Kalen Lu

In the past couple of weeks a game I’ve been playing, Fortnite, has made a few additions to their Battle Royale game mode. A few weeks ago I made a post on the game. I’ll be writing about three things which are the Guided Missile, vending machines, and Port-A-Fort. So far I have gotten a chance to play with the Guided Missile and the vending machines, but since the Port-A-Fort just got added I haven’t gotten a chance to check it out. Even though I haven’t used the Port-A-Fort yet I’ll still write about what I think from what I’ve seen.

The Guided Missile was added two weeks ago and used the same ammo as the rest of the explosive weapons which are rockets and were a bit harder to find than normal rocket launchers. The way they worked was that you could shoot a rocket and then pilot it for a certain period of time until you decide to just let it continue in the direction it was last facing, you ran out of time, or you hit something. While piloting the missile you are vulnerable though. Since you were able to pilot the missile around walls and through windows, if you aren’t paying attention then you could easily get killed if someone used it against you. At first, it seems a bit overpowered but you can still build right before it’s about to hit you or just shoot at it to destroy it. Another thing people started doing with it is rocket riding yourself. Previously if you had some friends you could stand on the edge of a ramp or door and some shot a rocket underneath you or you jumped onto the rocket you would be able to ride the rocket until it explodes. With the Guided Missile you can now easily shoot the rocket and pilot it so that it goes right under you and now you’re riding the rocket and piloting it at the same time. This isn’t too useful in most situations but some people have made it work.

The vending machines were added around a week ago and they could be found at certain locations sometimes. They would have a certain rarity just like weapons like grey, green, blue, and etc. Depending on the rarity you could exchange building materials for things like weapons, shields, and traps. Sometimes you’ll find a good deal and sometimes it’ll seem like a complete scam. You don’t have to use them, but if you find one with a nice item like a legendary SCAR for 500 wood you might want to find some trees or decide that it’s not worth the time. For me, I’ve used them to get mini shields and assault rifles if I don’t have one, but other than that I don’t use them too often. There are always three items for each vending machine and for the three different materials in the game wood, brick, and metal. At least for me, I don’t get anything that is for metal unless the item is really good since most of the time metal is pretty hard to get compared to wood.

The latest addition to the game was this week and it’s the Port-A-Fort which is basically a grenade you throw on the ground and it builds a fort. From what I’ve seen it is always made of metal and is always the same shape with it pretty much being a one by one with tires at the bottom and a funnel at the top so you can go up easily using the bouncy tires. I think they should’ve made different rarities of Port-A-Forts so there’d be a wood one, brick one, and a metal one. The reason for this is that even though metal has the most hit points it is the slowest to build which means that if someone shoots at it while building it’ll actually be destroyed faster than wood. I guess you’d have to strategically place the Port-A-Fort when nobody’s around, but generally, I don’t feel like it’ll be really useful to me.

Overall those are my thoughts on the recent Fortnite additions, I think that the Port-A-Fort could use a little bit of changes, but I think the rest of the features are nice additions to the game.

 

This week on Easter Monday, my Mom, brother, and I went to a Korean fried chicken restaurant called The Fry they have a few restaurants around Toronto, but recently they opened one pretty close to us. They had quite a variety of fried chicken, but since there were only three of us we ordered just two variants. We chose the ‘Boneless Chicken with Green Onion’ and the ‘Original Fried Chicken’. Along with the chicken we also ordered a side of onion rings. Already included with the chicken was some sweet corn and a side plate with three different vegetable/salad items.

We got the green onion chicken first and it was a bunch of green onion with some sauce on top of their boneless chicken. It was interesting because the green onion was cold while the chicken itself was quite hot. I preferred eating it without the green onion at the same time, but that was because I didn’t really like the temperature difference in one bite. The chicken itself was hot and crisp but not as oily as a fast food chain like KFC. The original chicken was almost the same as the boneless variant just without the sauce and it’s on the bone. For me, I think I’d enjoy the boneless chicken with sauce since I enjoyed eating the green onion boneless chicken just without the green onion. As for the onion rings, they were nice and crispy with the onion still being intact within the ring.

Overall I enjoyed the experience at The Fry and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in trying some different types of fried chicken. We still haven’t tried much of their menu, but if we do go back then I think we would try to experience the other varieties of chicken they serve there.

