Skate 3, Tricklining, and Skate 4 Rumors

The cover of Skate 3 for Xbox 360.

By Caleb Myke

One of my favorite video games is Skate 3. Skate 3 is a skateboarding simulator game for Xbox 360 and PS3. The Skate franchise has sold over 1.5 billion copies altogether; but of all three of its games, Skate 3 sold the most with a whopping 9.2 million (and counting) copies in the U.S. alone. Skate 3 came out on May 11, 2010, and lots of YouTubers like PewDiePie, Rise Albert, and JackSepticEye play it to this day.

The game starts off with a tutorial called Skate.school. In Skate.school, the characters who help you are named Coach Frank and Benny Fairfax, and they basically teach you the controls. Once you finish the tutorial, you go into a Free Roam where you can do different challenges–like deathrace, where you have to race against automated players. In about 2012, Rise Albert created a game mode called tricklining, which is easy to do but hard to time so that you don’t fall.The game mode includes learning how to manual,transfer,and manual revert. You also need to learn how to do these specific tricks 360 hardflip darkcatch, kickflip darkcatch, and 360 inward heel darkcatch. One of of the upcoming trickliners are Future Revertz and Rise AyeDuceces. Black Box and EA Sports (a developer and publisher) added lots of cheat codes and glitches, like the bounce glitch and the mcfly cheat code (hoverboard).

Eventually, in April 2013, Black Box shut down, along with the skate.ea website where you can download and create your own graphics. In early 2016, an Australian entertainment website named  JB Hi Fi leaked a possible Skate 4, with a cover and a release date of August 23 2016. I think that Skate 4 might come out; EA Sports has a convention coming soon to New York, where I believe they will confirm Skate 4 and confirm a developer for the actual game. Then again, it might not come out because Black Box shut down–so if Skate 4 does come out, it’s probably going to be bad. Do you think that it will come out? Answer in the comments section below.

The amazing big cats of the wild

by Melvin Prudente

There are multiple big cats in the wild that are really interesting. Out of all the wild cats, the hybrid cats are usually the most adored and worshiped. Hybrid cats are distinct, and have unique features that are related to their parents. Hybrid cats include ligers, tigons, and leopons; they are combinations of cats such as lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, jaguars, and cougars. The big cats mostly belong to the genus panthera. Here are the top 5 most interesting and historical cats. 

5: Lions

Lions are big cats that live up to 10-17 years and weigh around 100 pounds as an adult. They live in Africa and Asia, but they are decreasing in population, especially in Asia. Since their population is decreasing, their interesting features and skills might not be seen any more; one of these skills is creating roars that can be heard from up to 5 miles away. They can leap as far as 36 feet, and run at a pace of 50 miles per hour. African lions are the most social of all the big cats, and live together in groups or “prides” consisting of 15 lions. They often hunt in groups of two or three, using teamwork to stalk, surround, and kill their prey.

4: Tigers

Tigers are the largest members of the cat family, and are known for their strength and power. Tigers are one of the most feared predators in the wild, capable of killing an animal 2 times its size. The key to a tiger’s power is its canine teeth; just like its ancestor, the sabre-toothed cat, the tiger uses its canines to kill 98% of its prey. The tiger’s strength and power really impresses people, including me. They live in Asia near swamps, grasslands, and rain forests that have been hybridized to help them. Tigers have been used to create ligers and tigons, which have certain features of both lions and tigers. Ligers have the stripes and body of a tiger, but the face and mane of a lion. Tigons have the eyes and face of a tiger but the body of a lion. These hybrids mainly have the life span of a tiger, living up to 20-26 years, and they are growing in population. The population of tigers is 2,226 in the wild, and it is progressing every year.

3: Leopards

In my opinion, leopards are the most powerful members of the cat family. Their body structures are proven to be effective for hunting in the wild. Their sleek and powerful body helps them run at a speed of 57 kilometers per hour. They are excellent swimmers and climbers, and they can make some of the sharpest turns in the wild. Leopards are ambush predators; they crouch low to sneak up to their prey, and pounce before it has a chance to react. According to the Animal Diversity Web, a database maintained by the Museum of Zoology at the University of Michigan, a leopard will kill its prey with one swift bite to the neck. I personally believe that the leopards are underrated as one of the strongest big cats.

2: Jaguars

Jaguars are the biggest cats in America, and the third largest cats in the world. I believe that their features and appearance make them look harmless, but they are deadly. They are identified by their yellow or orange coats, dark spots and short legs. The dark spots on their coats are unlike any other cat’s spots. Each spot looks like a rose, and are called rosettes. They run at a great pace, which is really good for the hybrid of leopards and jaguars; these hybrids are called jaglions, and have one the sharpest turns in the wild. The range of ability jaguars have is what makes them so cool. Even though they look harmless, they are very good predators.

