A Day in the Life of Gamers For Service

     Nerf darts whistle through the cold air as zombies chase the last remaining humans across the quad. The humans have fought, died, been brought back to life, gone through six missions, and now, the end is near. For one week every semester, the Mines campus is transformed into an apocalyptic wasteland filled with the undead. Human players wielding Nerf guns set out to complete the objectives they need to survive. However, these people aren't fighting for the whole human race. They are fighting for children in need.
     The $5 charge for playing Humans vs. Zombies goes to Child’s Play, an international charity that funds toy drives for children across the US. Humans vs. Zombies is an event put on by the campus organization Gamers for Service. GFS puts on games and events with the purpose of raising money for several different non-profit groups, including the American Heart Association, Susan G. Komen, and Ronald McDonald House. This semester’s HvZ outing netted over $900 in donation money.
     Even more donations came on November 2nd, when Gamers for Service hosted Extra Life, a world-wide event where participants play games for 25 consecutive hours. The donations come in the form of sponsorships. Players raised their own money and contributed it to the total, which will also go to Child’s Play. Nearly $400 was raised before Extra Life even started. Games that GFS has done in the past include Assassins, Muggle Quidditch, and dodgeball.
     The organization has held two or three events a semester since 2010. Every Tuesday at 8:30 PM, the group gathers in the Hardrock room to plan the next fun occasion. Rest assured, as long as there are bored college students and Nerf guns, Gamers for Service will continue raising money for charities everywhere and bored college students will not be so bored anymore. Everybody wins.

Storm Atlas Damages Campus

Although talking about the weather is one of today’s great conversation starters, there are times when the irregular behavior of the climate can spark some rather memorable dialogues.  Storm Atlas is no exception to this rule, as the record-breaking amount of snow caused a rather significant impact both on campus and in the surrounding area.  While the first snow has already come and gone, its damage is still visible immediately upon stepping outside.  

Most obvious are the places where trees used to stand or roofs that have now collapsed, “During the storm, we unfortunately lost the internet, which made our lives as teenagers very difficult,” says student Trevor Kasprzyk.  

Volunteers are still sought to help with cleanup, as the elderly and disabled still struggle from this unexpected storm, and on campus, the student senate is considering the possibility of organizing a tree-planting event for Earth Day this upcoming year.  Ultimately, regardless of the fact that power has returned to our homes and we have a temporary reprieve from the snow, Storm Atlas has and will continue to influence our campus by providing a cause and opportunity for cooperation with the surrounding community.

A Day in the Circle K Club

When a person says “Circle K,” the first words that come to mind are community service, fellowship, and leadership.  These prove to be an acute description as each meeting opens with their motto, “Live to serve, love to serve,” followed by their weekly donation to Project Eliminate, an organization working to provide women in third-world countries with tetanus vaccinations.  Every Monday afternoon, this group meets to discuss future volunteering opportunities ranging from a weekly trip to Feeding South Dakota to park cleanups to larger projects, such as this organization’s upcoming event, Trick or Treat for Canned Goods.  This upcoming food drive takes place on October the 30^th and includes prizes for groups that collect the most food and have the best costumes and is organized and run by students here at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.  Indeed, the amount of initiative displayed by these students lends itself to a rather impressive list of projects completed as this group works to serve both within the school and in the outside community.  Members of this group also work at the district level and in committees that range from Membership Development to Service to relations with their parent organization, Kiwanis:  Circle K is the college-level branch of this larger volunteering organization.  When attending meetings, one not only has the chance to sign up for a variety of community- and campus service opportunities and meet with these officers, but also attend district meetings and leadership training conferences.  The group recently presented about its trip to this summer’s international conference held in Vancouver, Canada, where its members were able to learn more about Circle K groups from other regions and countries, as well as ways to improve each region and local club.  Finally, each meeting concludes with the ringing of the club’s bell, as each member goes off in his or her way to help better the community.

SDBOR Considers Tuition Freeze

A few weeks ago, SDSM&T’s Student Association President, Michael Leopold, was notified during a Student Federation meeting that the Board of Regents was considering pushing for a tuition freeze. The freeze would come into effect during the 2014- 2015 Academic Year, locking tuition and fees at their current rate for another year, for both in and out of state students. This would prevent the annual increase of roughly six percent per year.

