they are real or not.” However, the introduction of the joystick con-troller marked one of the biggest eras of video games, the arcade years. This era producing such great games like Galaga, Pac-Man, Mrs. Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Mario Bros, Donkey Kong and even Galaxion. Most of these games that were coming out in the eighties were pinnacles in arcade life because now you don’t find to many around anymore. “You would go to a restaurant, the movies and you would see Pac-Man,” Garza says.Around the time right after Space Invaders and Pac-Man, Garza stopped playing many video games, “Only because I had other Interests like keeping my fam-ily together, a healthy lifestyle, and just growing as a family.” Even though she was losing interest, her kids began playing game at about the start of the arcade years. But, in 1985 the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was released, which was an instant hit with her daughters. Nintendo, probably the most successful of the game companies, has made it to today because it is still producing consoles and games. But the NES had the second installment of the most well known franchise: Mario. These were the hottest games on the market in the late eighties and early nineties. While, rs. Garza did still enjoy many of the later Mario games such as Dr. Mario and simple puzzle solving game that is very similar to Tetris, it was her daughters who took advan-tage of these newer games. Her oldest daughter, Brenda states “I loved playing Mario Brothers all the time

but it had a lot of levels. I never did get to the end.” Jayme, the younger daughter, used the system too. She said “I really liked that fact that I could play games dif-ferent from Brenda as my favorite was Double Dragon, a fighting game. The only problem was you had to go through all the levels at one sitting as they was no save feature. “ All of the games along with many other coming out in the nineties (Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn,

Super Nintendo, Game Boy, and the Game Boy Color) all had very nice pixilated images for graphics and still couldn’t compare to many of what we have today. ntil 1996, the Nintendo 64, the first game console to have

3-D graphics, was introduced and remained popular for many years. This was just the beginning to today’s graphic intense games but the images were very hard edged with no real round corner graphics. All in all, it was still a really big step that the gaming world took. As many years passed and more and more generations of gaming consoles came by leaving us with three major consoles; the Xbox 360 (Microsoft), the Playsta-tion 3 (Sony), and the Wii (Nintendo, which is the most popular game system on the market now). I was the lucky one, being 16 years younger that my sisters. Not only did I get exposed to some of the older systems, I introduced them to the new ones. All three of current systems are just amazing in every-thing that they do their graphics are amazing almost like you could go up and touch the screen and be apart of the game. The Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360 both have online play, and most importantly they aren’t the best they can be, Mrs. Garza states in some of her clos-ing words. “Video games have come a long, long way and they are going to keep going as people keep buying them. They keep making the games more challenging to where the kid is going to keep wanting to play.” We won’t know how far these games are going to go, what is next for the gaming world you may ask yourself, we don’t know but we will find out. But just remember that we couldn’t have gotten this far without those two single rectangles sliding up and down to win a game of virtual Ping PONG.

“Video games have come a long long way and they are going to keep going...”

U

OLD v ^NEW

A thin haze sets across the Granada Theater. Con-versations rise from individual tables, and then, one by one they get quiet. The curtains whoosh silently to the side and the band Ryan Beaver steps onto stage. They start to play one of their best songs, “Under The Neons”. Many must notice the bass player up in front keeping rhythm. But Michael Scaccia’s greatest influence is not on the stage, it’s in the classroom. Scaccia had a normal childhood, well, as normal as you could have in the fast pace of Boston city-life. “I had a good relationship with my parents.” He looks as if to elaborate, but doesn’t, “I take after my mother.” He says with a smile on his face. Shortly after came college. The young English major loved the freedom and openness that the University of Colorado offered. But from there, life just got more interesting. In room 254 at LASA high school, students play guitar in the background, probably hoping to someday emulate Mr. S. A keyboard also rings, but no one seems to mind the noise. For many kids, their English teacher’s classroom is a safe haven. “One of the best pieces of advice I ever re-ceived,” Scaccia says as a few attentive heads turn to the speaker, “was to always wear the most expen-sive shoes you can buy, because you walk in them all day. And always buy the most expensive mattress you can, because you sleep on it all day long.” Scac-cia has heeded this advice, he’s not your average air mattress, garage band rocker. Under the Neons is the newest album featur-ing the musical talents of Michael Scaccia at elec-tronic base. For Scaccia, one of the best things about being in a band is fact that, “I get to move air.” He realizes that he moves people, by just moving the strings on his bass.

