Rated: R

Released: May 23, 2013

Most of the time, sequels are stepchildren to the first film.

Seldom do they interject anything new, instead perverting the initial ideas, especially as new subsequent entries follow.

Thankfully, “The Hangover Part III” sidesteps the error of its predecessor by not blatantly copying the tropes of the original.

Instead of relying on the tested formula of “three friends wake up after a hard night of partying and drinking with no memory of the night before and missing a friend,” it changes its game up.

After an unfortunate incident involving a domesticated giraffe and an approaching low underpass causes their friend Alan (Zach Galifianakis) to be committed to a mental institution in Arizona, his friends (“The Wolfpack”), Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Stu (Ed Helms) and brother-in-law Doug (Justin Bartha), decide to drive him to his final destination.

Along the way, they’re intercepted by crime boss Marshall (John Goodman, on autopilot), who takes Doug captive in exchange for gold his heavies plundered — which itself was seized by Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong), a coked-up, sociopath acquaintance from the first two films.

Portrayed by Jeong and voiced with an Asian accent of indeterminable origin, a little of Chow goes a long way. Mercilessly, he flees to Las Vegas after double crossing the gang. This almost seems like a conciliatory gesture by screenwriters Todd Phillips and Craig Mazin, who perhaps realized a full 110 minutes of him would lead to mass revolt.

Some of the highlights include Alan listening to Billy Joel’s “My Life” while his father suffers a fatal heart attack, Chow smothering one of his many cockfighting roosters with a pillow (which he admits to feeding a steady diet of cocaine and chicken), and Alan reuniting with the baby from the first film, whose sunglasses-covered face became part of the zeitgeist.

The film even allows for a romantic encounter with pawnshop owner Melissa McCarthy, who discovers her soul mate after Alan seductively exchanges a lollipop.

If it sounds like the inmates run the asylum in this installment with the above paragraph, then that’s a correct deduction. Cooper and Helms aren’t given much to act out besides play the straight men to Galifianakis and Jeong, an unfortunate byproduct of the former’s newfound celebrity.

Once the Wolfpack reaches Las Vegas, the laughs become more rationed, a common ailment of many directors who want to squeeze action into their comedies.

Director Todd Phillips’s filmography is a mixed bag of his usual array of lowbrow, vulgarity-laced humor that often pushes the envelope of what audiences will find funny.

“Due Date,” possibly his best film, found a median by actively attempting not to be edgy instead focusing on the relationship of between the motivated Peter Highman (Robert Downey, Jr.) and spacey Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis).

He’s often a competent director when he favors character over laughs a minute.

For this reason, “The Hangover Part III” mostly works because of its palatable humor, with the exception to an obvious credit cookie — a prelude to the hopefully nonexistent sequel.

The scene simultaneously manages to integrate the titular hangover and cosmetically humiliate Ed Helms worse than the Mike Tyson facial tattoo from the second film, and it provides Ken Jeong with one last opportunity for full-frontal nudity.

Although the first two were unseen by me, the law of sequels dictates the initial film played with far more humility and its gags were not constructed by a lazy screenwriter seeking a cheap laugh.

The scene is the only moment of real shock value in an otherwise innocuous concluding chapter of this comedic trilogy, and to paraphrase Marshall, “Sometimes you need to trap madness in the trunk of a limo and shoot it.”

Even if said sequel teases the always welcome Melissa McCarthy.

Reach the reporter at tccoste1@asu.edu

Cold beers at Casey Moore’s in Tempe marked the last time Shannon Conley saw Zach Booher, who in the summer of 2012 had a fresh degree from ASU and plans to follow the Vans Warped Tour to promote his band While We’re Up.

“I just left being so inspired that they were following their dream,” Conley said. “They were just so excited about it.”

The community coordinator at Taylor Place and political science graduate student got to know Zach through supervising him when he was a CA at ASU’s residence halls. Conley said Zach would work the McClintock Hall front desk while jamming on his guitar with future bandmate Steven Rouk.

“He made it more than a job,” Conley said. “He was able to really blend it and make it a lifestyle.”

