💾 Archived View for avertentropy.wtf › gemlog › 2023-01-16-steam-deck.gmi captured on 2023-04-19 at 22:19:40. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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well, after reading a hacker news thread full of glowing reviews and being tired of always sitting at my desk to play games i decided to finally give the steam deck a try (after a few days to negate impulse purchasing.) and i have to say i'm extremely happy so far!
my first decision was which model to go with. valve provides three tiers with memory as their main differentiators along with a few superficial additions. the least expensive is $400 and comes with 64GB of eMMC memory, the most expensive is $650 for 512GB of NVMe - a pretty significant price gap for minimal upgrades considering all other hardware is identical. i went with the base model and simultaneously purchased a 512GB 2230 NVMe card off newegg for $80, much more reasonable. these cards are hilariously tiny, literally the size of the traditional SD card! i did the hardware swap today following directions from iFixit and had no problem whatsoever, i highly recommend this path for anybody who is comfortable with electronics builds and wants to save a bit off the cost.
my first game on the steam deck was Celeste. it's been in my library for a really long time after a recommendation from my friend, but i just hadn't been stoked to play it yet. it was perfect for a demo, i was immediately engrossed and spent the nearly 11 hours (and 2048 deaths) spread between three or four sessions seated variously around my house. the battery lasted reasonably long and i needed a break from my session before the battery ran out, i think i charged it twice. it was comfortable to hold with the big grips, the sticks are a little flat for my liking but maybe i can replace them with something else when they wear out. the screen looks great, the touch screen is responsive and easy to use when needed. this is basically the first portable gaming device i've had since the gameboy advance i had maybe 20 years ago as a kid (only played with other people's switch and _hated_ the ergonomics), and couldn't be happier!
regarding Celeste, it's a very rewarding and challenging platformer. the artwork is absolutely wonderful, and the gameplay is butter smooth and just _feels_ right. the most impactful was the writing and themes though, i went in knowing virtually nothing about the game and wasn't expecting it. "this is a platformer, why am i crying?!" but really, it's a phenomenal journey and deserves its 98% overwhelmingly positive review on steam. i was not at all surprised to learn the writer is trans and may have indulged in a little self-insertion in the creation of the story line. overall i highly recommend this game both for the feels and the gameplay.
i've only had the steam deck for a few days now and am looking forward to a playing a wider variety of games. i'm inclined to believe it will really shine with similar platformers and puzzle games like limbo, or darq which is also in my queue. i play a lot of rocket league and i tried a bit but my muscle memory is very tied up in the xbox controller so probably will remain limited to travel use. for now i'm very happy to just plop down on the couch next to my partner and play a bit.