Like many fans anxiously awaiting the arrival of a new Legend of Zelda game on the Wii U, the announcement of a hybrid of Dynasty Warriors and The Legend of Zelda definitely piqued my interest. This hybrid – aptly named Hyrule Warriors – was introduced with a series of exciting video teasers that showcased both the interesting gameplay and seemingly endless graphical fan service that many fans of The Legend of Zelda were looking for. Unfortunately, having worked my way through much of its ten-hour story, I can safely say that Hyrule Warriors doesn’t go much deeper than that.

For those familiar with both series, Hyrule Warriors is much more aligned to the gameplay that Dynasty Warriors offers, meaning that fans looking for the traditional complex puzzles and dungeons the Zelda series offers are looking in the wrong place. Instead, Hyrule Warriors allows players to enter vast battlefields fighting off swarms of enemies as a hero that has the power to single-handedly turn the tide of a battle. Each of the 13 playable characters has a wide variety of moves, offering a lot of selection.

Where the game sticks closer to the Zelda series is in its story. From the start, characters are barely introduced, making it seem like the creators are deliberately marketing this to fans familiar with the long-standing series. However, even though the game seems to work under the impression that fans are familiar with the universe, it sticks to some tired tropes found in previous titles. If the game is intended for Zelda fans, why bother hiding the identity of the character Sheik, if this secret has been revealed time and time again? These kinds of conflicts hinder the player’s immersion into the story, making the story alone not compelling enough for fans to want to push through the whole single player campaign.

Thankfully, the many rewarding aspects of the gameplay are enough to keep fans moving through each level. With a variety of character options and the ability to customize their move set through the discovery of items and materials, Hyrule Warriors does a good job of motivating players to explore each level to the best of their ability. Graphically, the game truly feels like it takes advantage of the high definition capabilities the Wii U offers. Fans of the series will be delighted to find their favourite characters have been modelled brilliantly, making you eager to test each of them out.

Still, this doesn’t mean the game is without flaws. Despite the variety of characters, it is clear that some did not receive as much attention as others. Thanks to poorly chosen move animations, characters like Midna are frustrating to play with, as you are required to watch lengthy combo animations for even the simplest of attacks, making battling enemies particularly tedious. Moreover, the targeting system when fighting often felt cluttered if there were several higher profile enemies on screen, further slowing down the adventure.

Alongside these flaws, the game does a poor job of laying out your objectives, often offering key pieces of textual advice beneath flashes of lights and colours during an attack animation, or simply forgetting to describe the objective all together. Too often I found myself running around a level trying to understand a goal that would have been simple, had it been explained clearly.

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of Hyrule Warriors was the difficulty. The game offers easy, medium and hard modes, but the hard mode simply feels redundant. Rather than offering a challenge, all it does is make every enemy have more health. This only makes each battle feel tedious, rather than more challenging, boring the player more and more after each encounter. This leaves little challenge for advanced players, making the experience simpler and simpler as you go along.

Upon finishing Hyrule Warriors I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a good time. The game offered a hack-and-slash adventure that appealed to my love of the Legend of Zelda series. Unfortunately, due to both the poorly thought out story and frustrating game mechanics, I found myself too often wasting my time and energy. Minor changes could have made Hyrule Warriors great, but every poor design choice I encountered had me feeling otherwise. If you’re a fan of either of Zelda or the Warriors series, give Hyrule Warriors a chance, but for those who aren’t it isn’t worth the price of admission.

A year after the release of her EP Sail Out and a series of successful features and guest appearances, Jhené Aiko is back to woo us with her sweet voice on her first full studio album Souled Out. While the album suffers from some of the bumps and bruises of her past works, the singer proves that her formula of calming melodies and breezy production still leaves the listener satisfied.

For those unfamiliar, Aiko has had a strong year musically, and it shows. She demonstrated how valuable she can be on other artists’ songs, working with Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Childish Gambino, while proving her ability to stand on her own with songs like “The Worst”. In that time it seems she gained the confidence needed to “sail out” towards an album that relies less on the talents of featured artists, and more on her own abilities.