On July 8, 2012, a flat tire caused the car the band was driving from Chicago to Minnesota to roll over. Rouk and Trevor McCoy, who was traveling with the band, were injured, and Zach was pronounced dead on the scene.

Almost a year later, Conley is part of an “unofficial network” of people at ASU helping to coordinate a benefit concert for Zach on June 1. Zach’s parents, Joanna and Scott, and his sister, Samantha, began raising money almost immediately after his death hoping to create a scholarship in his name.

“He was so unique and so special that we wanted him to be able to live on in a way and something good to come out of our tragedy,” Joanna said.

Almost $20,000 later, the family has about $5,000 more to raise in order to fund the perpetuity. Warped Tour collected about $11,000 to donate to the cause, and Scott’s co-workers collected a little more than $1,100.

The scholarship was initially intended to go toward a music student, but the family decided it would be better suited for a student who created a music video that “captured the essence of what Zach was about.”

ASU’s School of Theater and Film created a temporary scholarship until the perpetuity is in place, and they awarded the first at this year’s capstone screening.

“Zach, I realize his passion was music, but I look back and even when he was young he was into making pictures,” Scott said.

Zach directed the music video for While We’re Up’s single, “Someday,” with ASU’s Tempe campus as the backdrop.

Conley, who bonded with Zach over a mutual love of music, planned TaylorFest downtown and Barrett, the Honors College’s Concert to Benefit the Hungry. The Boohers were busy with plans for what would have been Zach’s 23rd birthday, and Conley volunteered to take over the coordination of the While We’re Up Benefit Show.

She called her friend Aaron Hopkins-Johnson, the owner of Lawn Gnome Publishing in Phoenix, and asked to use his space as a venue. From there, the eight local bands that will perform at the festival-like show fell into place.

Watch for Rocks, a group made up of geology students and a religious studies student at ASU, will perform at the benefit show. Vocalist Sarah Robinson said the concert is a way to support artists like Zach who are part of Arizona’s growing local music scene.

Black Rose Mansion’s frontman Todd Hoover said Conley has invited the band to play at events in the past, and they were excited to participate in Zach’s cause.

“When I found out all the money was going toward a scholarship to sort of functionally commemorate (Zach), I thought that was really really great,” Hoover said.

Justin Lucia, A Careless Skyline’s vocalist, said the band will perform a song he originally wrote after his dad died. Lucia and bass player Jordan Robinson met Zach and Rouk by going to a While We’re Up show. Robinson kept in touch with the Boohers after Zach’s death, and Joanna invited A Careless Skyline to play at the show.

“I give (Zach’s) mom so much credit,” Robinson said. “She’s doing so much, and she’s definitely turned it into something positive.”

A piano in the Booher household holds photos and Zach’s ashes. (photo by Yvonne Gonzalez)

Hopkins-Johnson said while he never booked a show for While We’re Up, he’s hosted bands who played with the duo and worked with volunteers at the store who knew Zach through ASU. These ties compelled him to get involved.

“When a student or even someone from the local music scene passes, it’s always a huge blow to the community,” he said. “(The concert) is a way to have a wake or funeral, a way to celebrate his life and the things he thought were important.”

Music, family and friends were Zach’s driving forces, his family said.

“Music makes people happy,” Scott said. “If (Zach) could make people happy, that just made him over the moon.”

In the time since Zach’s death, his family members have turned to their faith, Compassionate Friends support groups, the music he left behind and advice from a family friend to “just keep swimming,” in the words of Dory.

Scott’s left forearm is nearly covered in a heart logo that Zach designed for his band, with his son’s name in the center and “Beautiful Son 1990-2012” beneath it. The inside of Samantha’s right upper arm bears a small dream catcher and the popular Death Cab for Cutie lyrics, “Every plan is a tiny prayer to father time.” She and Zach had planned to get the tattoo together.

Samantha, a communications senior, said listening to “Stars,” a song Zach wrote about how he would feel if his sister died, is bittersweet for her. She and her brother were only two years apart, which she said made them incredibly close.

“It’s hard, it’s really hard to listen to the CD,” she said. “But it’s nice to hear his voice. That’s a blessing that I’m sure a lot of people don’t have.”

