SpringSpartanScoop2017 (1)

The Spartan Scoop
SPRING 2017 ​MCCLOSKEY’S FAVORITE NEWSPAPER ​ ​Issue 3
NEWSPAPER STAFF:
Advisor
Ms. Roche
Cave Story​ Review
By Devlin Maconi
Editors
Braydon Booth-Desmarais
Kira Sullivan
Reporters
Jennifer Babin
Sean Costa
Caroline DeFoe
Sam Ferrage
Zach Goddard
Jayde Gaudet
Ryan Hallfelder
Alison Langemo
Maria Lowandy
Tyler Manyak
Devlin Maconi
Trevor Masnyk
Jack Moscatelli
Joshua Schweibish
Sarah Snyder
Caileen Wilson
Aah,​ Cave Story​. The hit indie freeware game by Daisuke Amaya
released on December 20, 2004, for the PC! One of my favorite games
to play on my computer to this date. This game has so much packed in it
that this review may be the longest article in the whole issue.
I’m going to divide the gameplay into different parts: the weapons,
weapon levels, drops, and control because I have way too much to talk
about all of them.
First off, the weapons, and hoo boy do you get a lot of them--at least in
second platformer standards. There are the polar star--the first weapon
you acquire--the fireball, bubble, blade, machine gun, spur, nemesis,
snake, and rocket launcher (or missile launcher if you want the official
terms). The cool part of this is that at certain points in the game, you
are given the choice to take x weapon for the trade of two or so
weapons. THIS, however, can detrimentally affect the ending you will
receive at the end of the game and some story elements as well, but I’ll
leave the endings and alternate paths for a later section since that’s a
whole topic in itself. So the weapons do what basic weapons would do,
fire projectiles, of course. (continued on p. 5)

Top 5 Jokes
By Jordan Hughes
5. What store does an
arrow shop at?
--Target
4. Zayn left One Direction!
That’s sad. I guess he
went...​the other direction!
3. You: Up dog!
Friend: What’s ​“Updog”​?
2. Knock,Knock!
Who’s there?
Repetition.
Repetition who?
Knock,Knock…
1. I was going to make a
skeleton pun, but I don’t
know if it’s going ​tibia
humerus ​one!
Game Review:
PaRappa the Rapper
By Ryan Hallfelder
Created in 1997 and originally only
released to the Japanese public,
PaRappa the Rapper​ is a game with
its flaws (sometimes due to
translation and software limitations),
but is a genuinely enjoyable game for
its time. The game is one of rhythm,
similar to that of ​Rhythm Heaven​ or
DDR​ using buttons. The gameplay
consists of a side scrolling circle,
passing over the buttons required to
press. If the user inputs the button at
the correct time, points are awarded
to a side display awarding the user a
rank of either awful, bad, good, or
cool. Along with the button mashing,
lyrics are added in accordance to the
beat, and characters dance in the
background, encouraging and
challenging the player. The story is
engaging and often comical, adding a
sense of depth to the goofy and
clunky gameplay. The game often
runs well, but errors only add to the
experience, such as warping of the
characters and looping audio tracks.
SPOILERS BEYOND THIS
POINT!!! YOU HAVE BEEN
WARNED!!! (Please play it without
it being spoiled).
The story is mainly comical and
shallow, but is a fun experience to
watch unfold. The main character, a
paper thin dog by the name of
PaRappa, attempts to win the
affection of Sunny Funny, but is
stopped by an overbearing competitor
by the name of Joe Chin. To combat
this, Parappa takes on many skills
such as karate, driving, and cooking
with the help of
quirky characters like a dancing
moose, a chopping onion, and a
rapping chicken. Try out different
modes of difficulty; attempt the game
with friends; or check out its sequels
and spinoffs. With another remaster
on the way this year, the future's
looking bright for PaRappa fans, but
is the original game worth it? Sure it
has its flaws, mainly an input delay
and audio glitches, but those flaws
only add to the game’s charm in a
weird way. They make it harder, and
challenge you to think about the
choices you make. So in conclusion,
although it might be a weird game
from the 90’s, give it a try, even
ironically.
Men do not claim to
hold the answers to all life’s
questions. nor do all men
know who introduced fire.
well, i do. prometheus. Greek
Legend proclaims that
Prometheus introduced Fire to
Mankind, but at a price.