The result is certainly mixed. On one hand, Aiko’s greatest strength is her voice, or more specifically, using her smooth voice to her advantage in terms of production. While she may not boast the range of Adele or Beyoncé, Aiko possesses an effortless breezy tone that sets her apart from the crowd of other RnB female vocalists. As such, Aiko makes sure to include tracks that pair well with her sound; ethereal and synths, clean guitars, and reverb heavy drums all play a part in constructing Souled Out’s aquatic sound.

Unfortunately, these qualities can also have the unfortunate drawback of simply boring the listener. When Aiko fails to mix up the rhythms in her melodies, the songs tend to blend together, leaving little impression to those tuning in. Many tracks across the album simply sound too similar to each other, leaving an album filled with a bit too much filler. For those who weren’t a fan of her past work - whether it’s her solo tracks or features - it is likely you will find the same flaws in Souled Out.

Still, when Aiko succeeds it’s hard to ignore. Songs like “W.A.Y.S” showcase Aiko at her strongest. Pulling the listener up and down, “W.A.Y.S” is a prime example of her ability to convey raw emotion almost effortlessly, and is easily the best track on the album. This emotion only becomes stronger thanks to the high quality production of veterans Thundercat and Clams Casino. “W.A.Y.S”, an abbreviation for “why aren’t you smiling” a kind of catch phrase of her late brother, deals with loss and the chaotic nature of life without holding back. Because of this, it is easy to get wrapped up in the emotional whirlwind that Souled Out offers. This same energy exists in “Eternal Sunshine” and “Promises” leaving the second half of the album the highlight of the project.

In the end, Souled Out isn’t perfect. The songs at times blend together, lacking distinction, but Aiko’s ability to translate her emotions so effectively into her music makes it worth the price of admission.

Welcome to ANDY's picks, a weekly must-hear playlist curated by our esteemed ANDY editors Tomi Milos and Michael Gallagher. This week's theme features artists who performed at the Supercrawl festival which took place this past weekend. You can listen below, or follow this link to playlist on Spotify.

Michael Gallagher
The Silhouette

After watching La Ronde, McMaster Thespian Company’s latest - and highly sexual - production, you may not be surprised to find out that the play was only performed twice during Arthur Schnitzler’s, the playwrite’s, lifetime. Set in 1890s Vienna, the play contains ten scenes about the moments before and after sexual intercourse. Despite a strong performance from the cast, the “no means yes” mentality behind many of the male characters’ sexual advances would make even Robin Thicke question whether this script was due for a much needed update.

The story is simple: a dialogue between two characters soon finds them having sex that will only further complicate, and inevitably connect them to an interlocking chain of lovers revealed throughout the show.

While the show began on shaky ground, the cast soon proved their talents, making the romantic pasts of the characters all the more believable. All actors and actresses were enticing, compelling, expressive, and engaging. Annalee Flint in particular did a fantastic job of portraying “the actress,” reflecting both her talent and the experience gained from the Algonquin College Theatre Arts program.

Instead, many of the show’s flaws come from its source material. While it is clear that the play looked to be a commentary on morals surrounding sex, adultery and an examination of classism within a sexual context, it was hard to ignore that many of the encounters could be defined as rape.

Watching scene upon scene wherein female characters repeatedly verbally and physically rejected male sexual advances, only to suddenly comply at the last minute or irrationally fall in love with the man after sex, made La Ronde feel like a perverted dominance fantasy. This made it difficult to care about the moral complexities of having multiple partners, or cheating, when a far more controversial – though likely unintentional – theme of the play was ignored.

The result is a play that for all its talent and style leaves the audience both frustrated with the decision to not acknowledge the complexities behind the men’s advances, and uncomfortable instead of intrigued by the affairs and scandals.

Michael Gallagher
The Silhouette

Mental health has been a very personal issue for me for a while. Having lost my cousin to suicide in 2010, the importance of recognizing symptoms, accessing help and support, and finding treatment can quite literally be the difference in saving someone’s life. While awareness has grown, there is still much change to be made going forward.

Mad Pride Hamilton is looking to be a part of that change. The organization was formed by self-identifying “mad” people (as in madness). The group wants to create a community for those with mental health disabilities that will decrease isolation, and increase support.