Bass-is For By: John W. Education

The up-and-coming band Ryan Beaver, named after the lead singer, is known for its country red dirt style of music. The Granada Theater in Dallas is one of the places that receives Scaccia’s performances more frequently than others. But that’s not to say that school and play never cross…Some of Scaccia’s fellow teachers/inmates have seen his performances. And from the stories that Electronic Magazine teacher, Kendra Young, has told, Scaccia pro-duces the same vibe on stage that his students say he presents in the classroom. “My favorite thing about teaching is the mentoring and relationships with students,” Scaccia has worked in LBJ high school for the past 4 years. This is his first year teach-ing upstairs in the Liberal Arts and Science Academy program (LASA). LASA High School is nationally recognized for its high quality students and teachers. But Scaccia’s connec-tion with students has followed him no matter where he’s gone. This is not your fall asleep in the middle of class English. Sierra Amaro, one of Scaccia’s freshman students describes the class as, “funny, energetic and refreshing. I show up for the people and not the class.” The atmosphere of the class is inductive to fun but intelligence. “The thing I want my kids to get out of my class is a love of books and the ability to think.” But how does someone keep from drowning in a sea of essays and song sheets? “[Teaching and performing] feed off of each other.” He says, “I’m really blessed, really lucky I can do two things that I love.” His smile shows that he is genuine, but two careers can be tiring. Heading off to LBJ High School at 8:00 a.m., then off to a perfor-mance in Tyler, Dallas or San Antonio Texas at 5:00 p.m., then doing it all again the next day can wear anyone out. But even though his life can get hectic, Scaccia says that he is ener-gized by the work that he does. “I’d do the same thing is I had a mil-lion dollars,” he says. Although his choice of careers isn’t guaranteed to get him that million, the smile never leaves his face. By now, the conversation has drawn the whole class to listen. Then, Scaccia looks at the crowd and gives the piece of advice that his students keep with them for when they become famous and are interviewed, “Be happy.”

Pg. 21

From A to Zune, mp3 players have been produced in all shapes and sizes. But one device has taken control of the personal music indus-try, and you probably already know the name before I write it. The iPod. Even with more competitors than you can count on your hands, Apple has found a way to not only stay ahead of the competition, but to crush it. From releasing the iPod Nano, iTouch, or iPhone, sales have just shot through

the roof. Which begs the question: How do they do it? And really, the answer is sim-ple. Innovation. Apple has found ways to spruce up each successive model by making it smaller in size, larger in memory, and better overall. From adding apps to adding cameras, im-proving what was already considered the best has been the credo that has shot Apple to success.

Top 10:

things you need to know to play an fps

Know how to work with a team-In most first person shooter, you

have to work with a team, and you al-ways have to be a team player in tactical first person shooters (ones that are more realistic, ie: Games that are easier to die in, have less ammo, and have no laser cannons). Team work does not mean spamming radio commands, it means lis-tening to your team, and following large groups of people, as they usually know where they are going. If you’re a sniper, being a team player means covering people when they’re going for the flag, or just charging an enemy position.

Know how to snipe in an fps-Ah yes, the sniper rifle.

Weapon of choice for noobs and pros alike. But how should one go about sniping? First, get out of the action: most sniper rifles are just about use-less at close range. Once you are far away from everyone else, find a good sniping spot. In a pinch, one can hide behind a bush, but preferably some-where high up, like a bell tower or a cave in the side of a mountain. Every now and then you might want to move around, or someone else will grab a

sniper of their own, and blow your face off. Now don’t go shooting at everything that moves, that will give away your position. Wait until someone is running in a straight line, or standing still (possibly a rival sniper). If you’re playing a game where the sniper bullets don’t travel instantaneously, don’t for-get to lead people a little bit (you don’t have to lead if they aren’t moving). Now leading people takes a little bit of practice, and it depends on the game, but if you want to be a good sniper, you have to do it.

