GadgetJax Reviews: Cave Story (PC, Wii, 3DS)

   After two months of doing shortened reviews, I think I would like to go back to a more explorative review. This time, we won't be covering a book OR a movie. Rather, we're going back into the wonderful world of video games, and the game of today is Cave Story.

What is Cave Story? Well, of course it's a story, and it's probably about a cave, right? Or, maybe it's a story about Cave Johnson from Portal 2. Nah, I take that back: It's probably just about a cave.
      Before getting to the actual game, though, I would like to cover a bit of Cave Story's history: This game was independently created by just one man, Daisuke 'Pixel' Amaya, and released completely free of charge in 2004 (In Japan, the game is subtitled as 'Dokutsu Monogatari'). The game slowly garnered attention from the western gaming community when it was given an English translation. Within the following years, Cave Story amassed a huge fanbase, as did 'Pixel'. This fad continued to grow as 'Pixel' teamed up with Nicalis Inc to develop updated versions of the game for WiiWare, DSi, 3DS, and Steam. In some respects, Cave Story could be considered one of the first and most influential Indie games ever created!
      To avoid spoiling any of the game's story (haha, get it?), I'll just be covering the first bits of monologue during the game. You wake up in a large cavern with no idea who you are (you won't learn your name until later) and where you came from: after searching around, you meet a village full of rabbit-like denizens known as 'The Mimiga'. These creatures tell you that an evil Doctor has been kidnapping their kind, and you head out to rescue them. Of course there's much more story than that to find in the game, but I recommend living that story yourself: This is NOT the game you would want to spoil. Really, don't spoil it for yourself or anyone else.
     
      Now, onto gameplay: Cave Story is known by many as a 'Metroidvania' title. Unlike traditional platformers, a Metroidvania platformer does not have segmented levels. Rather, the entire game is linked together as a singular world that can be independently explored at any time - as long as you can access that area in the story, anyway. Your main character can run, jump, and shoot in any horizontal or vertical direction.
      Upon booting up, you'll start with just a single weapon, the Polar Star, but you'll slowly collect more and more. Your arsenal expands to include a missile launcher, a fireball blaster, and more. What makes Cave Story's weapons different is the unique Experience System: Every time you bust an enemy, they drop EXP for you to collect. If you pick up enough EXP, your weapon will eventually level up. Each weapon maxes out its power when it reaches Level 3. The catch? If you receive any damage, your weapon will lose some of the EXP you collected for it. You'll want to play carefully to get through the caves with your weapons still at max power. Here's a diagram to see how the EXP system works for your first weapon:

      Cave Story's weapon system is more dynamic than just its experience system, though: some weapons can only be unlocked by trading certain weapons away, and some needed to be crafted by fusing together one or more weapons. There are a total of 10 weapons to be found: 5 of them are found naturally, and the other 5 are optional through trades or combinations. The extra weapons are fun to find because they add lots of replay value to each Cave Story experience.
     
      Advice to new players: this game is incredibly challenging. There are no difficulty options in the freeware version; only the versions of the game on Steam and Nintendo include Easy Mode. Cave Story will infuriate you to no end if you aren't up for a fight. Cave Story also features a secondary ending, but accessing it without knowing where it is in advance is nearly impossible. Even if you do manage to find it, you'll have to fight your way through an extra dungeon. Oh, that last dungeon is a heartache and a half.

Final Thoughts:

Cave Story is awesome. Why use words to describe this great game when you can just play it right now? You can download the original freeware version at this link: http://www.cavestory.org/download/cave-story.php - The updated versions of this game on Nintendo and Steam will cost a bit more, but are worth it for players who want the definitive Cave Story experience.

Recommendation Level: Maximum (Worth every penny - or, try the original version: you won't regret it either way.)

Quote of the Month April 2016- Hayden

Soooo Hayden Rick Rolled us at the last Teen Advisory Board Meeting when I asked them to introduce themselves to the new member. The text reads:
When introducing themselves "My name is Hayden and I'm....Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down” 

A Review of High School (by High Schoolers Lily W and Melanie VT)

A Review of High School (by High Schoolers Lily W and Melanie VT)

Who better to ask about the stresses of high school than high schoolers themselves?

We are both two honor roll students in high school, one a junior, the other a sophomore. We are writing this article to stress how important it is for us to have our lives back. We both have about four or more hours of homework on a normal day of school, not including our clubs, rehearsals, and practices we both take pride in participating in. All around us, our classmates are breaking under the pressure of the impossible expectations that high schools make for us. Some
classmates regularly have panic attacks, medically recognized anxiety, and related eating disorders due to the stress of homework and the expectations put on our shoulders to stay on top of our class assignments. We are writing this article to bring attention to a problem that teachers and administration for many schools overlook the well being of their students’ mental and physical health.

