Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
Image description: black pawn chess piece surrounded by fallen white chess pieces Lockdown has seemed to me to be an era of the brief in entertainment and gaming trends: we had little to do but consume online media, and so new fads entered and left the online psyche at breakneck speed, the sudden and inexplicable […]
Continue Reading
TW: discussions about addiction and mental health conditions. Links at the bottom of the article for more information on the help available. Image description: A person wearing headphones faces a computer screen. Often upon a school night, and even, I confess, since coming to university, I have had the accusation levelled at me by my […]
Continue Reading
Image description: A black and white photo of the bottom half of a Nintendo DS, a dog is lying down on the screen When I was younger, I was an expert owner of virtual pets, from Tamagotchis to Moshi Monsters. But the best game of them all was always Nintendogs. Looking back on it, Nintendogs […]
Continue Reading
Image description: A cartoon illustration of a person in a swimming pool with a thought bubble of a ladder CW: death The Sims has taken on something of a special role in people’s lives during the pandemic. As much of the world is shut down, we can but reminisce about a time when we had […]
Continue Reading
Image description: a green and blue skateboard lying face down diagonally on the side of a pavement There is no shortage of amazing games in the market right now. From captivating narratives like The Last of Us, to immersive RPGs like Fallout, to indie feats like Hades, and even to love-them-or-hate-thems like Cyberpunk 2077. It […]
Continue Reading
Image Description: The Mario brothers in karts Mario Kart Wii is almost everyone’s (not so) guilty pleasure. Yes, it has caused many an intense argument between siblings over who gets to play as who and many a toddler tantrum over being hit by that dreaded spiked blue shell. You cannot argue that it was not […]
Continue Reading
Image Description: An Xbox Series S and Controller Launched in 2017, Xbox Game Pass is certainly not the first video game subscription service, but has the potential to be the most important for the future of the industry. For a monthly fee, Game Pass allows you access to its wide array of games, available to […]
Continue Reading
Image Description: Lara Croft swinging on a rope in some ruins. She’s gaming’s bestselling heroine, holds 5 World Records, and with over 1300 covers she is on more magazines than any supermodel. For someone who began as a sexed-up Indiana Jones fantasy, Lara Croft has come a long way. When I was young, I idolised […]
Continue Reading
Image Description: Lara Croft from Tomb Raider and Kassandra from Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey Only 18% of the computer games announced at E3 in 2020 had a female protagonist. Yes, this is a dramatic increase from the 2% in 2016 but the number is still woefully low, particularly when Savanta has proven the gaming industry to […]
Continue Reading
Image Description: Screenshot of the opening to Hollow Knight The release of big-budget open-world games like Grand Theft Auto V garners as much media attention as blockbuster cinema nowadays. Massive price tags get sweeping headline coverage: whether it be for the billion-dollar Avatar sequels or Cyberpunk 2077’s comparably modest $135,000,000, eye-watering expenditure is enough to let the […]
Continue Reading
Image Description: Geralt fights a griffin in-game Released in 2015, The Witcher 3 is the latest instalment in The Witcher franchise from CD Projekt Red. Many consider this game to be the definitive RPG experience, and it will almost always make the top five in any ‘Best Games of the Last Generation’ list, if not […]
Continue Reading
Image Description: Scattered maps on a table Of all the moving parts that come together to make a successful game – the graphics, the mechanics, the characters, the music, the plot – you’d be forgiven for thinking that the map is an unimportant detail, a technical feature of little interest to players. In most games […]
Continue Reading
Image Description: Promotional image for Cyberpunk 2077, showing the protagonist and the city Announced 30th May 2012, Cyberpunk 2077 was not always presented as a behemoth of majestic stature. It was teased by a small Polish company known as CD Projekt Red, based on a 1988 tabletop game. The experience was defined to be one for […]
Continue Reading
Image Description: The Jingle Jam and Yogscast Logos Each year at Christmas, many of us appreciate how lucky we are to be able to celebrate with our family, receive presents and eat a ridiculous amount of food. This often brings us to sobering thoughts of the less fortunate which has led to the other defining […]
Continue Reading
Image Description: A Nintendo Switch, playing Stardew Valley, on a desk next to an LED keyboard. As we come to the end of the second national lockdown, many of us, especially those who have been isolating, have been forced to entertain ourselves. Video games are a brilliant way to do this. Multiplayer games allow us […]
Continue Reading
Image Description: The start screen of rogue, showing an armoured adventurer fighting a tentacled head. In 1980, Rogue, an ASCII-art Dungeon-Crawler was released. Designed by Michael Toy, Glenn Whichman and Ken Arnold1, the game sees the player navigate their sprite through a randomly generated maze, gathering equipment, learning magic and fighting monsters in an effort […]
Continue Reading
Image description: A globe showing part of the world map including Africa. The 5th installment of Sid Meier’s popular Civilization turn-based strategy game was released back in 2010. Overall, it’s a fun if mildly repetitive play, that’s most enjoyable on multiplayer with friends. I certainly wouldn’t rank it among my favourite titles, but its still […]
Continue Reading
Image description: A person dressed in a space suit standing in front of cliffs. As you start the game, the screen goes black and a low discordant tone plays. Before you, a line of brightly coloured, cartoonish space suits appear. “Crewmate,” it reads, “There is one imposter among us.” The gameplay of Among Us is […]
Continue Reading
Image description: A person meditating while sitting on a cliff near some mountains. The representation of video games throughout mainstream Western media, particularly conservative outlets, has long been negative. Simply Googling ‘Fox News’ and ‘video games’ reveals numerous articles connecting video games to “mental health hazards”1 for children, with columns establishing tenuous links between violent […]
Continue Reading