Screen Time: Curse of the video game adaptation
By Thomas Wick, Staff Writer
June 4, 2019
Once upon a time in the year 1993, an abomination crawled out from the darkest depths of the underworld and into the light of our Earth: the first film adaptation of a video game. The movie, “Super Mario Bros.,” turned the villain of the video game series it was based on, Bowser, from a vicious fire-...
Do puzzles and games help you de-stress?
By Vaibhav Gupta, Staff Writer
April 21, 2019
“Video games are a part of me, and being able to play them, it takes away the pressure from work,” Ferdy Huang, a junior emergency medicine major, said. “The stress management, that’s the side effect that comes from having fun playing video games.”
Opinion | Pa. is misguidedly trying to make video games a taxable sin
By Thomas Wick, Staff Columnist
February 19, 2019
Politicians have been trying to pin the blame for school shootings on violent video games for years, even though it’s a dated concept.
Opinion | Battle Royale: attack of the Fortnite clones
By Thomas Wick, Staff Columnist
January 16, 2019
While battle royale may be fun to watch, it needs a massive community to support it, lest it fall out of popularity. This spells a troubling future for the genre, if current gaming trends continue.
Don’t pin blame on violent games
By Thomas Wick | Columnist
February 28, 2018
Imagine being able to punch a ninja through the chest, rip out their heart and then squeeze it to drink the remaining blood left for nourishment. All it takes is two fatal words — “finish him” — to violently kill an opponent this way while playing “Mortal Kombat.” In fact, the violence in t...
Microtransactions mar gaming experience
By Thomas Wick | Columnist
December 4, 2017
A short time ago in an industry not so far away, the gaming empire Electronic Arts released a video game called “Star Wars Battlefront II” — but gamers should keep their wallets handy if they want the full game experience. This sequel to the 2015 “Star Wars Battlefront” promised to add improve...
Good gaming journalism needs know-how
By Thomas Wick | Columnist
September 25, 2017
As I watched the video game character move back and forth on the screen, struggling and failing to make a simple jump, I couldn’t help but cringe. I was shocked to discover the identity of the player grappling with a game tutorial with so much difficulty was an “experienced” gaming journalist. Video gam...
Hold out on video game hype culture, wait for results
By Thomas Wick | Columnist
March 23, 2017
When two gamers took their players on a virtual journey to a far-off video game planet, they expected to be able to see and interact with each other’s player in the game. To their surprise, they saw only empty planet, despite what the makers of the game previously promised. Sean Murray — head of the...
“The Last of Us” continues with a compelling origin story
By Stephanie Roman / For The Pitt News
March 17, 2014
"The Last of Us: Left Behind"Naughty DogGrade: ASnow lightly covers piles of dead leaves as the season shifts from fall to winter, and Joel’s just been hurled from a second-story window by a rival human survivor. He lands on a piece of wreckage, a metal beam that impales him straight through the gut. ...