Video Games A Popular Topic for Student Authors

These two articles about video games were written by students at Campbell Middle School, as part of their journalism apprenticeships. The first is a review of a favorite game and the second a profile of a leading video game company.

Mystery of Ben Drowned

By Emilio - 8th grade

For all of those people who know the Majora's Mask Mystery "Ben Drowned" this is a message to tell you about it.

For those who don't know him, he is a lost soul of a boy named Ben who was controlling Majora's Mask. The story of Ben was that a man, moving into his college dorm, was collecting all his old favorite games. So he passed an old man's house and saw his number one favorite game "Majora's Mask" and he bought it. When he got home he decided to play it. When he started the game the saved file "Ben," which he thought was the previous owner's file, was past half the game.

When he started the file he was in Woodfall Temple, another level of the game. He tried to do a 4th day glitch and he was found in the South Clock Town, another level with graphics so bad they looked as if they have been ripped from the game. The figure of Link was soon to be found on a tower with the skull kid laughing. As soon as that happened Link was floating and burned to his death.

"Ben" is still one of the top haunting reviews I've read but there is more than one haunted game out there and you might have one.

Back to the topic, so Ben haunted this person for a month or so and soon was haunting him wherever he went and the man was soon to discover that Ben could control him, to make him feel that pain and fear were "SAFE" and so Ben followed him to subway, grocery stores, restaurants and all other places he has been.

One day after the "curse" he looked out his window and saw the old man who he bought the game from! He was unsure of the coincidence, but he felt he shouldn't have bought the game he'd been longing for so long. Soon he started posting the haunting on the internet and Ben leaked into the PC. The man saw the PC on Clever-bot and started to talk with Ben and then he would soon be controlling his life with fear, terror, and sadness all of the time. People started to get nightmares about Ben and have the same pain without the real Ben affecting them like the man.

I hope you liked this story. I have chosen this tale because of the fears towards people on earth.

EA - Electronic Arts

By Dinhe - 5th grade

I chose this topic because I love video games, especially soccer video games. I thought that it might be interesting to learn about EA-Electronic Arts history. I also thought it might be at least a bit exciting to learn about its past events as well.

●      Year founded: In 1982

●      Original name:Amazin

●      Its name now: EA (Electronic Arts)

●      Founder’s name: Trip Hawkins

●      International expansion: Japan(1992),
Germany & France(1993), and Spain(1994)

●      Some notable titles: FIFA-soccer and EURO- soccer

●       Company sponsored events: 1998 sponsored 2nd annual EA sports Internet tour with $65.000 in prize money.  
Also in 1998 they secured an 8-year exclusive license and EA received their 1st online Privacy seal under ESRB privacy online certification program.

They also sponsor the Las Vegas Bowl.