(Infographic from Teens suffer from chronic stress due to homework, 2014 Stanford study finds) 

On a typical school day for me (Melanie), I receive about 4 hours of homework. I try to
start right when I get home from school at 3:30 and work on it. Add on to that amount of time
dinner and a shower and the general preparation for bedtime and that takes away another hour or
so from my working schedule. Now my schedule is work from 3:30-5:30, dinner and a shower,
and then homework from 7-9.

Afterwards I get ready for bed and try to get one word in with my parents on how my day is going. Not to mention I haven’t had any time for any type of social life whatsoever, yet this is the expectation we are supposed to hold up without any snags or problems with our homework, making it take longer than 4 hours (Often times I spend more than 4 hours on homework because I am a slow learner/worker, which puts me at a disadvantage against quick working kids). My schedule allows me no outdoor activity, jobs, or sports. Sunday should be a day of rest without homework, and I never have the time to simply sit back for one day because of the excess of homework. Studies show teenagers need 9 hours of sleep, which rarely happens for me. Most nights, I get about 6.

On my typical school day (Lily) I arrive before the 7:45 start time for first hour. I have no
study hall and a short lunch after 12. After school gets out (2:54 usually except for Wednesdays
when we leave at 2:25) is club meetings, rehearsals for music or plays, or volunteering at my
local library. Generally I won’t get home until after four o’clock but sometimes it won’t be until
dinner. On a usual day I will begin homework and studying as soon as possible, usually spending
as much as 4-6 hours on it, leaving me no free time to spend doing things I enjoy or time to spend with my family and friends. Being a good student means that I have to give up any chance of my social life on several days of the week including the supposed “weekends” in which I still have a whole lot of homework and projects to complete for these hardcore classes (which are honors and advanced placement). So basically I have eight hours in school + at least one hour of after school extracurriculars + 4-6 hours of homework = very little sleep, incredible amounts of stress, and more time working towards education than adults work on in a full time career! Can you see our frustrations?

We aren’t even the kids who are worst off because of high school. All around, kids are feeling high levels of diagnosable anxiety, depression, and even eating disorders because of the levels of stress placed on us to do so well in school or else face a life where we are “doomed” to never make it into college or to have a successful career and happy life. We are pressured to give up all our free time and our childhoods in order to make sure that our futures are amazing, even if our present situation is not right! Students who are trying to prepare for their future now are applying for jobs which they don’t have time for. This situation haunts millions of teenagers every day and they are just trying to save some money. Some students are expected to keep up a high grade point average while supporting their family financially. Going to college obviously requires a lot of money, and not all parents can easily afford sending their child to whatever college his/her heart desires. Students therefore need to help pitch in by getting a job and supporting their future career. That is, if they had time.

Studies show that more than two hours of homework is counterproductive to the education of highschoolers. Giving only two hours of homework is an attainable goal for teachers. Many teachers do not realize our workload is so bad, not considering that the other six classes in their day also assign plenty of homework. We’re already busy we don’t need the busywork. If only they could take into account that we take their instruction seriously and they can be just as effective without assigning an unreasonable amount of homework. Please remember that we are still children, we need to have a strong social and family life, and having so much busy work really affects how we interact with others. It can be very hard to make friends at this age for many teens, but consider having no time to make or keep those friends what then do you think happens to teenagers emotionally?

(Chart from Homework around the world: how much is too much?)

Several students suffer from anxiety, panic attacks, depression, and eating disorders. Many different studies show that about half of high school teens feel stressed about high school (These studies can be found in our works cited). It is suggested that high schoolers should have no more than 2 hours of homework daily, or else it will become counterproductive, but the average American teenager has 3.5. In comparison, adults do get frustrated when they are forced to do an excessive amount of overtime for any job how is this any different? If an adult had literally no time to be themselves don’t you think they would become stressed, burnt out, and upset? No wonder students are so negatively affected by high school’s unreasonable standards.

Many countries, in fact, do not emphasize the need for homework. Finland has even passed laws to ban homework in some areas. Now I know what you’re thinking: Don’t those kids in reaction to less homework have poorer knowledge and ability to take what they learn and apply it to new situations? Surprisingly, no. Because of more student teacher interactions in school, the kids require less take-home busywork. Teachers on the other hand are held higher expectations before they’re even allowed to become a teacher. They must have a master’s degree and be in the top 10% of their class. Class size in Finland is about 12 students per teacher, which makes for better one-on-one interaction time and personal help. Not only that, but most students actually prefer smaller class size.

