News from Saudi Arabia

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Hello, Austin! I’m writing this post from across the Atlantic Ocean in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. I had to stay awake for two days straight for plane trips, and I still think it’s Wednesday afternoon. Curse you jet lag. I was picked at the airport by my half- brother, whose house I’m staying at right now.

The neighborhoods here look more like fortified military bases then neighborhoods. They are all surrounded by foot-thick concrete walls topped of by barbed wire. You have to have a visitor’s ID and be fingerprinted to really do anything here. This place is much more serious about visitors than the U.S..

I’m not quite sure about about what we’re doing over the next four weeks I’m going to be here. I think I heard something about camping and meteor crater. I’ll write another post in about week with updates.

Stress in Students

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What causes stress in students? Almost everyday of my life is consumed by school. My free time is limited due to the large amount of homework I am given, having to study, and practicing my cello. Schoolwork puts too much stress on students and prevents them from getting enough sleep. As an effect, they are unable to do their best at school during the day. Homework is supposed to help students remember what they learned in school. It will have the opposite effect if it starts to consume their lives. The other half of this is not the school’s fault. A lot of other students I talk to say they no time to do their homework because they have extracurricular activities like sports all afternoon. Students will not be able to do well in school if they find no time to complete their homework. These two factors will take over a student’s life. They need time to do something they enjoy, to be with family. To solve the problem, schools need to lessen the amount of homework and students need to learn to balance their schedule so they have time for homework, extracurricular activities, and free time.

Sword of the Stars “Review”

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I found myself buried with homework last weekend as usual, but somehow I managed to scrape together a couple hours of free time. I went this bookstore which has this game area in the back corner. I usually never find anything worthwhile there, as the shelves are usually filled with games like “Nancy Drew Hidden Object Adventures”. I ended up being lucky that day, as I found something that looked actually good, believe it or not. It was a sci-fi strategy game titled “Sword of the Stars”. I am now going to review it.

Before I go any further, I want to make something clear. This game is hard, and for one specific reason. It offers you little to no instruction on just what you are supposed to be doing. It drops you off in the first mission without any tutorial or anything. I was forced to read someone’s beginner’s guide on the internet. I dislike doing this, as I classify looking information up on the internet as cheating. But here, it seems necessary.

That aside, let’s get into the gameplay. The main goal in each mission differs in each one. The first one is to force all of your opponents forces out of the surrounding star systems. To do this, you will need to construct different ships and send them to attack your opponent’s. You will also need to research new technology to upgrade them to become more powerful. You can try to communicate with the other players to ask them for help, bribe them, or attempt (unsuccessfully of course) to intimidate them.

Now I’m going to cover some of the story, which there’s not a lot of. The year is 2405, and mankind has discovered subspace travel, which allows faster than light movement for spaceships. You’re playing as SolSpace, a major company on Earth that helped develop this technology. A couple people aren’t too happy about one major company controlling a lot, so they form the Frontier Alliance, a rebel organization. So now you have to try to get them back in line. Unfortunately, a couple alien races have taken notice to this, and will try to exploit the divided human race.

So that’s pretty much the just of it. I would recommend this game for anyone who enjoys turn-based strategy games, as long as they don’t mind some difficulty learning the game. My rating for this game is a 7.5/10.

Story Thing 6

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I am now going to write some stuff.

A crash shook the ship. A blaring warning siren followed. “ENTER THE NEAREST ESCAPE POD IMMEDIATELY!”, an automated voice screeched. The room was filled with screams as everybody rushed to save themselves.

I frantically shoved my way through the crowd to find an escape pod . I saw a glimpse of door just about to close a few feet to my right. I hurled my self through the door, barely getting my foot caught in the doorway. I pulled myself up and searched for the eject button. There it was, sitting on the left control panel. I quickly smacked it with my hand, and my pod was dropped from the ship, and began spiraling down to a rocky planet below. I pulled myself over to a porthole to see what was happening, only to see a cliff face flying towards me. There was a crash, and everything was black.

Story Thing 5

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The rear command deck was filled with panicked voices. Wright yelled for everybody to calm down, but no one listened. Ethan Merrick, our main engineer slipped through the crowd and whispered something to Wright, just before disappearing back into the engine room. This was rather strange as the engineers never really worked in the engine room, they just stomped around the ship and yelled at people. Wright managed to get everybody to stay quiet, and explained that there was a slight engine failure, which would be fixed immediately. He said this with a worried voice, I knew something was wrong.

A Little Help?

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I need some help. I am trying to buy a new computer, but I am having a lot of trouble. I want it to be able to process good graphics, but I also need it to run programs like Word and PowerPoint for schoolwork. I don’t want to pass a budget of one thousand. I’ve heard different things from al lot of people, and I don’t know who to listen to. Please leave a comment below and tell me why you suggested it.

P.S. Don’t even think about suggesting a Mac!

Off the Beaten Path

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There are so many gaming franchises out there that are overrated. Do I really have to tell you them? Everyone knows them. Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed and Battlefield are pretty much all people play these days. I’m here to tell you to branch out again*. Here are some games that I am excited to get. See how many of them you know: Starbound, Sir, You are Being Hunted, Stardew Valley. You’ve never heard of any off them, have you? There are so many games out there that are amazing. Take a break from the big names for a while and try something new!

*See The GBA IPad Emulator Post.

Terraria vs Minecraft: Which is the better game?

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Even if you’ve spent most of your life with consoles, you’ve almost definitely heard of the PC hit Minecraft. With over 12 million copies sold, it is the most played game that hasn’t had an official release yet, second only to DoTa 2. I am also going to talk about a less known game, but by no means a worse game: Terraria. Whatever you do, don’t call Terraria a Minecraft clone, because it’s not. I know most of you will toss Terraria aside, saying that being 2-d makes it a terrible game. There are pros and cons for both of them. If you would like the building aspect of the game more, then I would recommend Minecraft. Being 3-d and having more materials to use makes the building possibilities for Minecraft more enjoyable. However, if you are interested in adventuring, Terraria is the game for you. Think you’ve seen it all by going from side to side of the map? Explore the caves, brave the dangers of the dungeon, challenge the bosses, or find the floating islands in the sky. That is really the deciding factor of which game is really better. One last thing, though. Stop calling Minecraft a survival game. It’s a sandbox game. Just because you have hunger doesn’t mean survival is a big part of the game.

Story Thing 4

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It’s been a while since the last story thing, but here’s part four.

A week has past since Wright called me in for chastisement. I have been really pushing it to try better. I’m not sure if it will make any difference, though. I was in the generator room, checking all the circuits, when a booming voice blasted from the speakers. “ALL PERSONNEL REPORT TO THE REAR COMMAND DECK. IMMEDIATELY.” There was only one reason they would call us there. The rear commander deck was were the escape pods were located. No time to waste, I got up and hurried to the rear.