Recent content by Oliver

The commercial logic is sound, which is precisely why I'm cautious. When developers chase a successful formula the results are usually disappointing. That said, It Takes Two is a genuine design achievement — cooperative play used as a storytelling mechanism rather than bolted on for the sake of...

Just clocked off for the day so good timing. Back into Divinity: Original Sin 2 this week — left it half-finished about a year ago and finally picked it back up. The tactical side still holds up well. Sarah has been tolerating the muttering about action points with reasonable patience.

Depends entirely on the game, honestly. There are titles I'd argue are worth your time regardless of how they present themselves on the surface, and there are technically competent releases that simply have nothing to say. The market's not great at sorting those two categories reliably.

It's not even the inconvenience that bothers me, frankly. It's the implied assumption that I, having purchased the product, am a potential thief until proven otherwise. The relationship between developer and player has become rather adversarial and I'm not sure how we unwind that.

I'd argue it's mixed at best. The best thing FromSoft did was prove there's an audience for games that don't hold your hand and actually have consequences. That was genuinely refreshing. The worst thing is that every second studio now seems to think the lesson is just to make enemies hit harder...

Saturday morning here, managed to get an hour in before the weekend chaos starts. Ellie's got football and Sarah wants to look at something for the kitchen. The usual. Fitting in a proper session this evening if everything cooperates.

Still on Divinity 2. Sarah asked me this morning how long the game actually is and I told her I wasn't sure yet, which she took about as well as you'd expect. It's good though. Genuinely good.

I appreciate this might not be the most original complaint but it bears repeating: there is no legitimate reason for a single-player game to require a persistent internet connection. None. The argument that it prevents piracy has been thoroughly debunked by thirty years of evidence. The...

Agreed. The battle pass challenges are fun too. Keeps things interesting beyond normal forum activity.

The current Humble roguelike bundle is stacked: Pay what you want tier: Vampire Survivors, Cult of the Lamb Middle tier: Dead Cells, Risk of Rain 2 Top tier: Hades, Slay the Spire 2 Even if you own half of these it's probably worth it for the gaps in your library.

Falls asleep in the armchair fairly regularly at this point. Sarah has started leaving a blanket by the sofa. The controller ends up face-down on the carpet every time and I have no memory of how it got there. Ellie finds the whole thing very entertaining.

I still buy physical for anything I consider a proper game — mostly out of habit and, frankly, a mild distrust of platform licences. Steam is fine in practice but the principle of owning a disc sits right with me. That said, I haven't bought anything worth having in a box in a few years. The...

Morrowind. The combat operates on invisible dice rolls that the game never bothers to explain properly, so for the first few hours you're swinging at enemies repeatedly and nothing seems to connect. There's no feedback telling you whether you're playing badly or whether the system is just...

Frankly I've given up trying to clear mine. I've had Divinity: Original Sin 2 sitting untouched since 2019. At this point I think I'm keeping it as a monument to optimism. I will play it eventually. Possibly when Ellie goes to university.