1: Pumas

Pumas are my favorite big cats in the wild. They are the only ones on this list that don’t belong to the panthera genus. Their incredible bodies and abilities are the most unique out of all the big cats in the wild. They have a great amount of power, just like the lions, but they also have great structures. Many scientists who analyze the big cats believe that pumas are the third most powerful cats in the world. Their geographic location is the widest in the western hemisphere. They are called many things, such as cougars, mountain lions and their main name, which of course is pumas; the names are different depending on their different locations. Their unique talent I mentioned earlier is hunting both really big animals and really fast animals. To me, pumas are the mix of all these big cats I have listed in the top 5. They have the second most powerful jaw of the big cats, and the run at an impressive pace of 50 miles per hour. They are the mix of all cats which is why they are so great.

This list shows the big cats that are the most interesting and amazing in the world, in my point of view. Hopefully you never run into one in person, because they’re dangerous. I hope you enjoyed my list!

Lion King Review

Miles Graham

We all know the Disney movie, the Lion King. If you do, then you probably know that it is also a Broadway show. I went to see it not that long ago, and it was good.

My favorite part of the Lion King is the costumes. In the opening, when they perform the song Circle of Life, the costumes are amazing. One particular costume that caught my eye was the cheetah. The cheetah costume was this: the hind legs of the cheetah were the actual legs of the person in the costume, and his arms had a stick attached to the front legs. So when he would put his arms up, the front legs would go up, too. The main actors (except the kids) had hat-like things on with their character’s face on it, which was cool.

My favorite characters are Zazu (the bird) and the hyenas. I liked Zazu because he has one of my favorite traits in a character: he breaks the fourth wall (which is when a fictional character says or does something in or about the real world) multiple times. I liked the hyenas, because they were just good characters and I mostly like the villain more than the hero.

Overall, The Lion King was a great movie and a great Broadway show. It is my favorite Broadway show so far, even though I haven’t seen many. The costumes were great, and it was really on point with regard to the movie.

Rating: 5/5 stars

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hydration is very important!!!!!

by Jaden McLendon

We know most of what we need to do to keep our bodies healthy, alive, and working. I’m going to talk about what happens when you don’t do only one of these tasks, and that is keeping yourself hydrated. You might be wondering: how is hydration important?

One we know about hydration is that a person can go longer without food than water. This is because 70% of your body is water, and we need the constant intake of water to keep our body functioning properly.  Another reason is because if you stop drinking water, you will stop urinating and your body will not be able to process waste. Another effect is that your brain will shrink…literally.

Some ways that we lose water every day are when we go to the bathroom, sweat, and even when we breathe.  We lose water even faster when the weather is hot or when we are really active. Even when you have a fever, vomiting and diarrhea can lead to rapid water loss; if you don’t replace the water you lose when these things happen, you can become dehydrated.

In many parts of Africa, there isn’t much water;  this called “water scarcity.” In these conditions, sometimes people have to have to drink muddy water because they don’t have access to good water. Eventually, they can die from this.  Years ago, Jay Z went to parts of Africa that experience water scarcity, and what he saw was unbelievable. He saw a girl who had to walk a long distance just to get clean water for her family.

There are some parts of the world that don’t receive fresh, clean water. This can affect people’s health in many ways. We should build wells in certain parts of the world that don’t have clean water. We should try to make sure that everyone in the world has the ability to stay hydrated, so they can stay alive and healthy.

*FUN FACT: did you know that 30% of our bodies are made out of exploding stars, A.K.A stardust?

 

Are there other planets similar to planet Earth?

Kepler 22B.

by Miguel Garduno

We live in a world called Earth, and people think that we are not killing our world–but sadly, we are. We are killing our world by creating pollution, killing our plants, not throwing our garbage in bins, and many other ways. But many people don’t care to help save our world; if these people don’t stop and help our global community, pretty soon the world could end without us expecting it. But scientists are finding new worlds, light years away from us, that could be other types of Earths.

One example is Kepler-22B. Kepler-22B looks exactly like Earth, but it’s a few light years away from us. It was discovered in 2011, when NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) was using the Kepler Telescope (after which Kepler 22B was named) to find other Earth-like planets as part of the Kepler mission. There’s also a Kepler spacecraft, which was launched in March of 2009. So far, NASA has discovered 4,706 potentially Earth-like planets (2,326 in the first 16 months of its search).

Once confirmed by follow-up studies, these potential discoveries could continue to increase the tally of exoplanets (planets outside our solar system) over its current count of 2,056 other planets similar to Earth. Kepler-22B was the first exoplanet found to orbit in a star’s habitable zone light years away from Earth. So this means that Kepler-22B may have liquid water on its surface, just like Earth, making it the closest possible sister planet. NASA wrote this about Kepler-22B: “the planet is 2.4 times the size of Earth, making it the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star like our sun.”

Some scientists think that Mars could be a solution, because they believe there could be water on Mars and it’a a similar distance from the sun as Earth.

Moving to another planet similar to Earth could give humans a second chance. It will also be a responsibility, because we will have to take care of the new planet so the same problems don’t happen again. In case anyone hasn’t noticed, our world is dying. Global warming is increasing, people are still polluting are world, and weather is getting more extreme. There are many planets that could help us find a solution. It’s just a matter of time until we find one.