Donations to the scholarship fund can be made through the ASU Foundation.

Reach the reporter at ymgonzal@asu.edu

The usual summer reads are Nicholas Sparks books and other love novels, but this summer, instead of going on a romantic roller coaster, put yourself in the shoes of these three authors and navigate the stories they survived to tell.

“A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” by Ishmael Beah
In his gripping memoir, Beah recounts his past as a child soldier in war-struck Sierra Leone. For one year, he fled through the jungles to escape the Revolutionary United Front but was eventually kidnapped and forced into the RUF for three years. Beah’s descriptive details leave readers feeling as if they are running through the same dense jungles of his past.

“Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction” by David Sheff
Sheff takes readers down memory lane in a book about his son’s addiction to methamphetamine. Because he was so close to his son throughout his life, Sheff always thought Nic would be open with him and share his curiosities about substance abuse. Instead Sheff is put into a constant state of worry about Nic — which becomes his own addiction — wondering if his beautiful boy will live to see his 21st birthday. As a journalist, Sheff shares his research about addiction and recovery with readers, causing them to worry about Nic’s life as well.

“Jesus Land” by Julia Scheeres
An award-winning journalist, Scheeres recounts her experience living in the Midwest during the 1980s, when praising Jesus and yelling racial slurs was permissible. Growing up with two adopted African-American brothers, Scheeres and one of her adopted brothers, David, were best friends and didn’t let their skin color set them apart. As the two go through high school, Scheeres reveals the physical and sexual abuse that was rampant in their household, and how nowhere she or David tried to run to was safe. As they grew older and decided their parent’s religion was not for them, they were both sent to to Escuela Caribe, a reform school in the Dominican Republic that brainwashed the children into living the “right” way. Knowing that their only way to freedom was to play by the rules, Scheeres and David do all they can to reach their own paradise.

Reach the reporter at nrmirand@asu.edu or follow on Twitter at @natalieroxann

Robbie Pfeffer sits on a stoop on 5th Street, what he calls a representative epicenter of local music in downtown Phoenix. Pfeffer has started his own record label, where he plans to sign on bands locally as well as nationally. (Photo by Dominic Valente)

Rubber Brother Records is the latest, greatest, weirdest thing on the Arizona music map, with recent ASU graduate Robbie Pfeffer, comparatively late, great and weird, as the all-original creator.

Ever since kick-starting Tempe Starving Artist in 2009, a local magazine and host of artistic community events, 23-year-old Pfeffer has been establishing himself as the king of local music in Phoenix and Tempe with his seemingly endless projects. He is the ultimate band man — booking bands, building bands, playing in bands, and now, officially signing bands onto his label.

“I thought it would be cool to pool resources so that interesting bands can establish themselves with (merchandise) and media and give them the chance to exist out of something more than someone’s living room or car,” Pfeffer said. “This is a very specific thing — it’s my thing — because I book all kinds of bands, but with this project, I want to get the weird, noisy and fun stuff that I like. “

The project still needs work when it comes to infrastructure, distribution of material and music releases, but Pfeffer plans to eventually incorporate old media, like VHS and cassette tapes, into the label so that the music will have a tangible, nostalgic aspect to it.

“It’s music, but it’s also like Pokémon cards, you know?” Pfeffer said.

Some bands that have signed on to the project include Wolves, Instructions, Via Maria, Mickey and the Mountains and Petty Things. Both surf-punk Mickey and Mountains and brand-spanking-new Petty Things, featuring Ladylike bassist Austin Owen and his brother Jordan Owen, started up in the last six months or less specifically because of the label’s introduction.

Release shows for the über-underground Wolves, as well at Petty Things’s debut will be happening soon, Pfeffer said, but first the label infrastructure and basics need to be fully established before Rubber Brother Records becomes the source for local artists that Pfeffer dreams of it being. However, he’s not putting too much pressure on himself.

“If it’s even just an excuse to get a bunch of people to make new stuff and get others excited about it and be a cheerleader for it, that’s all I really want,” Pfeffer said.

