“I was deranged,” says Half-Life writer Marc Laidlaw of his decision to publish the plot of Episode 3 as fanfiction. “I was living on an island, totally cut off from my friends and creative community of the last couple decades, I was completely out of touch and had nobody to talk me out of it. It just seemed like a fun thing to do… until I did it.”

Laidlaw first discovered that community in the mid 90s, in the office of Valve, where Gabe Newell and team were already hard at work on Half-Life. “I’d seen bits and pieces of the levels they were working on, but as soon as I heard the name, I just got this amazing buzz,” Laidlaw says. “I could see the whole world they were aiming at somehow, and I felt it was a collective vision. This is one reason it’s so weird to me when people try to attribute authorship to me that I’ve never felt. It was all there when I got there, in embryo.”

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There's a sometimes hard to define line between a game that effectively establishes and embellishes its fiction (good, righteous), and one that has "lore" (tedious, lowly). It's a delicate art that warrants close consideration. It also warrants some good examples, which brings us to ΔV: Rings Of Saturn. Which, as it gets closer to release, I'm going to be nice to and call either Delta V or Rings Of Saturn. Even though Triangle Vee Colon Rings is more fun.

It's also fun, having played it, to keep up with how it’s doing in early access, not just because I'm looking forward to seeing it take off, but because its dev has spent the last few years writing delightful patch notes in the style of in-world news bulletins.

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Last time, you decided that elaborate corridor architecture is better than funicular fights. I wholeheartedly agree with you, but needed to check because the number of video game funicular fights compared to real-world funicular fights did suggest they might be wildly popular. Now we know. As we continue the mission, this week I ask you to choose between the evils of violence and money. What's better: Quake 2's railgun or the currency 'Gold'?

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Over the last few weeks I've spent a number of hours with Honkai: Star Rail's closed beta, and it certainly seems that MiHoYo's upcoming free-to-play RPG is hoping to capture a similar audience to Genshin Impact. Star Rail's turn-based battles and JRPG leanings might be a bit of a departure from Genshin's open-world adventuring, but it's definitely, 100%, without a doubt, anime as heck. Oh, and very gacha. There's a lot of currencies. So many currencies. Still, I think it's shaping up to be a decent time.

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I know we’ve been bleating on about PC system requirements lately, but the spec demands of Kerbal Space Program 2 also demand a special, visibly uncomfortable mention. This game, fresh into early access and the sequel to one that needed a mere 512GB of VRAM, lists the formidable RTX 3080 among its recommended hardware. That’s a £600-plus> graphics card, and for the bare minimum of Low quality at 1080p? That’ll be either a GTX 1070 Ti or a Radeon RX 5600 XT.

Consternation at the star-high starting specs prompted Private Division community lead Michael Loreno to pen a forum post explaining the requirements, suggesting they were subject to change as further optimisations are added and that "the game is certainly playable on machines below our min spec." Sadly, I’ve been finding that several of the most-used GPUs among Steam users – including the immensely popular GTX 1060 – are likely to face serious performance woes in KSP2’s current state.

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I have, genuinely, been trying to get plants for my office area (desk in the corner of the living room) for like nine months now. If my need for plants were a child, it would have been born. I had a decent pot plant called James Plant back in the UK, but when I moved I bequeathed James Plant to Graham - and, now that I think about it, Graham hasn't told me how James Plant is doing, so I should probably check in on that.

I know that digital plants do not replace real plants in a physical sense - i.e. I am getting no oxygenating benefit from them - but the little plants in Garden In! make me happy. And I've just realised the name is a pun, too.

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With the new Ryzen 7000X3D processors arriving today, it's perhaps not surprising to see last-gen models reaching new price lows. That's the case for the Ryzen 5700X, one of the fastest eight-core Ryzen CPUs ever made (behind the 7700X, 5800X and 5800X3D) and now firmly a member of the sub-£200 club. In fact, this processor is down to £177 at Amazon UK at present, meaning it's rapidly approaching half of its £329 UK RRP.

Yes, I know the CPU pictured is the 5800X. Please don't tell anyone! I didn't think you'd look at it that closely.

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Buying American imports on Amazon UK is one of the best ways to get a steep discount without resorting to lesser-known sellers, and occasionally you find a deal that is streets ahead of the nearest comparable price in Blighty. That's the case with this deal, where you can pick up Lexar's NS100 SATA SSD in a beautiful 1TB capacity for just £46.

That's a super low price for what is by all accounts quite a reasonable drive, with read speeds up to 550MB/s, write speeds up to 500MB/s, TLC NAND flash memory and a DRAM-less design.

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I’m not enough of a survivalist log-lugger for Sons of the Forest to be my leisure time bag, though it’s always entertaining to performance-test a PC game that’s constantly trying to kill you. This analysis and settings guide, then, is brought to you the ragged nerves of someone that’s spent several hours being screamed at by camouflaged cannibals, having only survived long enough to hear them by consuming several tins of cat food. Honestly, I am more cat food than man at this point.

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I spent some time with Crime Boss: Rockay City, the upcoming Payday-esque heist FPS that sees you tackle crime and murder in either singleplayer or co-op, all with nostalgia hits from characters played by Michael Madsen and Vanilla Ice. What's happened here is: I've come away with thoughts, but they're thoughts on one of three modes that's the least useful one to have thoughts on. The other two - the bulk of the game - weren't playable. Still, what I did play was simplistic fun that valued chaos over stealth, with middling results. Unless the other two modes wrap up its action in more interesting ways, I'm unsure whether I can see Crime Boss racking up the cash when it releases next month.

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