Gaming / 13/04/2021 Console Scalping

Picture this: the brand new PS5 launches, you click onto the Game website to pre-order, and all copies are out of stock within the first 10 minutes of being launched. You ask yourself: who could possibly be so quick and greedy to buy all the PS5s? Also known as ‘scalping’, teenagers used bots to buy...

Gaming / 13/04/2021 A Brief History of the Zelda Empire

The Legend of Zelda games have become something of a household staple. Zelda, having been around for over thirty-four years, is one of the most popular franchises in Nintendo’s history. Since its initial release in February 1986, Zelda videogames have reportedly sold over 125 million copies, across more than twenty-five games.  The games follow three...

Gaming / 13/04/2021 The Best AAA Games

Fire Emblem: Three Houses As a big fan of indie games, I rarely play AAA titles. The Call of Dutys and GTAs haven’t ever really appealed to me that much — they are fun, don’t get me wrong, but they’ve never really been games I could play for hours on end. I certainly wouldn’t play...

Gaming / 23/03/2021 Why I find it hard to unwind when playing video games

I love games; at one point, I’d even say I was nearly addicted to playing online games. It was all I thought about, and when I wasn’t playing these games such as League of Legends, I’d be watching videos on them. But as I got older, I found it very difficult to enjoy playing games...

Gaming / 23/03/2021 A Brief History of the Super Mario Empire

Mario was created by video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, who joined the Nintendo company at the age of twenty-four after graduating from university. Nintendo’s flagship character Mario first graced the screens of arcade machines back in 1981, starting off as a supporting character called ‘Jumpman’ in the game Donkey Kong.  ‘Jumpman’ was rebranded as Mario...

Gaming / 23/03/2021 The best map in all of Fire Emblem

Fire Emblem Fates broke new ground for the SRPG series when its three titles were released in 2015. Fates is usually referred to as one title in the series, but is made up of three ‘paths’– Birthright, Conquest, and Revelation– which all released simultaneously, with each of the three offering a different story and gameplay...

Gaming

Board Games
Photo: Unsplash
Gaming

Board Games

The Game of Life When my family and I fancy an afternoon playing a board game, we usually reach for The Game of Life. It’s fun, easy, and absolutely hilarious when someone lands on a spot and has to give up all their money (it’s usually the sore loser among the group). The Game of…

Games of the Year
Photo: Unsplash
Gaming

Games of the Year

Animal Crossing: New Horizons It seems almost impossible to write about the top games of 2020 without mentioning Animal Crossing! The seemingly perfect timing of the game’s release as most of the world was in, or heading into, nationwide lockdowns was probably one of the greatest accidental marketing strategies of all time. The game instantly…

Slender and its Influence on YouTube Horror
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Gaming

Slender and its Influence on YouTube Horror

Back in 2009, Something Awful user Eric Knudsen created the creepypasta character Slender Man via a competition in which users had to create “paranormal images” using Photoshop. He added a tall, thin, faceless man to some black and white pictures of children and added snippets of text suggesting their abduction and death. Now, Slender Man…

Lockdown Games Part II
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Gaming, Venue

Lockdown Games Part II

The 2017 reincarnation of Star Wars Battlefront II has proven to be a game that I just can’t stop playing during both of this year’s lockdowns. Despite the criticism it received in previous years, the game now feels fully complete to me and I wish that the developers would continue to work on this tremendously…

Lockdown Games Part II
Photo: Unsplash
Gaming, Venue

Lockdown Games Part II

Pokémon Platinum is a welcome respite to the stress of lockdown. Any time I want to squeeze some serotonin into my life, I boot up my ancient Nintendo DS, wipe my completed game file, and start playing again from scratch.  You play as a Pokémon trainer, travel through the Sinnoh region, battle and capture Pokémon…

The Impact of Covid-19 on the Gaming Industry
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Gaming, Venue

The Impact of Covid-19 on the Gaming Industry

Covid-19 has had some devastating effects on businesses all around the world, but the gaming industry has not suffered as much as it has boomed.  Though we’ve seen delays in games, like Cyberpunk 2077, and cancelled competitions, we’ve also seen the gaming industry adapt with the changing times and still continue to thrive.  While the…

The State of the MMO Genre in 2020
Photo: Unsplash
Gaming, Venue

The State of the MMO Genre in 2020

MMOs – that’s Mega Multiplayer Online games – first (commercially) began in the 1990s with the release of Neverwinter Nights. Since then, we have seen countless titles: some which remain powerhouses today. One thing we have also seen is the stagnation of the genre, an inertia resulting from similar formulae being reproduced each new release….


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The University of East Anglia’s official student newspaper. Concrete is in print and online.

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