Know what an fps is-Fps stands for first person shooter, i.e. a game where you are looking through the eyes of the character you are play-ing as and shooting. Games like Halo,

Call of Duty, and Battlefield 1942 are perfect examples of first person shooters. There are varying levels of realism, some games have aliens in super suits flying in space, and some are hyper realistic games with real guns, set in real wars.

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Know how to spray and pray-Everyone’s done it. Grabbed the machine gun, or the dual smgs,

and ran towards the enemy holding the fire button and hoping they die. Sometimes they die, and sometimes they blow your brains out with a carefully aimed headshot. There is indeed an art to Spraying and Praying. Now, first you want to choose the gun with the fastest rate of fire. Accuracy and recoil don’t really matter for our purpose. Once you’ve got your sprayer, find your target. You want to find a place where people from the other team come out of often. Usually you want to be somewhere around their spawn point, but don’t spawn kill or every-one will hate your guts. It doesn’t matter if you are out numbered, a proper sprayer and prayer expects to die any way. Hide someplace where they might run past you and not notice, like a handy shrubbery. And when they run past, Spray and Pray. Another way is just whenever you see someone, charge.

Know how to deal with a sniper-Now that you know to snipe, you have to know how to deal with snipers. Now, while you’re sniping, you think you’re awesome. Everyone else hates your guts. There is nothing more

annoying than a good sniper. And nothing easier to kill than a bad one. Most snipers will stay in one place for too long, and when they see anything that moves, will fire off most of a clip. It becomes pretty obvious which window they’re sniping from. If there is a really popular sniping spot, like the tall-est building on the map, look over every now and then to make sure there isn’t a sniper. Now, once you know where a sniper is, you have to sneak up on them. If they are sniping out one window, try to get to the other side of the building. Most snipers will be too focused on trying to get a kill to notice you standing right behind them, lining up the perfect headshot.

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Know which guns suck-It’s unavoidable, some guns will just be better than others. Some

guns will be awesome, and some guns will just suck. Usually the assault rifle that has a zoom will be really good, and rocket launchers are almost always good, but other than that, it’s specific to the game. Some guns that are normally terrible can be quite effective in some situations. For example, in Halo 2 the Magnum sucks, but if you dual wield it with an smg and aim for the head, you can get ridiculous amounts of kills. You really just have to test them out. Just because someone tells you a gun sucks, doesn’t mean it sucks; it’s usually best to try it out yourself. Unless a lot of people are telling you a gun sucks, then it probably does.

Know how to use nades-I have a love/hate relationship with nades (a.k.a. grenades), they can save you when

you’re fleeing from a better player, flush noobs out of their hiding spots, take out entrenched snipers, and get you that crazy lucky blind throw across the map triple kill. But there is no feeling worse then charging forward, all full of gusto and go-get-em spirit, only to realize, a nano-second too late, that you are standing on a nade with the pin pulled. It takes some practice to get the trajectory right, and if you’re far away, you have to lead it a little. If you’re just trying to hit some-one who is hiding in a building, or behind a wall, just lob it in their general direction.

Know how to use a shotgun-Probably the most misused weapon in fps games. Too many people as-

sume that the shotgun is some sort of auto-matic god mode. Unless you’re standing right next to someone, it isn’t. The shotgun, when properly used, is a very good close range gun. The spread allows you to hit a moving target, while your running like heck and jumping. The spread also means that unless you are really close the damage will usually kind of suck. It’s a good finisher, when you naded someone, but they didn’t quite die, or a teammate barely didn’t kill them. Just don’t over use it, and make sure you have an assault rifle or some-thing to back it up.

