8A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, November 2, 2000
'Teenager' an astute, critical
look at the next generation
"ry-"° C"l
0
I.
By Geoffrey M. Anenberg
For the Daily
The same question is asked, over and
over again, by one adult generation of
its successors. Today, of course, the
question is no
different: What is
wrong with these
The Rise and Fall kids? In his
of the American "The Rise and
Teenager Fall of the Amer-
Thomas Hine ican Teenager"
Grade: A- Thomas line
Avnos answers.
Author of
three other
books, Hine is
also a regular
contributor to
The New York
Times among
other publications. This book is no
surprise. Hine delivers the facts,
extensively, with a style and refresh-
ing insight one should expect from
In accomplished writer. The work is
trung together by countless anec-
dotes, social commentaries and stud-
ies that span the decades, even cen-
turies, in tracing the path of
American youth from its origins to
what we now call the Teenager.
line gives a number of in-depth
reports including the 1931 account of
the Scottsboro boys, wherein two
white transient teenage prostitutes
sent several black youths to prison on
alleged, yet fraudulent, rape charges.
Another is the 1997 incident of a high
school girl giving birth to and dis-
carding her infant son in the restroom
at her senior prom. Without further
research, one can easily conclude that
crime has successively become more
gruesome, as teenagers today are kept
safe thousands of miles away from
any military threat or economic hard-
ship, unlike the many generations
before it.
Crime rates, particularly in larger
cities, have statistically improved
from the '80s, though public opinion
doesn't seem to take that into
account. Hine explains that, "depend-
ing on who the observers are, what
they're looking for, and what they
expect to find, the coming teens
appear to be monsters, or saviors, or
anything in between." It's not some
national anxiety that keeps American
youth out of trouble, for the late '30s
early '40s youths that had under the
looming fear of being shipped off to
war the next day were having more
sex, staying out later and breaking all
the rules in general
America's youth has undergone a
wild and rapid evolution from the
time when 16-year-olds were consid-
ered men. With time the conditions
changed that delivered youth from the
"jazz age" and "dead end kids" of the
'20s and '30s to the "Goths of
Tomorrowland." Dine believes that
today, "Young people are'exposed to
all the violence and economic insecu-
rity of society at large, but, unlike
their predecessors, have few avenues
for bearing real responsibility to
improve their situation." As always,
the game has changed. The reigns are
getting tighter and kids are reacting
the only way they can: Ferociously.
'Rumble'
leaves a
r Ke a;desired
By Matt Grandstaff
for the Daily
When the Sega Dreamcast
launched in September of 1999, one
of the hottest selling launch title
was Midway's over the top arcade
boxing game, "Ready 2 Rumble
Gainers were given a light hearted
boxing game with amusing charac-
ters that brought back memories of
King Hippo and Super Macho Man
in the 8 bit Nintendo classic, "Mike
Tyson's Punch Out." Now the sequel,
"Round 2," becomes the first boxing
game for the new Playstation 2 con-
sole, along with an encore for the
Dreameast.
The strongest selling point of
"Round 2" is its comical cast of box-
ers. The majority of the characters
from the original game return,
including favorites Afro Thunder,
Butcher Brown and Angel Rivera. In
addition, new characters including
punk rocker Freak E. Deke, hippy
Freedom Brock and Robox Rese-4
All of the characters have hilario
trash talk comments and special
relate to the per-
Grade: C+ sonality of the
Ready 2 Rumble character. In all
there are 23
Boxing:Round 2 total characters,
Pi ysiuion/reamesl including ne
Midway celebrity play
ers. All of the
characters are beautifully rendere
and animated on the Dreamcast a
Playstation 2 game engines. You can
actually see the fat rolls on Mam
Tua jiggle.
As far as game play is concerned
"Round 2" is very similar to th
original. Boxers punch and duc
until one opponent goes down three
times. The highlight of any match m
this game is when one opponent
spells out "RUMBLE" by landing
major blows on the opponent. When
it this is acdomplished, special moves
can be activated that will bring your
opponent to the canvas in no time.
This is updated in "Round 2," fo
if a boxer spells "RUMBLE" three
times, a special move can be dcliv-
ered that will throw the opponent out
of the ring. In addition, boxers can
now go for cheap shots after an
opponent is about to go down, which
make the opponent go into a graph
cally impressive dizzy spell.
Unfortunately, aside from fun
characters and wonderful graphics,
"Ready 2 Rumble" is only fun for
short periods of time. It is fairly easy
to roll through computer opponents
in both exhibition and career modes
in attempts to get new characters.
Also the two-player mod
becomes annoying as the boxer wI
knocks down his opponent first us
ally goes on to win the match. Like
the ring announcer who promotes the
game, Michael Buffer, "Ready 2
Rumble Boxing: Round 2" becomes
stale after a few fights.