Having finished their first open mic event in July, their next project, a self-made zine containing art, poetry, and personal stories, looks to explore the creativity of those involved even further. “We have lots of artistic people in our community that don’t have a place to show our work, and this was a place to do that,” said Alise, one of the organizers of the project.

The choice to use a zine itself was very fitting, as self-published zines have a long history of combating social justice issues, such as those created by punks during the 70s, and they became even more prominent during the Riot Grrrl movement of the 90s.

To Mad Pride Hamilton, the zine is more than just a medium with a political history however. Alise spoke about the challenges in accessibility that often comes with digital media. She explained, “Most of our community isn’t digital, and hasn’t gone digital because of poverty, or maybe because they were institutionalized for a long time, or didn’t grow up with the kind of education we had…some simply might not have developed the skills to use the technology, the way a lot of students at McMaster have and because of that, in order to reach all areas of our community there needs to be print versions available.”

These kinds of accessibility issues raise questions about the efficiency of McMaster’s own mental health services. When I asked about their thoughts on student wellness, one of their biggest concerns was financial: “I think they are trying really hard with the resources they have from who I’ve talked to. A lot of it comes down to no money,” said Andrew. “There are counsellors you can see, and a lot of them are really great…they offer group therapies and a ton of great stuff, but at the end of the day my next appointment with my counsellor is 4 weeks from now and that is long. I’m on a CBT waiting list and right now I’m being told to wait 5 months minimum. Those kinds of issues come from lack of funds and staff.”

Money aside, one of the greatest issues they believe is choice of language. The organization’s decision to reclaim words like “mad” and “crazy” reflects a greater political agenda. “People have been doing this for hundreds of years, taking words and making them mean different things,” said Alise. “Similar to the LGBTQ communities who have been reclaiming queer and other kinds of words, our community has been reclaiming words as a kind of political statement.”

More importantly, Alise believes the term “stigma” is detrimental. She said, “I think we need to change the language we are using. I think when people talk about stigma they often don’t actually know what they are talking about and they talk very vaguely,” said Alise. “It’s not just stigma, it’s discrimination. When we talk about discrimination on other grounds, like discrimination related to sex, sexuality, gender, race, we talk about it as discrimination, so why are we talking about it as stigma in terms of mental health? I think that is because people don’t think it actually is discrimination, and it is. It’s not just about healthcare, or individual conversations with people, it impacts people’s lives in all areas, limiting what options are available to you.”

It is these kinds of questions the Mad Pride Hamilton zine challenges and explores. The group hopes to release another issue in April and is open to anyone, regardless of their history.

Photo from the "This Insane Life" (Mad Pride Hamilton zine)

Michael Gallagher
The Silhouette

With the recent release of their three-part single “Argentina” and an upcoming album, Forcefield, set to come out in spring 2014, the announcement of a Tokyo Police Club concert on McMaster’s very own campus was a bit overwhelming. This feeling only grew when I learned that Ottawa’s Hollerado would be there with them, along with Aukland, a band featuring a McMaster student.

I’ve been a big fan of Tokyo Police Club, the four-piece indie-rock band from Newmarket, for quite some time, and it seems each of their albums brings something new and fun to the table. Everything from the seemingly random lyrics to the ridiculously catchy hooks has left me coming back for more every time. Still, one of the things that truly defines a band is how well they play live, and their show last Saturday only reaffirmed everything I love about them.

Before getting ahead of myself, it goes without saying that the opening acts were definitely also quite a treat. Hollerado has grown in the last few years in terms of both stage performance, and song writing technique.When I last saw them, they were playing a small stage at Edgefest, and were clearly still tightening their sound. Vocals were strained at times, and the collective energy of the band sometimes lost control – and not in a good way.

This time around, hits like “So it Goes” and “Pick Me Up” from their latest album White Paint really brought out the energy in the crowd. More importantly, the erratic energy of singer Menno Versteeg was concentrated directly on making the show as fun as possible, and his vocals showed serious improvement. Between conversations about Dave Monks hating dogs and their suggestions to the audience that we try “every drug ever,” Hollerado’s stage banter certainly succeeded.

The same could be said of the lesser-known opening band Aukland, who successfully wowed the crowd despite a relatively short set. I can’t deny the existence of a very positive bias towards any band out of Mississauga (having spent too many bored suburban nights there growing up), but no one can deny the musical tightness Aukland showed on stage. While they still have much to learn from the bands that followed them, Aukland seems well on their way to being able to see the same success on their own, and they really pumped up the audience for the main event.