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Know when to reload-When you’re running around fragging noobs, and dodging

bullets, you can get a little too caught up in the action, and forget to reload. In most games, reloading in the middle of a fire fight will screw you over (ie, get you killed). When ever there’s a break in the action, you might want to reload. Reloading excessively will eventually get you killed, though. Maybe you get away with it 4 or 5 times, but eventu-ally someone pop around a corner right as you reload. Sometimes you have to just fall back behind the rest of your team, especially with shotguns (shotguns are notorious for having long reload times). Some games make you lose the ammo remaining in your clip when you reload, so you’re going to want to reload less in these games. It’s ok if you lose a few bullets, just don’t reload with the clip half full; unless you are charging a bunch of guys, then it might be ok to waste some ammo.

Know when to stop playing-Unfortunately this is a lesson most gamers haven’t learned, and players can easily get sucked into the non-stop action of an fps. Before you know it, it’s 1 in the morning, and

you haven’t started your homework. If your wrists start to hurt STOP PLAYING. That’s a sign of carpal tunnel syndrome, and if you don’t stop, or you don’t stop for long enough, you can give yourself car-pal tunnel syndrome. For those of that don’t know, that means a lot of pain, surgery, and money. IT’S NOT WORTH THE HEADSHOT, JUST STOP PLAYING. If you look up and can’t see, STOP PLAY-ING. If you’ve been playing for more than 5 hours STOP PLAYING. And, most importantly, when your mom tells you to get off, STOP PLAYING.

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“To people my age obbsess-ing over a new phone is like obsessing over a new stove after having the old one for only six months” The speaker is a 58 year old man, a lawyer who grew up in Texas, went to high school in the 60’s, and is my father. “It’s an appliance, it’s supposed to last a long time and do one thing.” We’ve been discussing how technology has changed and how technology has changed the world, since he was my age. He agrees there have been enormous changes, and he agress that much of the new technology is very cool.

Despite all this, however, his at-titude remains “So what?”. What technology has changed since he was my age? Just about everything. When my father was in high school they had 2 radio stations: one for the day, and one for the night that they got from Oklahoma. “When I was in junior high school, my parents got a new phone,” Mr. Adkins says, “When I was in high school, they had the same phone.

When I went to college, they had the same phone. When I came back from law school, they had the same phone After I came back from having gone to New York and gotten married, they had the same phone. They had the same phone until they sold their house. It was a Bell telephone, that’s what you had. You had a phone and it lasted for ten or twenty or thirty years, it would have never occured to them to change it, why would they, it was a telephone” Not only has the tech-nolgy itself changed, the at-titude people have about it has changed as well. When Mr.Adkins was in high school, everyone had a phone, they were very useful, but they were just phones. Technology was more in the background, where-as now it seems to be the focus of every day life. Phones are status symbols now, and very few cell phonesjust make calls now (except those specificallys targeted towards an older audi-ence). In a way, it’s made peo-ple more individual, since we don’t all have the same phone, or watch the same TV shows. But in another way, it’s made people more intertwined with each other. No matter where someone is, be it the middle of the Gobi Desert, or the super-market, you can always call for

help or someone elses opin-ion. At the touch of a button, you can know what your 1000 “friends” on Facebook think of your stock portfolio, or what kind of apples you should buy at the store .There is also a big generational difference between this genera-tions idea of privacy, and Mr.Adkins’. “I would no more put my thoughts on Facebook for everyone to see, any more than I would put my furniture on my fron lawn and live in view of the passing traffic.” He says. These are a direct result of a “hive mind” mentality this generation seems to be taking on. Another side effect of the hive mind phenomenon, it used to be when you screwed up, even if you really messed some-thing up, only your community knew about it. Now everyone can you watch make a fool over yourself while dancing, on a table, with a lampshade on your head, while your drunk, over and over on Youtube. “Technology has certainly become more sophisticated, and in many ways more useful. But as the various technologies have converged and intertwined with each other, they have alo caught us in an ever-present web.” Perhaps it would be bet-ter for us to be able to seperate ourselves from technology, from time to time.

