Video game companies are evil

Release after release only brings lease after lease

 

The changing face of Port Coquitlam

Roman Catholic Church set to cast a bigger shadow

 

By Angela Espinoza

he saying goes that Christmas
comes earlier every year, but

I’ve found there’s a far more
specific starting point for the holidays
— the start of fall classes. Just after
parents and students alike have spent
upwards of hundreds of dollars on
school supplies, all the great DVDs,
CDs, books, and toys of the year
suddenly come out. But of all those
and many more novelties, there’s
one type that caters to a sub-culture
I’ve talked about many times before:
video gamers.

Every time I try to explain this to
someone new, I always get the same
odd look, but the fact is that gaming
is a near full-time commitment.
Having a significant other (or at least
homework) can range anywhere from
being on the verge of annoyance to
being our only link with the outside
world. In hindsight I suppose that’s
disturbing, but it really is no more
than a hobby entangled with dick
envy. After all, you never want to be
the guy with the lowest gamer score
of all your friends, do you? Well,
now that a girl challenged you, I
guess you don’t.

So as you can probably tell, what
I’m trying to get at is that Christmas
always means an onslaught of new
games, systems, expansions, etc. —
goodies we just can’t resist. It’s bad
enough that average games cost sixty

 

 

dollars here, but obviously
many of us are going for
those hundred dollars and up
special editions. From limited
edition baseball caps, mouse
pads, even a pack of cards,
we will spend our paychecks
willingly.

Allow me to run down
a quick list of recent games:
Halo: Reach (September 14),
Dead Rising 2 (September
28), Fallout: New Vegas
(October 19), Rock Band
3 (October 26), Fable III
(October 26), Call of Duty:
Black Ops (November 9). The
average non-gamer probably
recognized all of those names.
In other words, I honestly
can’t remember the last time
so many major titles were
released around the same time, and
that doesn’t even cover half of them!

The usual time one will spend
on a new game can total up to well
over ten hours per day. From scoring
achievements and un-lockable
content to playing live with your
friends, before you know it, as
much as a month has gone by. But
it doesn’t stop there; updates and
downloads will show up gradually,
bringing game play to a further
potential, and then there’s expansion
packs. For example, the new World
of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm
(collector’s edition, of course), is
setting myself and others back quite a
bit as of December 7. Let’s not forget
Kinect, the new Xbox 360 motion-
detecting add-on; at one hundred and
fifty dollars, who wouldn’t want this
updated Wii? Seriously though, I can
guarantee that many will have one by
January.

But don’t think each person has
the one game they want; oh no, we’ll
make time for nearly every one of
those games. Now, during all that
constant gaming this December,
how will students like me find time
to study for exams? How will we be
able to afford tuition and text books
for winter semester? If I had an
answer for you, I wouldn’t be eating
cheap fast food and pop-tarts by the
light of my computer for the next few
months.

 

By Trevor Doré, Opinions Editor

s you walk down the street,
A« sound of pealing bells

draws you towards a distant
structure. As you near, you enter the
shadow of a looming bell tower. The
sun reflects off stained glass widows
and silhouettes a cross-perched high
a top a perfectly concentric dome. It’s
as if you have somehow gone back in
time to ancient Europe; however, this
is not the case. You are simply in Port
Coquitlam.

A couple of weeks ago, an article
about the end of PoCo as we know
it was published in the pages of this
newspaper. The author of the piece
was concerned that a new high-rise
on Shaughnessy Street will ruin the
traditional “small downtown feel” of
PoCo. For some, the new structure
is an uncomfortable change from
the familiar low-density-suburban-
style-development, characteristic
of traditional “small town” PoCo.
For others, it is a model of urban
densification, a present trend in
architecture and urban design that
strives to accommodate an ever-
increasing population. Interestingly
enough however, just down the road
from this new development, it appears
that PoCo is flashing back, way back,
to a past, perhaps even before the
“traditional” PoCo we all know was
ever developed.

This down-the-road-development
is a new Roman Catholic Church that
resembles something of a Gothic era
cathedral. The new church is slowly
taking the shape of a picture-perfect,
traditional Roman Catholic Church
- complete with a bell-tower and a
dome second only to St. Peter’s. For
as long as I have known, the current
church has been suffering from a lack
of space. So, they have finally decided
on a go big or go home solution. With
double the amount of seating, the new
church will cast an enormous shadow
over its predecessor.

-Church architecture is said to
affect not only how we worship, but
also what we believe. Ultimately, what
we believe affects how we live our
lives. This new building may inspire
parishioner and increase the faith. It
might even act as a focal point in the

community - a place to serve the less
fortunate, feed the hungry and educate
the young. Given all of this, I am still
uncertain of the practicality of such an
edifice is in this day and age.

The bells may provide a feeling
of nostalgia but are they really
necessary? Church bells evolved
because there was no individual
method of keeping track of the time.
Citizens, who were mostly, if not
all religious, needed some sort of
indication or reminder to go to church.
Modern technology now allows
individuals to keep track of time in
countless ways and thus the traditional
church bell no longer serves its
intended purpose. In actuality, it may
simply result in irritated neighbours.

There also appears to be a trend
of secularization in society. This
type of architecture may lure new
parishioners; it might even draw
the odd tourist. After all, who needs
to fly to Italy when you’ve got a
miniature version of the Vatican in
your own back yard? However, in
terms of a focal point, in a society that
is continuously heading in a secular
direction, is a church really going to
bring a community together?

Between the two structures —
the high-rise and the church - there
is no doubt that PoCo is changing.
Some may argue that it is changing
for the better, others for the worse.
While the traditional architecture of
this church may work in Europe and
is no doubt beautiful, I am not sold
on its practicality in suburban North
America.

 

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