 

Two days ago on March 29, 2018, Valve announced on their blog some changes they’ve made to trading CS:GO skins. Skins in most games are cosmetic items that players can purchase and use in-game. Most of the time, these skins are traded between players because different skins have different qualities and values that people and some collectors desire. I myself also have several skins on my CS:GO account.

Before the update a couple of days ago, it was possible to trade items extremely quickly although you should’ve taken the time to review the contents of the trade and confirm everything. The fastest possible way to trade items before was to have both parties involved in the trade having the Steam Mobile Authenticator linked onto their smartphone or similar device. Once the trade has been confirmed one time by both parties on either PC or mobile, you would confirm once more using the Mobile Authenticator. The trade will then be completed and items are exchanged. If none or one of the parties involved with the trade does not have the Steam Mobile Authenticator it is a little different. Once the trade is confirmed the first time, the items are taken from both parties and held by Steam for fifteen days. During this time, any one of the parties is free to cancel the trade if something seems off. This made the longest possible time for a trade fifteen days prior to the update. However after the new update, any CS:GO skin that has been received in trade will be given a trade cooldown of seven days. This means that you cannot trade that item again until seven days later. Now, the fastest trading time between a new item a player has just received and another party is seven days instead of just one.

For example, let’s say I have just received a skin from a third party and I would like to give the skin to a friend. I have to wait seven whole days before I can trade it to my friend. That’s assuming we both have the Steam Mobile Authenticator. If one of us or none of us have the authenticator, this makes the time of the trade twenty-two days. Another common practice among players is the borrowing of skins. So let’s say I just received a new skin and a friend of mine wants to check it out. I have to wait seven days to trade it to them and in the worst case scenario, we both don’t have the Mobile Authenticator and then we have to wait twenty-two days before my friend even receives the item. After my friend has a chance to look at the skin he/she has to wait another seven days plus fifteen to trade it back to me. This makes the entire interaction for even just one item fourty-four days. Best case scenario for a borrowed skin is still a long fourteen days.

For the CS:GO community this displeases a large amount of the players even though Valve’s main intentions are to prevent scams, gambling websites, and those types of things. These skins can range in value anywhere from $0.03 USD to $100,000 USD. Some skins still don’t even exist and when they do appear most likely will be priceless. There are already a few skins that only have single digits of themselves that collectors aren’t even willing to name prices.

Although I myself am not a huge trader or collector, I am still apart of the community. Along with the mass majority of players, I do not like the idea of this new trading system. I can see how much this new change will inconvenience people and I hope that Valve can find a different option to issues like scams instead of this seven-day cooldown thing.

A few weeks ago, I ordered a new acoustic guitar for my birthday which is in around a week. It still hasn’t arrived yet, but I hope it will arrive within the next two or three weeks. The guitar was Baton Rouge’s AR11C/ACE model. Baton Rouge makes a lot of other models, but the reason why I chose the AR11C model was because it wasn’t too expensive. It also has a cutaway next to the higher frets making it easier to play higher notes as well. The AR11C/ACE is part of Baton Rouge’s Auditorium guitars which are designed for fingerstyle guitar which is what I play. Most of the Auditorium guitars also have a pickup system so you can plug the guitar into an amplifier making it an acoustic/electric guitar. A few guitar players I enjoy listening to also use Baton Rouge guitars like Eddie Van Der Meer and Andrew Foy.

From my experience with acoustic guitars, the strings are tighter than my Yamaha Pacifica PAC311H which is an electric guitar that I’ve had for a while now. With an acoustic guitar, I won’t need an amplifier to be able to easily hear myself playing and I could perform more of the percussive techniques. When the new guitar arrives I’d probably be more motivated to play and practice some songs that I’ve already learned or am trying to learn. I’m most likely going to write again after I receive and use the new guitar with my opinion and thoughts on the guitar.

This week I will be writing about my plans for this March Break. I don’t have much homework or any projects due after the March Break, so I can spend most of my time sleeping, lounge around, and things like that. For the weekends I’ll most likely just sleep in, then play some games with friends, and maybe when I’m not doing either of those in my spare time I’ll be playing guitar or drums in my room.

As for video games, I’m probably just going to play the games I already have like Fortnite, CS:GO, and Rainbow Six Siege. I don’t really feel like getting any new games since I’m still interested in my other games. I also am getting a new guitar for my birthday which is in a few weeks. I don’t expect it to arrive during the March Break but if it does I’ll definitely use it and write about it in my next blog. Besides playing games, sleeping, and guitar. My mom, brother, and I plan on trying different restaurants nearby which is what we usually do when we have time off from school and don’t have much to do. Last time when we visited a few restaurants there were a few good ones, so I’m looking forward to being able to eat some new food over the break.