Favorite Types of Pie
at McCloskey
Ben the Bird
By Jayde Gaudet
The wind howls, carrying the
smoke further
Oil runs down the street
Flames roar in large factories
that surround the city
All that's left is me
I hop over black puddles
Blow away the fog
Nothing's left to bother me
On my journey home
Never will the sun shine
Or the streams glow
The birds are not chirping
It's silent as I go
Weaving through the dead brush
I thought I heard a peep
But that's, of course,
impossible
Because all that's left is me
This is a survey I have been working on for the past few weeks. I asked
students and staff to choose their favorite type of pie. In first place with
27.33% is Apple Pie. In second place with 26.40% is Banana Pie. In
third place with 19.88% is Boston Cream Pie. In fourth place with
17.08% is Blueberry Pie. In fifth place with 8.07% is Pumpkin Pie. Now
last and certainly least, Lemon Pie with a very small 1.24%. Thank you
to everyone who participated. -BBD
Stumbling over broken wires
I hope I find a friend
Entering my broken shack I
find
A bird that I named Ben

MUSIC
RECOMMENDATIONS
BY JORDAN HUGHES
Gorillaz
If you’re a fan of animated
music videos with quirky
characters, then you most
definitely will love this
band. It’s a 90’s rock band
of animated characters:
Murdoc (top left), 2-D
(middle), Russel (top right),
Cyborg Noodle (bottom
left), and Noodle (bottom
right) and occasionally they
are joined by a blue
phantom named Del. As I
said before, the music
videos are animated, and
you can tell that a lot of
effort and care went into
them. I highly recommend
this band. However, the
only flaw would be that
even though the music
videos are quite creative,
they are also kind of
confusing.
Z-Nation
​Z-Nation​ coming back soon!
Get ready for more MADNESS with
more zombies and more missions
to explore with six members...dead
the groupe is in trouble.
BY CAROLINE DEFOE
Game Review
By Caileen Wilson
In this generation, kids
LOVE gaming. I decided to
review a game that I have
been playing for a while,
even though some may not
have heard of it before. It is
based off an older game
Disney closed down years
ago. I remember playing on
Disney’s original version
with my sister before it
closed down approximately
3-5 years ago. Enjoy! :)
Toontown:
Operation
Dessert Storm
Rating:​****
I gave it four stars due to
the fact that the developer
claimed that it ran better on
state of the art computers
instead of what they call
“a cheap laptop” (No
joke--and that’s pretty
offensive to a laptop
owner!). Other than that,
the graphics are as top of
the line as if Disney made
the game; although, some
of the designers on the
ODS team are actually
former designers from
Disney! The game starts off
with a suspenseful
prologue, making the game
ten times more interesting.
If you are playing on a
“cheap laptop”, the game
does run a little slower
than usual, but feel free to
check it out!