Pfeffer is a cheerleader for artists in general, but particularly focuses anyone looking to build their brand in Phoenix, which he calls a “unique, weird, alien city,” where nothing is seriously established music-wise.

“I like Phoenix, because with anything you want to do, you’re not really competing with a whole lot of infrastructure,” Pfeffer said. “In L.A. there’s a precedent. There’s a history. There’s a set standard. But here you just have to do it, which makes it a nice place to hone your craft.”

Pfeffer has also been working for the past year and a half on perfecting his performance as front man for his fun and scuzzy punk band, Playboy Manbaby. For any old-media fans out there, Pfeffer plans to release VHS video from Manbaby’s CD release show last month at Cartel Coffee Lab in Tempe.

Comparable to Jerry Lee Lewis and his committed, energetic, crowd-enticing style, Pfeffer knows how to get his audience to let loose and get weird.

“I could never join a band and just play bass. I would get kind of bored,” Pfeffer said. “I don’t get the rush from music as much; I get it from the crowds reaction and being able to embody something. It’s interesting.”

In fact, boredom seems to be the source for Robbie’s side projects that, amazingly enough, have all morphed from ideas to actual developments.

“I can take two days off and watch Netflix and eat hummus, but then I’m just so lividly bored that I have to do something,” Pfeffer said. “I get frustrated sometimes with all of the things I’m working on, but that’s the motivation.”

Getting things done seems to have been instilled in Pfeffer ever since he was 13 years old, when he would talk his mom into driving him to punk shows in the family minivan.

“All my friends and brothers were in punk bands, so that was the first time I really heard music,” Pfeffer said. “As long as I’ve been able to make decisions, it’s what I’ve chosen to do.”

Probably because of his inert passion for punk, Pfeffer found a way to balance building his empire while pursuing a mouthful of a degree in global studies with a focus on community development in post-conflict regions, specifically the Balkans and Bosnia.

“I could technically get a job at the state department and be in Sarajevo in a few weeks punching passports for the next five years and work my way up, but that’s a full-time thing,” Pfeffer said. “I don’t have plans for doing that yet. I want to do weird art stuff.”

Pfeffer said he’s excited to really get this venture rolling, and that new involvement from ASU’s Downtown campus in the local music scene has really influenced its precedence.

“For the first time in a while, there’s a whole new group of people coming out to support the community and are excited, and that just blows my mind,” Pfeffer said.

What he calls weird, fast and fun, Pfeffer has big plans for Rubber Brother Records, but he will be splitting his time this summer representing local bands while interning for Burger Records, an L.A. label that has signed bands like the The Black Lips, Shannon and the Clams and The Go.

“Burger has a cool, weird attitude because a lot of independent stuff tries to be high brow and serious, but with Burger they just like weird stuff and booking bands that wear funny masks and are flamboyant and all that odd punk stuff,” Pfeffer said. “That’s always the stuff that has appealed to me, more of the fun stuff as opposed to the high art, super serious thing.”

Like the main line from Playboy Manbaby’s song, “Betty Blanca:” “Can’t stop now even if we knew how,” — Pfeffer is on a roll and has no plans to slow down.

Contact the reporter at kgumpert@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @cat2bekittenmee

Things begin to get complicated when Marling’s character, Sarah, falls in love with the leader of the group, Benji, played by Skarsgard. The group of anarchists live with an “eye for an eye” policy against corporate America. The drama puts into question the issue of capitalism and how far is too far — a representation of corporate America.

The State Press had the opportunity to sit down with both Batmanglij and Marling about the film and their inspiration behind it.

State Press: “The East” seems to be a twist of “Into the Wild” and an action movie. Was that your intention?

Zal Batmanglij: I love “Into the Wild,” but I don’t think we were inspired by that. “Into the Wild” deals with the idea of burning money. We had spent a summer living kind of like the kid from “Into the Wild” who is traveling America.

SP: Both of you did (Marling and Batmanglij). How was that?

Brit Marling: It was intense. I mean, it was exciting and transforming (laughs).

ZB: Life-changing.

SP: There’s a term for that. It’s called “freeganism”? I am not really familiar with it.