That’s pretty much all my plans for the March Break which is just a bunch of lazy activities, but there’s not really much to do outside since it’s too cold. Maybe if it does warm up later in the week I’ll consider going out, but so far I don’t have any plans myself for that.

This week, my school took students from grade four to eight to different places for a type of field trip. All of the activities were related to fitness like skiing and rock climbing. The different options were skiing & snowboarding, Skyzone (trampoline park), rock climbing, and snow tubing. This week was our second winter elective of this year since we already had one a month before. A few friends and I decided to go rock climbing this time so I will be writing my opinion on the trip and overall experience.

We didn’t have to wake up early for the trip compared to anyone going skiing or snowboarding since they had to wake up and get to school a few hours earlier than normal time. I arrived at school at the normal time and everyone going to the rock climbing place met in one classroom. We all got onto the bus and the ride was short being around 15 minutes. When we arrived we had to wait quite a while before we actually did anything. The facility gave everyone a special pair of shoes that were tighter than your average shoes. Everyone was also given a harness and was taught how to safely repel downwards after climbing to the desired height of the climber. There wasn’t much to talk about besides that there were two walls that had timers to time how fast you could climb, but every other wall was just a normal rock climbing wall with different pieces to grab and use.

After around half an hour, we were given the option of using the other side of the facility to climb without the use of a harness. Along with a few friends, I also went to “boulder” which is what the type of climbing was called. It wasn’t that much different from the climbing with a harness except that the walls were angled more towards the climber making it harder to use your legs to climb.

After around two hours of climbing everyone had lunch and sat around until it was time to leave. Overall, I had a good time rock climbing and would say that it’s definitely not the worst or the best activity that I’ve tried before. The only things that I didn’t quite enjoy was the time that we sat around not doing anything and the sore forearm muscles around the wrist area.

In a previous post, I wrote about our new kitten Darci. My mom created a Youtube channel for her featuring videos of using iMovie. You can find the channel here. So far, there’s been a few short videos and tricks of her.

In my opinion, I think that it would be better to have longer videos instead of short ten second videos. For example, the videos showcasing the different tricks she can do could be changed so that instead of just showing her doing the tricks successfully they would show her learning the tricks first. This way, the videos will be a bit longer and hopefully stay in peoples minds for a bit longer. The one video from the perspective of Darci making a tutorial was funny and I think that a few more here and there would do well, but when there are videos of her just doing random/silly/cute things they should be condensed into a compilation video. As for the “trailer” videos, they’re not really my thing, but I can see some people liking them. I believe that it doesn’t hurt making them but I feel like the compilation videos would do better from an audience perspective.

However, these are all just my opinions on how the channel could improve and I think it’s fine the way it is. If the channel does want to develop more though, I think that what I listed are a few things that I can say as an audience I would like to see.

Fortnite Battle Royale is a separate type of play style to another game called Fortnite Save the World. In this blog, I will only be writing about the Battle Royale game because I have not played the Save the World version before. Fortnite Battle Royale came out in September of 2017 as a Battle Royale game similar to the popular PlayersUnknowns’s Battlegrounds that came out earlier that year. Most Battle Royale games usually have all of the players start with little to no equipment and they have to scavenge for weapons and supplies to survive. They usually also have a border where players have to stay in that slowly shrinks causing players to have to fight each other until one player/team remains. Fortnite’s version of the game mode, however, was slightly different.

Fortnite’s Battle Royale allows players to harvest materials like wood and metal so that they can build structures such as towers and walls. Most of the game’s environment is destructible so that destructive weapons such as rocket launchers can be used to tear down houses or towers down. This means that the play style is quite different since players can create their own cover in mear seconds. Compared to most other games, Fortnite’s Battle Royale also has things like traps and jump pads that can be placed. There is also a large variety of weapons and tiers that can be gathered.

