Chai: School is not a war zone
Adam Valdman is a sophomore sports management major and writes “Chai" for The Daily News. His views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper. Write to Adam at alvaldman@bsu.edu.
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Adam Valdman is a sophomore sports management major and writes “Chai" for The Daily News. His views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper. Write to Adam at alvaldman@bsu.edu.
As Vento Aureo draws closer and closer to its conclusion, the stakes keep rising higher. Not only are we at the last minor villain fight before the final showdown with the big bad, but the part also recently had its first major character death in Abbacchio. To quote a certain recent blockbuster that also features superpowered people trying to take down a murderous meme-spawning megalomaniac, “we’re in the Endgame now.”
Disclaimer: This review is based on the PC version of the game and was played on a PC with Intel Core i5-8250U, 8 GBs of RAM.
Compared to the rest of Mac DeMarco’s discography, Here Comes the Cowboy didn’t quite live up to the standards of mellow grooviness that we’re used to from this king of indie. An album-length listen is slow enough to act as a calming sedative to the listener. It’s drawn out with uninteresting—and in some cases predictable— arrangements that more or less parallel DeMarco’s singing throughout the songs. His easy-going voice is common amongst all of his albums, but this one seems to hold a certain monotone dullness to it. The lyrics don’t necessarily shine through either on the surface, but when you take a deeper dive into the meaning, that’s really the only thing making this album one of the most important in DeMarco’s career.
by Tanner Kinney Picture this: the year is (roughly) 2007, or so. Nine-year-old Tanner Kinney and his family recently purchased a brand-spanking used PlayStation 2 Slim, along with Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves and War of the Monsters. A friend down the road has a few PS2 games as well, and he occasionally brings them over so Tanner can try them. One of these games was a PlayStation One game titled Final Fantasy VII (FFVII), an ugly looking game that I didn’t understand most of despite being a fairly competent young reader. But, it was loads of fun to play, even though we didn’t have a memory card for it and couldn’t make it past Midgar. https://youtu.be/Ru9zzFEdGWk A year or so later, another friend loans us a spare copy of FFVII and a memory card so we can finally experience the game in full without having to keep the console on overnight. I never made it past Disc 1 (I would always get lost after leaving Midgar), but my brother was able to play through the game and I experienced it with him. It was fantastic, at least what I remember of it. I especially loved Yuffie’s storyline and character arc, since she was (and still is) my favorite character in the game. Even when I got older and edgy in the “popular-thing-is-bad-because-it-is-popular” sense, I couldn’t deny that Final Fantasy VII was a great game. Since then, I’ve played through nearly every single mainline Final Fantasy title in one (or multiple) of their various releases. I have my own personal favorites, of course, but other than Final Fantasy II (Japan) and the entirety of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of them. I subscribe to and even sometimes play Final Fantasy XIV, and I spent the entirety of the week after release of Final Fantasy XV just playing through the game in full, nearly non-stop. That was the first game I ever got a platinum trophy for (although, that’s without the DLC). Final Fantasy is a series that means a lot to me, even with some strange narratives and a nonsense understanding of time travel.
So, here we go again. Another movie based off another vaguely forgotten franchise from years past, made in an attempt to Dracula the clutter of eons ago into the new, hot fad of today. Normally, this kind of thing is reserved for franchises with mass appeal and nostalgia, like childhood TV shows, time-honored playthings, or even arcade machines.
Let’s be real with ourselves. There are only two types of people out there at the moment: people who have already seen Avengers: Endgame, and the poor souls who haven’t. You already know whether or not you’re going to see it, and all I can really do in this case is reaffirm whatever stance you have on seeing the darned thing.
by Katherine Simon I’m sure by now you’ve already heard about the backlash the Sonic the Hedgehog movie has been receiving lately, most notably for Sonic’s uncanny design. Ever since the design was initially leaked, everyone and their mother has been tearing this naked man-hog apart. The mockery only increased when the trailer dropped just a few days ago and we finally saw Sonic with realistic human teeth and the proportions of a weird toddler-adult hybrid. Even Byte’s own Tanner Kinney couldn't help but join in on the Roast of Sonic, and we’ll be following up on his thoughts with this feature. It’s clear that an overwhelming majority of viewers were not too keen Sonic’s live-action design, enough for the production team at Paramount Pictures to take notice. Only two days after the trailer dropped, director Jeff Fowler announced that due to overwhelming criticism, the team will be going back and redesigning Sonic. Now at first glance, this sounds like fantastic news! The production team is actually listening to criticisms from the fans and applying it to their own work to hopefully deliver a better product, which is rare to see from a major Hollywood production. However, once you take a step back to think about the implications of this change and what this mean for the film’s production schedule, especially if they’re still aiming for that November 2019 release date, things start to look a lot less sunshine and rainbows for the people working on the film.
Over the last few years, no animation studio in the business has left as much of an impact as Laika. Known for films like Coraline and Kubo & The Two Strings, the Oregon-based stop-motion powerhouse is known for their willingness to take (comparatively) bold risks in storytelling and advance the stop-motion artform in revolutionary ways…and for the fact that the studio is the pet project of former rapper and heir to the Nike fortune, Travis “Chilly Tee” Knight.
With their last full-length album, The Dream Is Over, PUP (Pathetic Use of Potential) provided excellent punk tunes with catchy choruses and strong guitar riffs. Now they have done the exact same thing three years later. The songs on Morbid Stuff are engaging, exciting, and well worth the wait. Listeners will find diversity throughout the music, along with fun choruses and great punk riffs. If Morbid Stuff says anything about PUP, it’s that they show no signs of slowing down.