This freeze was proposed by the executive head of the Board of Regents, Jack Warner. The Board believes that this freeze is a necessary wake-up call to the state, who, in the interest of conservative fiscal policies, has decreased funding to its public universities. The Board hopes to change that by bringing the issue to the forefront in the coming legislative sessions. The process of actually making the freeze a reality is more complicated. The shortfall in funding will have to be covered by the governor’s budget, which is usually finalized close to the end of the year. If the money is not allocated by the year’s end, both the BOR, and local chapters of student governments will have to lobby quickly and effectively to prevent the stalling of the freeze.

Michael Leopold, president of Student Association, was able to speak to me about possible downsides to the freeze. The point that he wished to emphasize was that while he believes the freeze is a great way to help students save money. However, he is wary of us coming to rely on it from year to year. For example, if we failed to secure the funds needed during a future legislative session, there is the possibility of a rapid jump in tuition. This is because the money that is allocated to cover the shortfall will have to be lobbied for at the beginning of each new fiscal year. This leaves Leopold with uncertainty as to whether this is the best course of action to fight rising tuition at our university.

However, one of the largest selling points of SDSM&T is how cost effective it is in comparison to other state universities. This is huge part of the reason that we so widely publicize both our starting salaries and costs. The finance chair for Student Senate, Spencer Ferguson, also points out that forcing the state to look at more effective ways of funding its universities is a welcome and necessary change that must occur for growth to continue at our school. It will be interesting to see how the freeze progresses. We plan on having more and more updates as the year goes on, so be reading as this is very important material applies to you almost directly. And if you have an opinion or like to see what other people are saying on this issue then head to our newspaper web site at aurumsdsmt. blogspot.com. Also feel free to send a letter to the editor by e-mailing  your letter

TOP 5 VIDEO GAME PLOT TWISTS

            You know a game has a great story when it reveals a mind-blowing twist. They made gamers toss their controllers in the air in a fit of shock too much to comprehend. In this countdown, I will be going over my picks for the Top 5 video game plot twists.

            WARNING: This article contains potential spoilers. If you don’t want to be spoiled, move on to the next article.

            5. Call of Duty Modern Warfare: Yes, even Call of Duty can have some groundbreaking plot twists within is repetitive story. One of my favorites plot twists in the entire franchise is where the player evacuates from a city after rescuing fellow soldiers from a crashed chopper. It is then that an atomic bomb detonates in the middle of the city, destroying everything in its wake. This scene was so unexpected and out of nowhere that it captures the destruction of the bomb so perfectly, even allowing the character to walk along its hellish after effect before dying.

            Mind-Blown Level: Whoa.

4. Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic: Often considered one the best Star Wars games to date, KOTOR gave gamers the opportunity to learn the ways of the force, interact with a wide cast of characters, and choose whether to follow the path of the light or dark side. In the game, the player has a series of strange visions of one of the two Dark Lords of the Sith, Darth Revan. Later in the game, the player comes across Revan’s apprentice, Darth Malak, who reveals that the visions are actually memories. And through a perfect cutscene, it is revealed that the player is in fact Revan, who suffered from amnesia after Malak betrayed him and left him for dead and the Jedi took Revan in and reprogrammed his mind.

Mind-Blown Level: WHAAAAAATTT!?!?!

            3. Assassin’s Creed 3: The Assassin’s Creed series is full of great stories that revolve around history and historical characters. The third Assassin’s Creed (technically fifth, not counting handheld games) starts off as the player playing as the assassin Haytham Kenway, father to the main character, Connor Kenway. Here, Kenway makes his way to America to learn about the secrets of a key that he took from one of his previous targets. However, it is later revealed that Haytham Kenway is actual a Grand Master Templar, not an assassin, blowing both the minds of gamers and Kenway’s 21^st Century descendant, Desmond Miles.

Mind-Blown Level: Error: Brain cannot process this.

            2. Metroid: Granted I never played the game, but come on we all know what this is. After battling through each level after wave after wave of enemies, the bounty hunter Samus Aran finally destroys Mother Brain, thus saving the galaxy. But it is revealed at the end that when Samus takes off the armor…Samus is a woman! Holy crap! Admit it, we all thought that Samus was a dude whole time! However, Nintendo did create another classic character to add to their roster, so we gotta give them creds for that.

Mind-Blown Level: Ym Ibran si rokben.

1. Bioshock: This spectacular game contains by far one of the most mind-blowing moment in all video game history. The player, Jack, enters into the underwater city of Rapture. There, he helps out a man named Atlas on various tasks including a final task to murder the founder of Rapture, Andrew Ryan. Upon meeting Ryan, it is revealed that Jack is a splinter agent who undertakes any order followed by the phrase, “Would you kindly…” This had gamers questioning whether or not they were in control the entire time, and it makes sense why Atlas kept saying that phrase over and over again.

