Nostalgic video game sweeps Naked Pear Café

Brandon Freer

Staff Writer

According to Bulger, the group started gaming here back in fall 2013 when Super Smash Bros Brawl was still the most recent game in the series. He said, the addition of Super Smash Bros Melee brought students into nostalgia.

Whether it’s card games, board games, or video games being played, that Naked Pear Cafe has become a gathering place for gamers when they don’t have class. One group of people has taken to playing the Nintendo game series Super Smash Bros.

Some of the people who play at the campus center are alumni, including Bruce Douglas-Moore, who has returned to Hudson Valley to study Criminal Justice. Douglas-Moore is the one who supplies the Wii U and the TV for people to use. “I don’t bring it in for me to enjoy, i bring it in for others. I can always play at home, but not everyone else can,” he said.

The Super Smash Bros series,  it is a series of fighting games wherein Nintendo characters, such as Mario, Kirby, and Pikachu battle head to head. Some non-Nintendo characters such as Sonic the Hedgehog are also playable. “Unfortunately a lot of people in the Nintendo community take the game way too seriously,’’ Bulger stated. “I mean, it’s Mario fighting Pikachu, how much less serious can it get?

“Playing like that just takes all the fun out of the game,” Bulger said.  “I’ve seen some tournaments being played and none of the players seemed to be having the slightest bit of fun.”

Many of the same people who play Super Smash Bros at the Naked Pear also play other games with other groups of students. On any given day there could be a group playing Magic: The Gathering or Cards Against Humanity.

“Gaming in the campus center like this is a great social aspect for a lot of students, and in this case perhaps some that wouldn’t be overly involved otherwise,” said Mark Marcus, business administration major.