DROWNING IN TECHNOLOGYJay Adkins has been alive for fifty eight years, and not only has technology changed dramtically in his lifetime, but so has our attitude towards it.

When Mr.Adkins was in high school, every-one had a phone, they were very useful, but they were just phones.

T here has been some de-bate recently over what the best handheld gaming sys-tem is, I have a firm opinion that the PSP is miles ahead of the DS. Let’s start off with their

capabilities. On the PSP you can get online, down-load files, watch movies, and play games (gizmodo.

com). On the DSi (the newest model) you can get on the internet (all PSP models can get online), download files, and play games(Gizmodo.com). On the surface,

the difference is negligible, and some even say that the DSi even pulls ahead due to its “revolutionary” touch screen. To these people I say tish and piffle. The touchscreen might make the DSi bet-ter if there were any good games out that took full advantage of it, but as is, it just doesn’t do much for the overall performance of the machine . Look under the surface, and you will find that the PSP is the obvi-ously superior machine. Fresh out of the pack, the internet experience on both machines is unbear-able. The connection speed is too slow to watch vid-eos smoothly, and finding a wi-fi hotspot is a huge hassle.The DSi is stuck in this perpetual mire, but the PSP can be modified easily. You can find easy tutorials online by just typing “PSP mods” into Google, and once modded, the online experience is a breeze. The best games avail-able for the DSi are re-releases of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and Super Mario 64. A new Starfox game also boosts their arsenal. Classics, all of them, to be

Nintend-who?

Some people think the Nintendo DS is the best hand-held game sys-

tem. Some poeople are wrong.

>By John A.

sure, but that’s it. Really, those are the only good games available. The PSP has Soul Calibur, God of War, Burnout, Castlevania, Metal Gear Solid, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Dissidia:Final Fantasy, Star Wars Battlefront, the Sega Genesis Collection, Mon-ster Hunter, and Killzone. It also has the capability to download emulated games,

which, in layman’s terms, means it can play just about any old classic. Ever. I think I’ve made my point The PSP is also a bet-ter system on paper, seeing as it outclasses the DSi in every field. It has 333 MHz (a measure of how fast it goes), compared to the DSi’s 133 Mhz (Gizmodo.com). The PSP has 64MB, over the DSi’s 16MB (Giz-modo.com). That’s enough

to make any geek drool. I think that the above evidence proves, without a doubt, that the PSP is the best handheld system avail-able on the market. As for the DS, maybe we can melt them down, or something.

PG. 31

September 28, 1914 marks the

beginning of the First World War, a long battle that lasted for four years. On Sep-tember 1st 1939, the Second World War began to cause massive chaos around the world. However, the greatest conflict to date began on October 26, 2008, when Guitar Hero released its version of the Rock Band game. The release caused gamers around the world to try to both games to see which would, “Rock the world” more than the other. As an avid gamer for many years and a musician, I was very excited to see that there was an actual band game com-ing out for the major consoles. Rock Band being the original game that came out on November 20, 2007 will always one of the best band games to come out. Rock Band 2 released about a year later is the most comparable to Gui-tar Hero since they were both released around the same time. Rock Band 2 has better game-play because it is more re-alistic to the rock band lifestyle because you have the choice of which cities you go to and when you do it. You get to see the musical ability side of the game and the planning side of being a rock star. They actually have sets of songs to play at one

time like a band playing a show. Where on the other hand Guitar Hero you play one song at a time. While gam-ing in both games the players are required to strum the correct guitar notes or to play the correct drum pad to symbolize the drums and guitars of the band. The instru-ments for Rock Band are definitely easier to use because there are fewer pads to hit that cause less of a distraction of the hand-eye coordination. I am an expert player in both of the drums for Rock Band

