Steam Deck


This is kinda the device of my dreams, albeit underwhelming.
 

Childhood Wonder

Growing up during the early 2010's, I grew an affinity for video game handhelds, such as the Nintendo 3DS, and I was memorized by the idea of having one with PC capabilities. It turns out such things were already real in the form of phones and tablets, although I didn't know about, or have any of them.

 
The biggest glimpse I'd get at computer-like capabilities on handhelds were through web browsers, and while this is a tablet, I particularly had a ton of fun with the BlackBerry Playbook which could run Flash games.


What Flash games it could reasonably play though were limited though. Most Flash games and the websites that hosted them were not optimized for the Playbook (I think there might've been some Perry The Platypus games that actually had proper touch screen controls), resolutions and framerates were very scuffed, but by far the biggest limiter was the lack of buttons. There were a lot of Flash games playable through just clicking, and the obvious solution for compatibility is a keyboard, but I thought it would've been cool to have a proper controller for such things.
 
Being able to download files on the Playbook and 3DS also poked my imagination, because while computers could seemingly (from my child perspective) open any file, the Playbook could not, and the 3DS is restricted to just downloading images I believe (Side Note: I don't have any downloaded, but I swear I've seen like 2 images while browsing the internet on my 3DS that were actually compatible with the 3D feature). At the time I didn't really understand why they couldn't download and play PC games, so I imagined it was simple addition that could come in future devices.
 
Another aspect that likely contributed to these thoughts was Windows 8. Windows 8 so clearly leaned into touch screens with its UI and UX, even as a child it reminded me of phones and tablets.
 
Over the years I changed my mind about that as I understood electronics a little more, and the companies that made them, but then to my surprise Valve decided to just straight up make such a device (and now Microsoft is doing so as well), and now I have a Steam Deck, so now I can experience the cool, albiet the disappointingly realistic version of that childhood desire.


Physical Device

The very first issue I had with this thing is that it's just really big for a handheld. I get why, there's so much technology inside of it, but I've always had a preference for smaller handhelds (even the standard Nintendo Switch is pushing it for my liking). It's big enough to notably compromise its portability, it wouldn't really fit in any normal sized pocket, so it's like a laptop in which some sort of bag would be preferred to comfortably carry it to places (it does come with a carrying case which is nice). Even besides its portability though, the Steam Deck just feels very bulky which I'm not the biggest fan of.
 
As just a controller, the shape of the system itself is a little uncomfortable, but it's tolerable enough for me to get used to it. The buttons and sticks and stuff for the most part feel pretty good. Clicking the trackpads is the only thing I'd say doesn't have very good physical feedback, and in general I find the buttons on the back uncomfortable to press (they're at an awkward angle and require a bit of force), and uncomfortable to rest my fingers on (which sucks because they're located right where my fingers want to rest in the first place). The d-pad also feels kinda sharp, so badly so to actually cut anything, but it wears on my thumb a little faster than a lot of other d-pads, I don't have issues missing or accidentally getting diagonal inputs though, so that alone puts it above a few d-pads in my eyes. The sheer weight of it also just makes it uncomfortable to hold on occasion.
 
One thing I also miss about other devices is having physical games. I imagine slapping on an external disk drive is possible, but physical PC games aren't even much of a thing anymore. Digital games have their conveniences, but having a pretty box to hold is something I like.


Operating System

I don't like of how seemingly every system nowadays has opted to turn home screens into Recent tabs. Steam's Big Picture Mode isn't different in that regard.
 

There's not very much customizability to it, and one of the most useful customizable parts, the folders, are tucked quite a bit off to the side. I tried checking out some mods for it, but even then I didn't find a ton of options (at some point in the modding process I got duped into setting some specific password, and I don't remember what it was, so that sucks). The overlay for when you're in a game not always being able to save your last menu location can be quite inconvenient sometimes. Aside from one more thing I'll mention which applies to the alternative as well, I do find Big Picture mode to be ultimately serviceable.
 
Desktop Mode is pretty cool, it's where the "handheld computer" aspect comes into play. It's in part a very big deal to me because this is actually my first time owning a computer, so I can actually customize it to my liking.
 

Customization hasn't gone without its pain though. I tried for a couple of days to get a particular Don't Starve Webber cursor, but because it was made for Windows, I had to try and port it to some Linux format. I never successfully ported it, wasting an agonizing number of hours, and ending in disappointment. Even once I did get a cursor I liked, the main application I use, Firefox, just overwrites it anyways and I haven't bothered trying to fix that. I also struggled to find icons and windows that I liked.
 