Back in 2018, Alaria Spurling, lead guitarist and vocalist of Four Fates, needed three people to back her up for a tiny music festival in Bloomington, Indiana. This led to the formation of a band. Some of the songs they performed at this festival would end up being on their EP. After playing a show at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis, the band began working on Realms, which released April 6. On this EP, a completely unique sound emerges as Spurling sings about sadness and trouble. Ian Chambers brings his own flair to the songs with his excellent drumming, Evan Tusing adds an Alter Bridge style to the guitars, and Adam Schaefer completely nails his bass lines. However, Realms’ faults lie in the production and a tiny bit in the structure.
The developers at FromSoftware have made a name for themselves by creating the Soulsborne games. Consisting of the Dark Souls trilogy and Bloodborne, these games are notorious for their difficult gameplay. While this has turned off a lot of gamers, it also garnered a loyal fanbase. With the release of the last Dark Souls game back in 2016, fans of FromSoftware eagerly awaited what game the company would release next. With that game now finally released, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice proves to be another success for FromSoftware.
In the beautiful countryside of Mexico, there once lived a gorgeous woman named Maria. She fell for a rich ranchero, married the man she loved and had two wonderful kids. Following a rough patch in their marriage where her husband placed more attention on his children than his wife, Maria witnessed her husband in the arms of a younger beauty. In an fit of furious revenge, Maria drowned her two sons in a nearby river. After she came to her senses and realized the extent of her actions, she threw herself into those very same waters. That night, villagers saw a figure sobbing along the banks of the river, wearing Maria’s burial clothes and crying for the loss of her children. Today, the weeping woman is said to comb the earth in search of misbehaving children, luring them to bodies of water after dark to punish them for their misdeeds.
Demi Lawrence is a junior journalism news major and writes "Unspoken" for The Daily News. Her views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper. Write to Demi at dnlawrence@bsu.edu.
by Tanner Kinney Nothing is more cursed and inspires worse nightmares than movies based on video games. It seems like every time, whether the source material is good, bad, or mediocre, the producers of these films know absolutely nothing about the games and just make a movie that vaguely resembles its namesake. From the original stinker in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, or the Uwe Boll classics like Bloodrayne, or even the seven thousand Resident Evil films that exist to keep the director and his wife employed, it’s all bad. Even the best video game movies are only good by comparison, and the bar is so low it’s knocking on Satan’s wine cellar. So, if you were to approach me and tell me that not just one, but TWO high-profile video game movies based on classic franchises were releasing this year, I would be shocked. Surely they’ve learned their lesson, right? You can’t just keep brutalizing beloved franchises into whatever Hollywood-approved picture and expect something watchable, you have to try something new! Break the mold, prove that the game deserves to be turned into a full movie and not just a Netflix mini-series or Cartoon Network show. Yet, here we are, with both Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog slowly approaching our theaters, menacingly, with hyper-realistic fur and way too many quips.
by Joe Bursley About one year ago on April 23, 2018, the Federal Communication Commission made some drastic changes to net neutrality. This came after the FCC voted to repeal the Obama administration’s internet guidelines in December of 2017. There was much focus on how this repeal would affect the average person’s ability to access the internet freely and openly. Chances are, if you are reading this article right now, your internet access hasn’t changed much. So what exactly was the big fight over net neutrality, what does the repeal actually affect, and what is going to happen next? The future of our internet may (or may not) depend on these answers.
Australian band King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard made 2017 their year. The band put out five records throughout the year, with only a couple months in between each: Flying Microtonal Banana, Murder of the Universe, Sketches of Brunswick East, Polygondwanaland and Gumboot Soup. The five records added up to a total of 13 albums in their entire discography since 2012, making for an incredible work ethic. In 2018, however, the band took a much-needed break, letting the five records sink in with the fans to decipher where they fit in the “Gizzverse”.
Neotheater, the third full-length album from AJR, provides its audience with equal doses of grand symphonic energy and lyrical introspective dread. Like their other albums, the themes focus on self-reflection, but Neotheater revolves mainly around growing up and going through the trials and tribulations of young adulthood. They’ve outdone themselves yet again with their signature beats, unconventional themes, and hard-hitting lyrics. This album is light-hearted in its sound and heavy in its meaning. It’s pleasing not only to ears but also to the maturing conscious, as the music helps us dance through the troubles many of us are facing as we get older.
I consider myself a pretty strong woman when it comes to handling depictions of violence in movies and TV. I’m generally unphased by most graphic imagery in media and even enjoy myself a good bloody action romp now and again. However, very few things are able to make me cringe as much as the Metallica fight in Jojo. Even as someone who isn’t very squeamish, I found the fight very difficult to stomach when I first read Part 5 three years ago to the point where I had to look away from the artwork just to finish reading the chapter. In spite of that, the fight is still a fun romp that gives a spotlight to the mysterious boss and his alternate persona Doppio.
For the past few years, it has become more and more obvious that Lizzo has what it takes to become a star. Not only has she proven with songs like “Boys,” “Good As Hell,” and “Truth Hurts” that she has a knack for writing tracks just begging to blow up, but she brings the kind of larger-than-life personality. Both in and out of her music she has made it clear what makes an artist like Cardi B an absolute phenomenon.