BM: I had read a little bit about it, this was the summer of 2009, and Zal was just out of film school, and I was struggling to find a way to act that didn’t involve moral bankruptcy. We were having a difficult time making a sense of the system of film making and more broadly, how things were working in the world, and we were interested in how young people were searching out these alternative lives. We hit the road, and we learned how to train hop, and we lived on organic farms and freegan collectives. The idea of freeganism is basically sort of living off the grain of capitalism. The idea is to take everything that this culture wastes and turn it into the abundance it is; we learned to dumpster dive. We realized that perfectly good apples and bread that is packaged and fine is just behind the store in this blue box, for free, waiting for anyone to come eat it if they know how to get the lock. You learn to do that, and then you share that food with people in your community and families who are having a hard time feeding their kids, and you realize that there are a lot of things that aren’t working really well in the system. A couple years later, we were still trying to make sense of it, and so we tried to write about it and format an espionage movie.

SP: So is that what you brought into the film? The idea that capitalism is a bad thing when taken to extremes?

ZB: It’s murky; when everything becomes about making a profit, and not about kindness, then it gets really dark and gets confusing. I think we live in a really morally great time, so we were interested in how a thriller is a great way to explore the moral murkiness.

SP: How did you make this work with a budget of $6.5 million. The film did not look like an indie; how were you able to make that budget work? It’s mind-boggling.

BM: It’s mind-boggling to me, too, and it’s hard to say. I would look at the call sheet every day, and I would see how many scenes we had to shoot that day and epic things like, surgery, where you’re trying to save someone’s life and the raiding of the first corporation. Zal somehow managed to pull off these miraculous days every day. I knew, of course, since we were making films in college that he’s an amazing filmmaker, but on set, every day my mind was consistently blown. Which is a cool thing when your friend and creative partner just exceeds your wildest expectations. It was miraculous what he would pull off and all the while, insulating the actors from the stress and pressure of shooting a movie that had two months in 25 days. The actors never felt that we were in this bubble of, “We have time, and let’s do it again!”

SP: How did you get into character? Did you find it hard or did you take away from that summer?

BM: I don’t think any of the characters came from that summer. They were all just out of our imagination, but Sarah was hard to figure out. I don’t have that much in common with her, and so it was a new space to try to navigate. She’s very physical, and so I actually used training. One way to enter a character is to enter that character through their body instead of through their brain.

SP: How did you come up with the screenplay idea?

ZB: We just like to tell each other stories, and let’s take a scene for example. There is a scene where she and a bunch of people, freegans, get thrown off a train by the train police and because she defends her friend — a boy wearing lipstick — he gets beat up even more.

ZB: Exactly! We wanted to show espionage, but rather than something big like in the “Bourne Supremacy,” in a small way where we can all be resourceful, where we don’t need giant weapons or electronics and that we need our brains and our minds. I remember filming that thing, where she takes the paperclip off her tongue, and that’s how we write. She does that, and I am impressed by that, and we feed off each other.

SP: I’m wondering about the name “The East.” I read that there is the east-New York and then there is a parallel with the Middle East. That is such a creative idea.

BM: Zal comes up with the best titles. He appeared with it one day and he tells me them and then it sticks. But this one, “The East,” I like in particular because of what you said: It’s from New England, and it is seen as a place of power. It is also a reference to the East and the Far East, and its philosophies and ideas in a juxtaposition of the West and it is also the idea of the compass. She sees this compass in someone’s van, and when she sees the compass she knows that the kid driving the van is from the East. It is also a reference to how the film has a lot about the moral gray zone of our time and about how it is hard to navigate that. Sarah is on a journey where she resets her compass and so there is the idea of that changing direction and her morality.

“The East,” debuted at the 2013 Sundance film festival. It will debut in select theaters across America on May 31, 2013.

Reach reporter at rlopez20@asu.edu or follow on Twitter @rosielopez14

The 60-piece exhibition, “Infinite Place: The Ceramic Art of Wayne Higby,” opened on Saturday and is the first major retrospective to provide an in-depth view of his work. The collection ranges from his first pieces created in the 1960s to his most recent pieces created in 2012.