There are also a few more details that I probably didn’t mention but you can generally get the idea of the game. I’ve played the game for a few weeks now and at least for me, this game is definitely more fun if you play with friends. This may be different for others, but for me, the game gets a bit boring trying to win all the time. That’s why when I play with some friends it helps to lighten the mood a little if things get a bit stressful. As far as gameplay goes, I haven’t experienced any issues with bugs or glitches although from what I know they are out there. The whole player vs player system also works well, but if you’re more used to your shots being accurate to where you’re aiming then you might have to adjust. In Fortnite, unless you’re using a scoped weapon, most of your shots are still going to be relative to your crosshair. However, the aim cone, or spread of where your bullets go is pretty big compared to most other games. I guess this encourages more of a “run and gun” type game and getting close to your opponents, but none the less it’s the same for you as it is for everyone else so their’s no real advantage for anyone.

So far the game looks like it’s heading in a good direction and updates are still being put out every so often, and the game’s free to play. If you have the time and are interested I would recommend giving it a try and see if you like it.

Last weekend, my family and some other family friends drove down to Ellicottville in the U.S. Since our schools had the Friday off we were able to stay for two nights. When we arrived at the place we were staying at, the driveway was at an incline so our van couldn’t go all the way down. Since we had four cars with us we were able to bring a lot of things. We also bought some groceries from a nearby Walmart earlier. It took a while to bring everything in, but eventually, we were able to go in and look around the house. The house we were staying at has pretty big and had enough space and rooms for everyone. Besides where I slept I probably spent the most time in the basement because one of the families brought their Nintendo Switch. We also found a table tennis set and an air hockey table to use. There were usually a few people down in the basement when we weren’t skiing, but the main part of the trip was to ski.

We went skiing at a ski resort called Holiday Valley where we usually go to when we go to Ellicottville. The resort has a lot of trails and lifts to go on as well. For the most part, we didn’t go on too many difficult runs and we only had a couple of falls considering there were eleven of us skiing. Besides the normal slopes, we also did a little bit of cross-country skiing and through the trees. Cross-country skiing was the most tiring and boring part of the skiing, but skiing through the woods was probably the most fun since there were lots of turns and bumps. Compared to cross-country skiing which is just skating and pushing it was way better.

While we were there we also bought some things from outlet malls like jackets and shoes. I had a lot of fun while in Ellicottville and I’m pretty sure we’ll go back within the next few years. However, the only complaint that came after was that my shins hurt a little, but it wasn’t that bad.

A few weeks ago I bought a game called The Forest. The game has been around for a while now and it’s a survival/horror game which can be played either as singleplayer or multiplayer.

The game follows a story of the main character (the player) named Eric LeBlanc who is on a flight with his son Timmy. The plane that they were on crash lands on a deserted island and when Eric is in a stunned state because of a crash a mysterious man covered in red paint takes his son Timmy. Eric is the only survivor of the crash besides Timmy and playing as Eric, you have to survive on the island and find Timmy. The island is filled with different clues and items that can help you find Timmy. However, on the island, there are strange humanoid-like creatures called cannibals that can be found in their villages scattered around the island or in caves. At first, they won’t attack you unless you provoke the first. Later on, as you destroy more the environment for resources like trees they will begin to attack you. There are also strange mutants that look like disfigured monsters and they come in different variants. Both the cannibals and mutants have different behaviors and are, for the most part, the main antagonists of the game.

I got the game after a few friends of mine already had it and we were able to play multiplayer together. For the first few weeks I only played multiplayer, but I soon tried singleplayer. I found that it was definitely more enjoyable to play with friends. At least for me, I more confident in exploring knowing that someone has my back if something unexpected happens. After all, The Forest is a horror game.

In both single and multiplayer you do have to save at a tent or house that you may have made or found around the island or in caves. However, even though you save, if you somehow die then you will lose all of your items and have to start at the beginning all the way from the plane crash. This was an issue my friends and I had because we were coming out of a cave and it was the night. During the night the cannibals are a lot more active, and can easily spot light sources such as fire which is essential for being able to see things in the dark. We ended up emerging from a cave exit right into the largest cannibal village in the game. Instead of running away back into the cave we decided to fight our way back to our base, but that didn’t go too well. Only a few of us managed to escape without dying, but it wasn’t that bad of a loss. The same sort of situation happened to us in another cave exploration when all but one of us got lost in a huge cave system, and we pretty much lost all of our items. Since then, we haven’t played the game again since nobody really wants to start back from the beginning.

Overall I think The Forest is a really fun game with friends and if you’re into survival games and don’t mind a little bit of horror then I would recommend it to you. My only problem is having to start all the way back from the beginning if you die, and that you can’t really save wherever you want.