The purpose of this project we have taken on is to bring light to a subject that a lot of teachers tend not to consider when assigning homework the students’ emotional well being. While you may think that we are all perfectly coping to these high levels of stress and higher expectations, you are completely wrong. We want a life! We are still kids, so while we may be mature and starting to make adult decisions like taking on more responsibility like jobs, we aren’t adults quite yet. You can’t expect us to take on so much work and not have negative effects on our mental and physical health. We just want you to hear us. We hope that this article can make a positive change for kids like us.


Works Cited:
CNN . Cable News Network. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
"Education in Sweden." Sweden.se . 11 May 2015. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
"A High School Student's Perspective on Homework." ASCD
Express 4.26 . Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
"School Stress Takes A Toll On Health, Teens And Parents Say." NPR . NPR. Web. 23 Apr.
2016.
"Teens Suffer from Chronic Stress Due to Homework, 2014 Stanford Study Finds The
Redwood Bark." The Redwood Bark . 02 Apr. 2014. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
"Teens Suffer from Chronic Stress Due to Homework, 2014 Stanford Study Finds The
Redwood Bark." The Redwood Bark . 02 Apr. 2014. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
"There Is No Homework In Finland." Content Marketing Blog . 04 Mar. 2013. Web. 23 Apr.
2016.

Jax's Lightspeed Reviews: 'The Reckoners Part 1: Steelheart' by Brandon Sanderson

Welcome to Jax's Lightspeed Reviews. These are just like any other of my regular reviews, though they're much quicker to read through and write - hence the title. The review is split up into 5 pieces: The story overview, the positive elements of the book, the negative elements of the book, a final verdict, and a recommendation level.

Today's book: 'The Reckoners Part 1: Steelheart' by Brandon Sanderson

I've seen Steelheart bleed, and I WILL see him bleed again.

The Story:

     Life is modern, and it's great. Of course, with any book that starts great, something bad will happen. America is struck by a natural disaster known as 'Calamity', which causes random people around the world to gain a variety of superpowers, thus turning those people into 'Epics'. Unlike your typical Marvel or DC story, though, these powers corrupt the souls of those who are blessed by them, and soon the Epics wreak havoc on the world, causing an apocalypse. The most high of all Epics is Steelheart, who rules Chicago (now called Newcago, for some reason) with an iron fist.

     For any story featuring villains, there needs to be a hero to combat such a being, and that character is David - haha, how ironic. As a young child, David's father was murdered by Steelheart, so he does the usual 'high-and-pompous' thing among heroes and vows revenge against Steelheart. As he grows up, David learns as much as he can about Epics and their weaknesses, hoping that he can one day get rid of Steelheart for good. Along the way, David meets up with The Reckoners, a group of rogues who fight Epics for a living. David joins up the Reckoners in an attempt finally kill Steelheart.

The Good:

     The Reckoners may be another Post-Apocalyptic book, but it is a good one indeed. The story is suspenseful from start to finish, with many plot twists within - and unlike last month's book, they're actually done very well. I obviously won't spoil them here, though. David isn't like other heroes in Apocalypse stories, where he tries to be this big darn hero: Instead, he has a very goofy personality that clashes well with the rest of his Reckoner partners. The other Reckoners also play well as 'mentor' figures to David, which leads to some strong character development on David's part.
     Steelheart is written from the narrative of David instead of the author, which seems to work best for this genre. When you here all the details from the characters themselves, you're given a better idea of exactly what's going on. I wish this style was used more frequently, though I guess I can't be one to judge because I haven't read too many Apocalypse-themed books. David also provides enough commentary to give you a perfect picture of what's happening in the story, but he leaves enough details out so you can interpret the story's tiniest details to how you see fit: Whether or not you think David is ruggedly-handsome is up to you.

The Bad:

     I mentioned earlier that David provides a realistic sense of humor to the story. Does it work throughout the entire story, though? Nope. One of David's many defining traits is that he can't come up with good metaphors. Trust me, it really isn't as hysterical as it sounds. In most cases, this is used as the defining 'awkward' trait for him, which gets tiring after the second or third time you read it. It's a little detail, but it can occur upwards to five times within a chapter.
     You know what else I don't like about this book? The beginning. The book starts with an incredibly satisfying Prologue - which I have to say might be one of the best ways to introduce any book (READ IT), - but once that passes, you're left with a couple filler chapters before the intensity starts up again. Again, I'm mentioning this as a warning rather than as an insult to the book.