“Putting this retrospective together has been an odd process,” Higby said. “Some of the work I haven’t seen in nearly 50 years, so I sort of recognize it, but I also feel a disconnect. It’s as if the work was made by an imaginary friend and not by me.”

Higby came to ASU for the premiere of the exhibition. He spoke to art students and also held a public lecture about his career and body of work. He described the major events that inspired him to make ceramics and influenced of many of his pieces, which vary between ceramic pots, bowls, plates, boxes and three-dimensional tiles.

“It is especially meaningful that my retrospective should begin its journey here. I grew up in Colorado, and much of my inspiration came from the soil of the West,” Higby said.

Higby’s pieces center around landscapes including mountains, rivers, canyons and skies. They are very colorful pieces with images designed to work as you walk around them.

“The images collapse into flattened pieces and then open up again,” Higby said. “This was done to play with the experience of walking through the actual landscape.”

The exhibition highlights both Higby’s earlier raku-fired ceramics, as well as his more recent large-scale, architectural wall installations. Higby also gives viewers a look at the behind the scenes making of his larger works, from the preliminary drawings to the installation process.

Peter Held, curator of ceramics at the Ceramics Research Center at ASU, worked closely with Higby to put the exhibition together.

“Wayne, myself and several others at the Ceramics Research Center have been working on this for the past three years, so it’s great to finally see it completed,” Held said.

Along with the exhibit, Higby has also published a 216-page color monograph that features both pictures and essays by scholars and writers about his work.

The exhibit, “Infinite Place: The Ceramic Art of Wayne Higby,” will be at the ASU Art Museum until July 20, 2013. The exhibition will then embark on a two-year national tour, traveling to museums in Washington D.C., Pennsylvania and New York.

Reach the reporter at julianne.defilippis@asu.edu or on Twitter @juliannemarie25

5. “Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag” (Oct. 29)
With the fourth iteration, or sixth if you include the mid-trilogy, the annual franchise players will play as Edward Kenway, father to Haytham Kenway who in turn was the father of the protagonist of “Assassin’s Creed III.” Edward is a pirate in the Caribbean Sea during the 18th century. So make ready the “Pirates of the Caribbean” soundtracks as you gallivant from one island to the other. The aim of “Assassin’s Creed IV” is to create one cohesive world, so Edward can leap off of his ship and swim to shore and return without a mere mention of a loading screen. The game will also include dual-wielding flintlock pistols and more naval battles. Ubisoft always finds new ways to make the “Assassin’s Creed” franchise exciting to play, and this is certainly the case with “Black Flag.”

4. “Beyond: Two Souls” (Oct. 8)
Quantic Dream’s previous game, “Heavy Rain,” escaped my interested grasp as I did not own a PlayStation 3 at the time. That, and I had the big mystery spoiled for me. Announced at the Sony Press Conference at E3 2012, “Beyond: Two Souls” stars Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes, a seemingly disturbed young girl who is hounded by this entity known as Aiden. Not much is known about Aiden other than that he has been connected to Page’s character since she was young. From the presentation video, the game has a Twin Peaks/X-Files hybrid twinge that makes for an interesting game setting. Willem Dafoe also joins the cast as Nathan Dawkins, a government scientist, who seeks to help Jodie throughout her journey as she tries to understand her extraordinary abilities. As a fan of these ordinary worlds with supernatural elements narratives, I can’t see myself missing this title.

3.  ”Batman: Arkham Origins” (Oct. 25) 
I think everyone is sick and tired of hearing me scream to the heavens about how much I love the Batman narratives. But I’m so far gone at this point that there really is no reason to stop. “Batman: Arkham Origins” is a game that I’m watchful about. On one hand, the studio (Rocksteady Studios) who put out “Batman: Arkham Asylum” and “Batman: Arkham City” are not returning for “Origins” which always has me a bit nervous. But on the other hand, “Origins” will institute a more careless younger Batman while introducing him to his rogue’s gallery of super villains. It will also be the first Batman game to take place in the whole of Gotham City and takes place on Christmas Eve, which is when some of the best Batman stories take place. Rocksteady famously never included multiplayer in “Arkham City,” because it believed that it didn’t need it. Recently two independent sources, according to Kotaku, say that “Arkham Origins” will have multiplayer, pn which I’ll need to see to pass judgement.

