GAMING

CO-EDITOR LOUISA SADLER

Virtual Reality & PS5 Gaming

BY TEEGAN ARICIOGLU

Gaming and electronic items are becoming extremely popular, especially in our 21st century. I feel moving forward introducing Virtual Reality as a new way of learning would be very beneficial for the learners as well as being beneficial to the tutors. My reasons being is that individuals with additional needs can find it difficult to maintain concentration during learning time and some can even struggle with the whole classroom setting. It just simply doesn’t work for them and this is why I believe introducing virtual reality as a new way of learning for those struggling with additional needs or anxiety would be an amazing step towards our future learning programme. When using virtual reality, you can be present in your own thoughts which really does help when blocking out challenging noises or distractions in your environment. I feel this style of learning can really give these individuals a great chance to thrive in learning. For our gaming content we will be comparing the old PlayStation consoles starting from the PS2, to the PS5. We will be reviewing the gaming graphics and features so we can look at how the gaming experience of PlayStation has grown through time. I feel reflection on the growth of the consoles would be of great importance to see where we came from in gaming to where we are going to in the gaming world. I’d also like to remind everyone of the PS2 best game releases ... which for myself is Crash Bandicoot, we would be very interested in hearing what our gamers favourite games are and what console is their favourite. The new PS5 qualities that the previous consoles don’t contain are… backwards compatability – this means you can play PS4 games on the PS5 console you can access around 4000 PS4 games on the PS5. The PS5 loads games faster than any console before. It’s quick moving and fast connecting, the new dual sense controller is also a game changer.

Animal Crossing: One Year On

BY LOUISA SADLER

It’s just been over a year since the muchanticipated Animal Crossing game came out and is still one of the most popular games on the Switch to date. So, what has contributed to the success of Animal Crossing New Horizons and why do us gamers still love to play it over a year after its initial release?

COMFORT One of the reasons as to why Animal Crossing New Horizons became such a popular game was its ability to bring us comfort and a form of distraction. New Horizons was released shortly before the UK went into the first national lockdown back in March 2020, a time where we couldn’t go out, see our friends and just generally socialise with one another. However, with New Horizons, we could escape our reality for just a couple of hours and create a deserted island that was our own. With the online feature, we could invite our friends over to our islands and interact with one another that way. New Horizons also allowed us to get lost in the creating of our island. We could spend hours building DIY recipes, catching balloons, planting trees and fruit, planting flowers, catching bugs, fishing. There is so much for us to do that we forget just how much time we’ve been playing New Horizons. UPDATES New Horizons is also a game that continues to get updates every so often. In the summer of 2020, we got the swimming update where we could explore the sea surrounding our islands and catch sea creatures. There’s also always something to collect for different events happening around the world, like Easter, Winter, and international events. Nintendo is continually adding content to New Horizons so there’s always something new and different to explore so if you play all the time or play every now and then, you will always find something new to do.

OVERALL It is easy to see why Animal Crossing New Horizons is still popular well over a year after its initial release back in 2020. It has allowed us to escape our reality of the lockdowns we’ve been through, allowed us to connect with friends when we otherwise couldn’t in person, and allowed us to explore our creatives sides in developing our islands. Animal Crossing New Horizons I believe will be one of those games that will carry on being popular years after its release and one we will always go back to no matter how much time has passed.