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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