You’ll always be next gen in my eyes, GC

Kenyon is like one big video game. At times, I feel like something out of Ninja Gaiden or Castlevania, side-scrolling the hell out of my workload, just killing assignments over and over and over ad nauseum to reach the end. At other times, I feel like I’m playing Sonic ‘06 aka one of the worst games made in recent decades, basically designed for you to neither have fun nor be able to beat the game even if you wanted to. And yet, most times I feel like I’m working my way through Banjo Kazooie or DK64, filled with childlike wonder and intellectual curiosity. More specifically though, here are a few games that, when it comes down to it, remind me a lot of certain things here at Kenyon.

1. The Binding of Isaac: The reductionist premise of this game is basically religious content in a blasphemous context. If you think about it, Kenyon is the opposite- blasphemous content in a loosely religious context. Although Kenyon really can’t be described as a “religious” institution anymore, there’s no denying the weekly show of drunken students sauntering past a centrally placed church.
2. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: In Skyrim, there are tons of factions you can join and hundreds of standalone quests (without counting the literally infinite radiant quests). You could spend hundreds of hours in game working towards completion and still not even discover every location, let alone complete every quest. Sometimes my time management and extracurricular decisions feel a little bit like picking a quest to start with in Skyrim. (Pssst… Hail Sithis)
3. Bioshock Infinite: Coming to college has apparently made me more susceptible to brief bouts of existential fear and doubt of my place in the universe. Bioshock Infinite and its [SPOILER] shitload of lighthouses and boardwalks and alternate universes kinda did that too.
4. Goldeneye 007:  The one for N64, not the crappy Wii remake. This game reminds me a lot of New Apts- old, outdated, and yet still satisfying to come back to every so often despite the off-putting graphics and weird rocket launcher mechanic.
5. Super Mario Sunshine: Ah yes, the one game to represent Kenyon as a whole. Super Mario Sunshine is a visually stunning classic that, although sometimes will make you want to drown your Gamecube in the bathtub or just smash your head against the wall repeatedly, keeps you coming back for more and never fails to entertain. Sounds a whole lot like our little home on the hill.