(Cave Story Continued)
The catch is that each weapon shoots
different types of ammo, can be charged
for an extra KABLAM, and most of the
weapons change based on their level.
Leveling is another topic I will get to later
as that requires it own section. The basic
lowdown of how each weapon works is: Polar
Star: First weapon, shoots basic shots,
Fireball: shoots multiple bouncing fireballs
that can do heaps of damage if hitting
enemies in clusters, Bubble: shoots
bubbles, gets waaaaay more useful and
powerful later on, Machinegun: can be
traded to Curly Brace at the Sand Zone for
the polar star, had limited ammo, but
shoots rapidly, can let the player
essentially fly without the booster at level
3, Rocket Launcher: shoots rockets (or
missiles) that can do large amounts of
damage, gets a “super upgrade” near late
game that doubles damage, Blade: Given to
you by the deceased King, can be thrown in
4 directions, and does a lot of damage,
Nemesis: the strongest weapon in the
game, traded to you for the blade, does
massive amounts of damage at level 1, but
gets weaker as you level it up, Spur:
acquired near the end game by giving the
hermit the Polar Star back and letting him
fix it, can be charged to multiple levels for
bigger and better shots, charge shots leave
trails that can obliterate enemies, Snake:
shoots snakes that can phase through walls,
acquired by trading the Polar Star and
Fireball in the Labyrinth.
Next, we move on to the weapon leveling
system, and hoo boy is there a lot to talk
about here! So the jist of the leveling
system is that when you kill bosses and
enemies, you receive these little dorito-like
things that are experience points for your
weapons.
Every time you collect one, the experience
bar which is shown above your health goes
up a little. Once the bar overflows, you gain
a level on the current weapon, in most
cases making it better. Every weapon aside
from the spur can be upgraded to the max
of 3 levels and an added MAX level that
has no effect on the weapons that was
most likely added so it is more unlikely that
the player will get knocked down to level 2
after a single hit. For level differences
with each weapon, The polar star gets
bigger shots and better damage counts,
the rocket launcher gets more rockets and
each missile does more damage than the
previous level’s rockets, the bubble gets
more bubbles that do more damage, and
eventually you get a bubble shield and the
ability to charge multiple bubbles around
you and release them for a ​SMASHING
hit, the machinegun gets higher damage
counts, bigger bullets, and eventually, the
ability to let the player float in the air, the
snake gets increased damage, more shots
allowed on screen at once, and better range
(this is basically the same kind of change
that the fireball gets, so Im gonna say that
I just covered both), the nemesis gets
decreased damage, worse range, and
eventually ducks for shots, and the blade
gets much better damage, an increased
blade size, and eventually King’s ghost
which can do 1-100 hits with varied damage.
Now, we move onto the shortest section of
the bunch, drops. Like in most games, killing
bosses and enemies will net you some kind
of drop most of the time. The game is
smart, however and checks the counters
for all the possible drop items so if say you
had full health, rocket launcher ammo but
still have some more leveling potential, 90%
of the time you will get exp drops and the
same will happen for any value that you
don’t have maxed. There are 3 types of
drops, health, rocket launcher ammo, and
exp. Each drop type has three variations,
single, double, and triple.
Next up are the controls, and they may or
may not take a little bit of getting
used to depending on the person. You start
the game off in a cave, alone and are left
to learn the controls yourself. The game’s
jumping mechanics may seem pretty floaty
at first, but after time you will get used to
the floaty jump ark and become a
platforming pro at this game. The game
runs at a smooth 60 fps (frames per
second) if you’re playing the cave story +
remake for the PC, and to my knowledge, all
the ports made for various consoles. If you
happen to be playing the freeware version
of the game (which can be downloaded at
the cave story tribute website​), however,
the game will be running at a max of 50 fps
which can be slightly detrimental, as the
game seems slightly slow, choppy, and the
game tends to fluctuate at times. The
other noteworthy control mechanic is that
the down key or button is the “interact”
key of the game which may be the most
annoying part of the game to get used to,
as most games use the use item or shoot
key to interact with stuff.
Also, throughout the game you may or will
find many heart capsules which will add a
certain amount of health to your maximum
health capacity. And that’s about it for this
review! I was gonna make this much longer
going into detail about the story, bosses,
etc, but I ran out of time. Now, this is
probably going to be the last article I’m
able to write this year for newspaper so I
thank you all for reading all these lengthy
reviews I write, and this has been Devlin
Maconi, signing off for the final(?) time
this year.
Well, this may be the last newspaper of the
school year, but I may try to get some
other things in next year if Mrs. Roche lets
me add things in next year so hopefully be
looking forward to those and a possibly
more in-depth retrospective of Cave Story!
Well, hey! I've actually been working on a
cave story playthrough for my Youtube
channel so you can go visit there if you
wanna see how bad I am at the game. :^)
Link:
http://youtube.com/c/thegameronsteamof
ficialyt