2. “Grand Theft Auto V” (Sept. 17)
I mean, really, was there any question that a Rockstar Game would end up on the most anticipated list? I’ve been a fan of Rockstar Games since “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,” because it has delivered on cinematic experiences much more successfully than other game franchises, such as the “Uncharted Series.” The game returns to Los Santos, the fictional setting that pays homage to Los Angeles. Activities such as jet skiing, base-jumping, tennis, golf and scuba diving are included in GTA V and the dating system from GTA IV (thank the video game gods) have been removed. The video game centers around not one, not two but three protagonists and you are able to switch to them during missions at will. Rockstar Games is always at the forefront of open-world sandbox games and this is certainly the case with “Grand Theft Auto V.”

1.”The Last of Us” (June 14)
“Uncharted 3″ had one of the worst narratives in which I’ve had the misfortune of participating, third only to “Halo 4″ and “Aliens: Colonial Marines.” Naughty Dog is infamous for its game design in that it thinks of the set pieces first and includes the narrative as an afterthought. From what I’ve seen from “The Last of Us,” this is not the case. The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic Pittsburgh as players take on the role of Joel, who has a savvy young companion named Ellie. While there are bandits the player combats in the game, there is a fungus that infects the brains of humans and creates infected monsters that will often kill the player in one hit if the player is careless. The gameplay in “The Last of Us” feels punchy and tangible, as Joel will wrestle with bandits for the control of their weapons and slam enemies into nearby furniture. Ellie will also be made useful as she distracts enemies if you are between a rock and a hard place. There are so many little details strewn about in the preview videos and screenshots for “The Last of Us” that it’d make going over each and every one impossible. But with the promise of an engaging post-apocalyptic game that does/doesn’t have zombies, “The Last of Us” earns my top spot for most anticipated game of 2013.

Don’t let me have all the fun. Sound off in the comments for your most anticipated games of 2013.

Reach the reporter at shfawcet@asu.edu or on Twitter @MaroonandGamer.

The conference hosted a lineup of speakers from all areas of fashion and lifestyle blog world. Sara Matlin from Frances Vintage spoke about blogging for francessmeeks.com and connecting local artists.

Former model turned entrepreneur, Summer Bellessa, from ELIZA Magazine and the popular online YouTube show “The Girls With Glasses Show” presented the conference goers with a presentation on balancing various priorities while running multiple businesses. ASU Walter Cronkite alumna, Sarah Hubbell, talked about her time on MTV’s “The Real World” and how her experience on television influenced her pursuit of her own business, EMMA Magazine.

Danielle Hampton, a high school English teacher turned professional blogger talked about finding individuality and voice when writing a blog.

Finally, successful style blogger Jessie Artigue of Style & Pepper spoke about how to make your blog into a successful business.

Each speaker gave advice on creating a successful blog and business. All of the speakers agreed that bloggers are increasingly becoming more important in shaping culture, especially local culture. Although there seemed to be an inspiring overall theme that I think was perfectly highlighted by Danielle Hampton. Starting a blog can be very challenging with the enormous amount of current blogs already on the internet. According to Hampton, the best attribute to possess when starting a blog is to have your own voice. Here is a list to live by if you want your blog to be successful and rewarding:

1. Set your stage; show your voice in design form.
You want the design of your blog to represent who you are.

2. Find your passion.
Simply, write about what you love and your blog will not only be enjoyable to your readers but also yourself.

3. Write, write, write!
Practice makes perfect. Hampton suggests free writing as much as you can, especially when writer’s block strikes.

4. Tell your own story.
Be real in your writing. Be genuine with your readers.

5. Realize that blogging is a lifelong evolution.
There will be bumps in the road but if you remain determined and passionate about your blog, it all pays off in the end.

Reach the reporter at hdiiullo@asu.edu or follow on Twitter @HaleighD_SP.