House House were kind enough to keep a video of my hands-on session with Big Walk, filmed by one of the participating PRs. Generally, a full video of a preview event including player audio is a lifesaver for a journalist, struggling to keep notes while pushing buttons. But in this case, I don't want to watch the Big Walk video, because then I would hear what the other players were saying when I wasn't there.

You see, I fell down a cliff midway through Big Walk, and spent the night floundering about in the ocean. Eventually, a developer armed with a big, ball-shaped lamp tracked me down and ushered me back up, hoisting me onto his shoulders so that I could leap to a rock. Nights in Big Walk last moments. I was gone for the length of a luxurious toilet break. But still, those were moments in which the others were gathered, waiting for me. Perhaps they were making fun of me. I don't want to know.

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Phwoar, look at that striking steeple on the horizon, I thought after arriving in Crimson Desert’s first town.

I was playing a man I was fairly sure I couldn’t give a toss about, embroiled in a conflict I also couldn’t give a toss about, but that tower. Man, it took my breath away. Who could dwell within it? Who first built it? Can I climb it? Where did they get all of that stone? These questions buzzed around my belfry-addled brain. ‘Hey, stay on track,’ argued another bit of my grey matter, ‘you’ve got a train to find’. ‘Train can wait,’ I replied, ‘must take in the visual majesty of this faraway tower and maybe visit it to see if there’s anything interesting to do there’.

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One of my most useful tech purchases in recent times hasn't been anythng big or flashy, but a humble Ugreen SSD enclosure. It essentially takes any spare M.2 drive you might have laying around and turns it into a fast external SSD, with minimul fuss and for a lot less cash than just buying a whole new portable drive. I've done this with a 2TB Crucial P310 I had left over, and it's worked a treat for the last year. At Amazon, it's down to £16 in the UK and $16 in the USA. The latter is for Amazon's Spring Sale in the States, while the one in the UK is more of a cyclical discount, judging by the price history.

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High-resolution monitors have become a lot cheaper over recent years, in contrast to a most internal component types, which are currently in a race to see who can plunge us into financial destitution the fastest. It wasn’t that long ago that the 4K, 160Hz, 27in panel of the Asus ROG Strix XG27UCG would put it out of reach for anyone who didn’t have access to a sovereign wealth fund, yet here it is, discounted to just £319 / $299. That’s only about half what it would cost to buy a new graphics card capable of actually running 4K games.

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I’ve been through much with my Razer Wolverine V3 Pro. Malenia, Blade of Miquella. Groal the Great. The bit in Dispatch where you have to choose a favourite doughnut and "Chocolate" isn’t an option. Then there’s the psychic shock of having a game controller than costs more than, say, 40 quid to begin with – it’s not something that immediately feels right>.

The Wolverine V3 Pro itself, however, feels very right indeed. It's a solid and endlessly comfortable wireless pad, whose buttons are enriched with the pleasant mechanical clickiness of a high-end mouse. Cost-wise, it’s also a lot less now than when I got mine: Amazon US has it at 35% off during their Spring sale, while in the UK, Scan has it down from £190 to £130. Still premium, but worth it, in my eyes. And hands.

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The new Steam Machine remains an almost tragically distant prospect, despite Valve’s attempts at reassurance. But y’ know what the next best thing is? Not caring about hardware release dates, obviously. The second> next best thing is to equip a Steam Deck with Ugreen’s handy 9-in-1 docking station, which is down from $60 to $40 in the Amazon US Spring Sale – and isn’t all that expensive in the UK either.

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Following Epic Games' mass layoffs, a Fortnite producer has said that the devs left behind "cannot even fully understand" the sort of impact the job cuts will have on the game during this year and into the future.

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The Asus ROG Strix Scope II 96 Wireless has been a long-time favourite mechanical keyboard of mine. That's because of its highly functional, near-full-size layout, its smooth, lubricated switches, and just the sense that the entire package feels thoughtful and well-put-together. I tried looking for a deal for in in the UK, sadly to no avail, though our US pals will be happy to learn it's currently $130 from Amazon US in their Spring Sale (that, for some strange reason, is happening over a week after the UK one ended).

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