I still opt to use Big Picture Mode a lot out of convenience. It feels more natural to navigate a menu with a d-pad when just trying to get into a game, rather than navigating a desktop with a trackpad, plus when playing on TV desktop UI comes off as pretty small.
 
Having grown up with laptops that were complete garbage, the Steam Deck is probably the most powerful computer I've ever had my hands on, that plus the fact that this comes with Linux instead of Windows is an incredibly refreshing experience. Having the CPU or whatever not constantly maxed out from preinstalled background processes is truly a magical experience to a computer normie like me. I appreciate that my Steam Deck isn't in a constant state of overheating, and it doesn't take like 20-60 minutes to boot into the desktop, it takes maybe 1 minute instead.

Probably my largest overarching issue with the Steam Deck is amount of technical issues. Sometimes the system restarts upon trying to boot up a game, sometimes it gets stuck while powering down and thus doesn't power down until you force it too by holding down the power button, sometimes audio as a whole doesn't work. The audio in particular has been one of my biggest issues at the moment, for some reason an update broke my Steam Deck's ability to automatically switch between handheld and TV audio, and I can only manually switch it while in Desktop Mode. There's this notion I've heard that the Steam Deck is something to recommend all your friends and family as some sort of ultimate gaming device, but frankly I think the inconvenience of the technical issues would make it unpreferable to a lot of people. Frustrating technical issues are pretty much a universal constant when it comes to computers I guess though, so as a prebuilt computer the Steam Deck is actually pretty nice, although you'd probably wanna buy an external keyboard, mouse, and monitor if you were to use it primarily as a computer.


Aperture Desk Job


This is essentially the Steam Deck tech demo, so I figured I'd save talking about it for this post. To my surprise, it actually barely uses most of the Steam Deck's features. There's like 2 segments that have you press all the buttons once each, but aside from those the game mainly just focuses on the gyroscopic control. The gameplay isn't particularly exhilarating, it's just a very simple turret shooter. The most memorable part of the game to me is the writing, I found it funny. There's not much to the game, it only took me half an hour, overall while I appreciate it as a free game I got to play on my snazzy system, I probably won't remember it much.


Playing Other Games And Stuff

I was worried at first that a ton of the games I wanted to play wouldn't be compatible, but I'd estimate so far I've had an over 90% success rate in games simply working. Because I'm not frequently interested in modern, cutting edge games, so far the Steam Deck hasn't had a whole lot of performance issues (it gets really hot when playing some games though, which makes me really worried). So far the only game I've paid for and haven't gotten to work is Vanguard Princess, and there's only been like 3 others that outright haven't worked for me so far.

I was excited to see what I could do with all the buttons and trackpads and stuff, but I haven't run into a ton of games that I care to experiment with so far. Don't Starve is the main game that came to mind, due to being my favorite video game, and to me vastly preferring its mouse and keyboard controls over its gamepad controls, I figured the Steam Deck would be great for it. Despite liking it so much though, Don't Starve isn't a game I'm in the mood for often (because it tends to involve large time investments), so haven't really bothered with it. But then I saw Streets Of Rogue on sale for like $12, and that's another game I love, that I have similar feelings about towards the controls, and that game works pretty well on the Steam Deck (I put the menu cancel button on R5 though due to using up so many other buttons, and it's kinda awkward).
 
The trackpads have also been very nice when using more standard computer applications. Browsing the internet is fun!
 
I had one very specific Flash game in mind to try on Steam Deck, Ultimate Flash Sonic, because I have a lot of nostalgia for it. Setting up the controls was kinda tedious, but it worked well, though unfortunately I've come to the conclusion that don't think Ultimate Flash Sonic held up very well.
 
I think it's reasonable for the onscreen keyboard to be so big, I wish there were transparency options, I don't like so much of the screen being covered up.
 
 
Surprisingly the only game I've found (besides Aperture Desk Job), which features analog trigger support is Yo Noid 2:
 
Analog Dabbing is the future!
 
Steam Input in general is very nice, the entire desktop mode wouldn't really work with a controller with Steam Input. There are lots of little features that can be helpful though. For example, Penny's Big Breakaway normally requires you to continually hold inputs on the d-pad to keep the camera angled, but with Steam Input I was able to turn the camera angles into toggles instead.

I was planning to talk positive about Steam Recording, but it now it's broken while in Big Picture Mode (it broke alongside that update that also screwed with my audio), so that sucks considering I primarily play games in Big Picture Mode.
 

Conclusion

I hope I came off as pretty positive on the Steam Deck, because I like it. I would describe it as a AA system, it's really good, but it's lacking in polish. I hope mine lasts a while, I've totally already grown attached to it. Having a computer is awesome :)


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