Conclusion:

     Steelheart does many things right that other Post-Apocalyptic stories have failed at: it takes the usual 'Super-powered Heroes VS Ingenious Villains' tale, swaps the roles around, and mixes in some other genres to boot. The tale is long, and has a couple speed bumps along the way where the story stops to relay useless backstories, but if you can tolerate a thick tale now and then, you'll find a lot to like with Steelheart and the rest of the 'Reckoners' franchise.

Recommendation: Above average (Read it as soon as you can!)

March Cosplay Contest!

Our second annual Cosplay Contest was Saturday and we had some EXCELLENT entries this year:









They did a great job! And our two winners (Stephanie and Mariana) are going to C2E2!

A photo posted by @lcplibrary on Feb 19, 2016 at 8:39am PST

Jax's Lightspeed Review of 'Book Scavenger' by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

Welcome to Jax's Lightspeed Reviews. These are just like any other of my regular reviews, though they're much quicker to read through and write - hence the title. The review is split up into 5 pieces: The story overview, the positive elements of the book, the negative elements of the book, a final verdict, and a recommendation level.

Today's book: 'Book Scavenger' by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

"Life is a game, and books are the tokens."

The Story:

Book Scavenger is split into 3 main plot pieces that work around each other. In this story, a fictional game exists called 'Book Scavenger', where patrons can hide books for others to find in the real world, then pinpoint their book's location using a clue system built into the 'Book Scavenger' website. The admin and leader of the Book Scavenger games, Mr Garrison Griswold, is often considered the self-proclaimed 'Willy Wonka' of the book industry. Griswold starts plans on a new sub-competition of the game, where players will have to track down one of many copies of 'The Gold-Bug' (which is a REAL book by Edgar Allen Poe), which contains clues to where a special prize is located in San Fransisco. However, Griswold is mugged by a group of thugs prior to the start of the competition, causing the new game to be postponed.
      ...then we get to the other main character of the story: Emily Crane, a passionate player of the Book Scavenger game. Emily's family has a dream to live in each state in the U.S. at least once for a full year, and their next stop is - coincidentally, - San Fransisco. Once Emily and her family arrives, she meets up with James, a puzzles enthusiast, and they find a mysterious Gold-covered version of 'The Gold-Bug'. Emily doesn't make much of it at first because nobody actually knows of Griswold's cancelled game, but once she finds out a secret lying within the book, she starts a quest to complete the game - with the help of James, of course.

The Good:

Book Scavenger is the best kind of Fiction because it's a completely plausible story. The whole tale is obviously made up, but because of how clever the Book Scavenger game within the story actually is, it could easily be played in real life. In fact, the official website for this story has a mini-'Book Scavenger' built into it that you can play right now! Check this link: http://bookscavenger.com/hide-find-books/   Sure, there aren't many books hidden around our Lake County area as of right now, but we could change that, couldn't we? I challenge all of you readers to hide at least 1 book within the next few weeks and record it on the website. Think you're up to the challenge?
      The primary genre of Book Scavenger, 'mystery', is implemented to perfection here. It's fun to keep up with all of the puzzles that Emily and James encounter on their quest to finish The Gold-Bug's hidden adventure, and it's not very hard, either. There were at least 2 or 3 times within the book where the main characters stumbled upon a new step they couldn't solve, even though I already had a hunch on how to solve it. I like this style of the 'mystery' genre better than the stereotypical 'Sherlock' kind of mystery because they feel interactive.

The Bad:

I didn't have any immediate distaste with Book Scavenger, but on the other hand, not too much about the story really struck me. In easier terms, I couldn't find any flaws in the book that detracted from the experience, but aside from the fun setting of the book and the mystery aspects, the writing itself is rather run-of-the-mill. Not much about the story stands out from other tales of this caliber.
      As a side note, there's a very weird mis-match of plot twists near the end of the book. I don't mind plot twists, but in this case, at least 3 twists occur within the same chapter. This kind of writing can throw you off, and it should especially be avoided during the climax of the story.

Conclusion:

Book Scavenger is a simple story at face value, but the simplicity of the story helps contribute to how fun it is to read. Pick this one up if you can, and if you get a spare book and some time, try out the Book Scavenger game online! Or, perhaps you should wait for another month to do that, since it is still winter right now...

Recommendation Rating: Moderate (Read it if you can!)

Lorali found the book of her dreams!

At least Lorali found a book she liked! 
"Fat & Bones" by Larissa Theule.
Check us out on Vine!