Mind-Blown Level: Nuclear mind bomb.

Which moment in video games blew your mind? Do you agree with my list? If not, list your own in the comment section! And if you liked this be sure to look for more Top 5 lists and be sure to check out more blogs here.

What’s new About Pokémon X and Y

Probably the biggest gaming news this October was the release of Pokémon X and Y, and this has brought some new huge changes to the world of Pokémon. For competitive players these changes are huge, old Pokémon have new abilities, weather teams have become severely handicapped, and there are even some reports on Pokémon having their base stats changed. Competitive players should read no further, because this article is not aimed at you. You probably already own the game and even may have gone to the midnight release so that you could play well into the wee hours of the night to be one of the first to discover the new wonders of Kalos. Instead this article is for those who, like me, are on the fence unsure of whether or not to buy into this game which in your mind is likely to be the same as the last four games, and you are kind of right. X and Y still have you travelling the region collecting Pokémon and battling trainers as you move through gyms, defeat an evil team of some nature (Team Flare in this case), and finally combat the elite four, beyond this though the game is surprisingly different. First off the game is harder, much harder, enemy trainers are now smart they base attacks off of your type, switch out Pokémon as needed, and oh yeah normally have Pokémon five to six levels higher than yours. “Five levels is nothing” was my thought as I walked into the second gym and was promptly decimated in the first battle, and that wasn’t the only time either, I would be destroyed left and right by random trainers on the street. Gone are the days when you could breeze through the game without using a single item, now you have to play smart, switch out when required and use the stat effecting moves you never even used before, just to come out barely on top. While a tougher game was enjoyably unexpected it wasn’t enough crunch to get me excited, what did give enough crunch though was the gimmicks. I know weird why would a gimmick be exciting, I remember when I got Pearl with the pokewalker, that was cool I could strut around with a pokeball on my belt like a real trainer, but it was a gimmick that’s the excitement I’m talking about. In X and Y you can customize your clothes, eat at cafes and stay in hotels, your Pokémon can Mega evolve, you can access the friend safari (Spoilers if I say too much more, but trust me it’s awesome just make sure to get some friends), and don’t even get me started on the ability to walk in eight directions. Ok, so that last one was kind of the joke, but the point is they have added fluff maybe not as much as say Skyrim with its thousands of locations and side quests, but it’s there. Now, this is the point of the review where I would be saying that if you’re on the fence you should buy the game, but I hate that part of the review, I am not you and I don’t know what goes on in your head. If you like the idea of a harder game, and clothing customization then I think you have already decided and my words of encouragement will make no difference. I will leave you with this then whether you play or not remember that some of the most basic games can be the most fun, and I hope to find you via street pass one day

A Day in the Life of the Cosplay Club

Rumors have been murmured of a new super elite club that is growing on campus, a club that one can only join if found fit and invited via a blood written letter slipped beneath your doorframe. Rumors like these were of course far too tempting not to investigate. While I was investigating this super-secret society I stumbled upon the Cosplay Club. Like this rumored group of hooded monks the Cosplay Club is brand new, but that’s about where the similarities end. Unlike the monks who venture forth only at night to perform great feats of magic upon the quad the Cosplay Club accepts everyone. For those who have never heard of this hobby don’t search for it on google because all you will find is the worst (which is possibly illegal) and the best (which is also possibly illegal) of what Cosplay has to offer. Instead imagine this: every one of your favorite video game, book, anime, or movie characters going out to a convention of sorts to do whatever awesome fictional characters do together, except that one of them is you. Now this explanation isn’t necessarily true but is what you feel as you go out to Cosplay. So of course after this explanation I discarded the bloody letter which had appeared from under my door and immediately set out to discover what Cosplay really is. Cosplay it turns out is really just you and a bunch of friends going out and having some of the best fun possible while being costumed as your favorite fictional character kind of like Halloween, but all the time. I was flabbergasted. Of course this club is new and has to resolve a few kinks. Such as what conventions should we attend; how much material will we provide members; how large should the dues be; and most importantly where should we hide our hooded robes when the general public comes around. The idea of the club is sound though. It is a place for nerdy, artistic students to get together and dream up some of the wildest designs, then build and show off those designs in a friendly and helpful setting. Now whether this is for you or not is a question to answer for yourself. I for one am ecstatic to see a spark of school-run, artistic light shine through the daily trials of science and math classes. I look forward to seeing where this club goes in a couple of months and how it holds up. Now I must attend to my second order of duty; where best to hide my new hooded robe.