A War For the Ages

Guitar Hero: World Tour how will it compare with Rock Band 2

and the drums for the Guitar Hero and I can say that going from Rock Band drums to their Guitar Hero’s was incred-ibly difficult just because the idea of five really upset my mind. Singing is the same in both a karaoke style singing. Although the Rock Band is more realis-tic in other aspects of the game like the

guitars they have buttons for soloing that actually need to be strummed. Gui-tar Hero has ones to slide your finger across just making it very difficult to know what you are playing on the gui-tar. Just the band is a lot easier to come together in game play. Both games allow you to download

content from their website as songs that get loaded to your system that you can thus play. Rock Band has further surpassed Guitar Hero in downloadable content (DLC). Not only does Rock Band have more songs to download they are a different variety of songs. Rock Band has many different albums from bands from the ‘90’s grunge era and from the psychedelic rock of the sixties and seventies, where Guitar Hero you will mainly find things like Tool and Tenacious D. Rock Band does come out with more and more songs coming out at a faster rate than Guitar Hero. Don’t get me wrong Guitar Hero isn’t a

terrible game it has very fun aspects to it the drums are really fun for advanced player just because there are five pads plus the kick the pedal. Unless you are a metal head or a nineties hard rock fan, Guitar Hero is your game but Rock Band appeals to all ages because it has new and old songs of all genres (it will also include metal and 90’s hard rock). So if you really need to choose Rock Band all the way because it just truly has the making of a great game and doesn’t have to compete with Guitar Hero it is the other way around.

PG. 33

PerfeCtion

Crashes, deceit, competition. No, not an FX movie, this is the world of computers. This is the world of Mac vs. PC. In this world that we live in, there are two main competitors for control of our desktops and our laps. In the blue corner there is PC, the main man in the computer business. And in the red corner, there is the Mac, a new up and coming competitor. Today you will see a faceoff with two gi-ants. RAM vs. RAM, Hard Drive vs. Hard Drive, Screen ver-sus Screen. The ultimate showdown is about to go down. I know that even though Macs make up only 6% of the computer mar-ket, but that this is almost a 200% increase since last year according to Answers.com. I have come to take a stand for PC, even though the majority of teens support Mac.

I know that through apple commer-cials that PC has gotten a bad rap as a boring crashing piece of junk. But this is not true, not even a little bit. I have owned PCs since I was six, and I have never had a crash. These new designs for the PCs are as sleek as any Macbook on the market, and even better they come in a range of eye pleasing colors.

After looking at the official website of both Dell and Apple, a $1000 Dell Studio15 has better specs than the coveted $2000 Macbook Pro. The fact that PCs cost much less than Macs, allows anyone to have a

good quality computer. And PCs actually have bet-ter specs than most Macs out today. The Dell Studio 15 laptop has 2GB more ram,

a .6 inch bigger screen, built in web-cam, and 340GB more hard drive space, not to mention it costs much less. And if you have a tighter budget, or even cash to spare, a

By: John Williams

Dell can be customized to what you want giving you exactly what you need. Now I know what some of the Macs are going to say. “Mac is pret-tier” Well, Macs only come in white or aluminum, which is bland. But a Dell can be blue, red, black, purple, or orange, whatever color you wish. “Macs get fewer viruses” Now this is one of Mac’s only valid points. Macs do get fewer viruses because they have anti-virus software already built in, but you can get free anti-virus software called Ad-Aware for PCs making them safe and secure. The last argument I’ve heard is that, “PCs crash a lot” This I cannot ei-ther validate or deny. Personally I have not had a single crash with any of my PCs, but I have heard the horror stories. Crashes happen when a person is running to many applications with a slow processor,

and since PCs have more RAM, they are statistically less likely to crash.

I think that it is just common sense to buy a PC because of the quality laptops and desktops they are. I hope that people that are Mac Loyalists will actually look at and use PCs before they spread lies and criticize them. I think that more people should buy PCs because they are better than Mac’s for the same price. I’m hoping to spread the truth with this paper and. If all the Mac users would just use a PC, I know that they would reconsider their points. Thank you for listening to my point of view, and may the best computer win.

pg. 35