With that in mind, Tokyo Police Club continued to deliver what the audience was looking for. The simple, solid riffs and quirky keyboard sounds that the band is known for were as engaging and as exciting as ever. Even better, the band played much from their upcoming album and it appears to be another step in the right direction. Whether it was the occasional Strokes cover, or the closing acoustic version of “Tessellate,” everything about the show seemed to go exactly as planned.

Michael Gallagher
The Silhouette

Because the Internet
Artist: Childish Gambino

The “actor-writer-rapper” gig was cool until all of Donald Glover’s talents got muddled into one very confusing concept album. Paired with a stream of social media confessions, a short film and eventually a 75-page four-act screenplay, Because the Internet is a classic example of too much style and not enough substance. While art across multiple mediums can sometimes make an idea more coherent or more moving, in the case of Gambino’s most recent album, the extra baggage only highlights the record’s inability to stand alone from the rest of his material, and leaves the listener with a confusing 57-minutes.

Gambino has talent. His first effort Culdesac, was a transparent and deeply personal record. It showcased his darker emotions and contextualized his diverse artistic environments. His follow-up Camp represented an improvement in all aspects of his craft, with smarter lyrics, better flow, and more interesting production.

Unfortunately, Because the Internet seems to have halted Glover’s progression, replacing it with occasionally stale production, and a flow that favours speed over content.

Too often Internet’s songs abandon conventional verse-chorus structure, and instead ramble between a strange fusion of trap production, and dizzying stops and starts. Songs like “3005” show that the album could have been great – classic Gambino – but instead, these songs are followed by “Flying with the Navigator” which forces the listener to sift through the strange, spoken-word style of a distorted Gambino, and slow arpeggios of a guitar. All of it feels pretentious and unnecessary.

Thankfully, “Sweatpants,” “Crawl,” and “3005” are among some of the tracks that help stabilize the album, and give fans what they wanted.  While it may not be perfect, fans of Childish Gambino should still give Because the Internet a try, if only to hear those tracks.

3/5

ANDY asked its writers about arts and entertainment that affected them most this semester. Here’s what they said.

Shane Madill

My state of mind is regularly conflicts with my thoughts of everyday life, and my desire to be grounded while also achieving success. I often think about the paradoxical idea of zoning out into “Mittyesque” fantasies. I feel bittersweet nostalgia for the past as I remember both good times and bad times. I look back with 20/20 hindsight, and consider how my experiences have molded me into the person I am today and how they have influenced my future.

Recently, I’ve find myself constantly going back to Converge’s discography. I discovered Converge at an especially dark point in my life, and I always go back to them in as a constant reminder of who I was, who I am, and who I want to be. Singer Jacob Bannon once stated, “People will identify with the darkness you’re feeling,” and sometimes we just need a reminder that we are all connected, even by the basic humanity of the darker emotions we struggle all must struggle through.

Alison Piercy

This past semester I read a countless number of books. All of them were for class. None of them felt very artistic. All of them were non-fiction and World War II related. Most of my time off has been spent looking at graduate school or continuing education programs. Whenever I go out with friends, or family, or colleagues, everyone wants to know what I plan to do next year. In retrospect, I probably should have expected this, given that I’m in my fourth and final year at McMaster. Sadly, the arts haven’t been able to affect me very much this semester because I’ve had no time for them. And life feels empty. And maybe that’s their affect. Here’s hoping for a new year filled with the arts. And less WWII.

Michael Gallagher

While this may be a bit cliché, music will always be one of the most important artworks in my life. I cannot imagine going through a semester without it. Almost everything I know would just feel so empty. How would I pump myself up at the gym if I didn’t have an awesome collection of songs to get me going? Would I even go to my classes if the long walk to school wasn’t made better by shuffling through my iPod? I can’t even try and imagine a semester without music that would me through it. And for me, it is most beneficial to listen to music while I’m studying.

Despite being a music lover, I always had trouble listening to music during a study session, because it was often too distracting. Thankfully, I soon realized that instrumental music – or music without lyrics – was the answer. Soon, some of the most played songs on my iPod were old Jazz albums, hip-hop producer beats, and artists like Ratatat, or BadBadNotGood. They helped get me in the zone I needed to boost my grades.

While I’m sure there are other reasons for the improvement in my grades over the years, I can’t help but decide that music helped me focus, and this was a huge part of it.

Lene Trunjer Petersen

I am a film nerd with a growing taste for controversial, independent films. The very different languages in many of these films is what amazes me. One film in particular that I saw this past term made my reconsider my knowledge of the environment – The East, starring Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård. Skarsgård portrays an eco-terrorist fighting for the world against big corporations. When I walked out from the warmth of the cinema, I stared up in the darkness questioning whether he was committing acts of terrorism or if he was actually saving our world. The film had a grave impact on my own way of thinking and made me strongly consider how I personally can work to save our planet hopefully before it is to late.

Michael Gallagher
The Silhouette

Static
Artist: Cults

Cults’ new album Static is strange.

While there are many good songs, there are few great ones. The record found a weird middle ground for the quality of their latest material. This isn’t to say that their material is bad - that isn’t the case at all - but there isn’t anything that really sticks out, either.

As you flip through the tracks, the smooth voice of Madeline Follin and bright guitars of Brian Oblivion are there to greet you with catchy melodies and strangely dissonant chords. The inclusion of strings and almost eerie-sounding organs makes Static very similar to another male and female duo, Beach House.

Unfortunately, Static just isn’t able to set itself apart from the stream of new music that comes out more and more with each passing day. What’s worse is that Static isn’t even able to set its songs apart from each other, and many of Viagra female them simply sound too similar and uninspired. Even their newest single, “High Road,” drags on and barely makes an impression on the listener

Fans of the band may still enjoy the album, but compared to their self-titled first album, Static falls short.

3.5/5

Michael Gallagher
The Silhouette

Despite its growing popularity, few people I ask are familiar with the term “e-sports” and the community that surrounds it. Talk of “professional gaming” sounds like nonsense to many, and is brushed aside without a second thought.

However, when the Korean pro-gamer Baek Dong Jun, better known by his in-game ID “Dear” took home $40,000 at the recent 2013 StarCraft II World Championship Series in Toronto, I’m sure he felt quite the opposite.

Competing for $160,000 canadian pharmacy viagra in prize money, 16 players from around the world met up in Toronto on Oct. 25-27 to play StarCraft II – a real-time strategy game produced by the game developer Blizzard. With them came 4,000 enthusiastic fans, looking to see who the best player in the world was.

To put it into perspective, the combined tournament earnings of the top 50 most successful players totals nearly six-million dollars, with the highest paid player having amassed $406,788 so far. Even more impressive, according to the CEO of Blizzard, Mike Morhaime, the current global viewership of StarCraft II as of Apr. 2013 has exceeded the viewership of the NHL.

These numbers probably seem unreasonably high to those doubting the legitimacy of the game itself, but top players know it requires intense dedication.

“It’s basically like a job,” says Chris Loranger (pictured), a successful Canadian pro-gamer known by his ID “HuK” in the StarCraft II community. “I’ll play eight to twelve hours a day on the days I’m practising, which is about 300 days a year.”

So what makes StarCraft II interesting to watch? To fans of traditional sports, the concept of watching a video game must seem confusing. To help those interested, I sat down with Sean “Day [9]” Plott, arguably the game’s most successful personality to ask him why someone should check out StarCraft II and e-sports. Plott is known for hosting his own online show “The Day [9] Daily,” and has been recognized by Forbes as one of the “Top 30 under 30,” alongside other notable celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence and Donald Glover.

“Ever been into football? – Like American football where I’m from? – It’s really exciting and fun, as you get into it with your favourite team or region. After you watch the exciting play, you can’t do it yourself, because you need to get a full team together. Games are something where you can hop on immediately and try it yourself,” says Plott.

This kind of accessibility has led to almost four million people playing StarCraft II, with a significant portion tuning in to watch the fast-paced real-time strategy game.

If you’re interested in delving into StarCraft II and e-sports, the World Championship Grand Finals will be streamed online at on Nov. 8-9 with players competing for a massive $250,000 prize pool.