Ever since the Steam Deck was announced it had always piqued my interest, the ability to play my steam library handheld and wherever I wanted was a massive draw. Another draw for me was that games tended to be cheaper on steam and there wasn’t a subscription to pay to play online. Win win I thought. When the Steam Deck eventually launched I didn’t have the funds available to be one of the first in the queue to get on, so I put the idea on the back burner until I did.
I always kept checking to see what the reservation queues were like, and every time they were getting longer and got into Q4 of 2022. Eventually in September I decided to pull the trigger, it still said they were due between October and December so I decided to pay my deposit and reserve one for my birthday in November. Low and behold after reserving on 14th September my email to purchase came through in 27th September and I had a Steam Deck in my hand on October 3rd.
Now the excitement begins. The first thing that i noticed when I opened up the box was that the Steam Deck came with a carry case, which I thought was a nice touch to add in, knowing people who buy one are going to be taking them out and about to play, for me it added that nice little touch.
Next, the device itself! Upon opening the case and revealing the Steam Deck, you suddenly get the realisation of how big the device actually is. This is one issue I’ve had in the past with handheld devices and why I’m always dubious about having one. I have fairly large hands, and most of the time when it’s come to other handhelds such as the Nintendo Switch or 3DS’ I’ve always found that my hand cramps after prolonged playing because I can’t get a comfortable hold on the device. However, with the Steam Deck and it’s sheer size, I’ve found this is a device I can sit for a few hours comfortably holding and playing any of the games on my Steam library.
The set up was simple and straightforward, I basically switched on the Deck, picked my time zones, language and wi-fi settings, and then all I needed to do was log into my Steam account, which thanks to the app was as simple as scanning a QR code and allowing access.
I was then free to roam around the UI and download my games! First impressions of the UI was that it was well structured, clean and easy to navigate. Simple press of the Steam button on the console brought up all the different areas you can access such as the home page, games library, the Steam store, settings and more. This made finding my games to download quick and easy.
When you go into your games library, there are several sections for you to browse, you can see all the games that are ‘Great on Deck’, these are the games which are already verified and have the green tick on them, you can see a list of your entire library which will include verified, playable as well as games which aren’t supported. The final options will show you any non steam related games you’ve added as well as any collections you’ve created.
One thing I will say about playing games on the Steam Deck is that it isn’t just limited to the verified and playable games, some of the unsupported games do work as well with a little work. One example of this is that The Avengers is showing as not supported, however, with a little work around you can get the game working quite smoothly, and one thing I love is that there is a whole community out there helping people to get games working on the Steam Deck. One I use very regularly is ProtonDB which will let me know if a game can run on my Deck and what needs to be done to get it working. It’s all through community feedback, so other users will put there experiences in and what they’ve done to get a game working. Fantastic site and one I old highly recommend. Slightly went off there, but I felt that it was a good item to put into my experience and let others know who have a Steam Deck or were thinking about getting one that it’s not just the verified and playable games that work on it.
Another bit linked to playing games on the Steam Deck that I like is the flexibility it has, when you go into Desktop mode, you can go into the discover area which is kind of an app store and there’s different programs to download, and there are some such as Lutris which will allow you to also have other stores on your Steam Deck such as Epic Games, Ubisoft Connect, GoG etc. Which I think is brilliant, allowing you to pull games from other stores.
For me, this is the genius of the Steam Deck, it’s flexibility in terms of what you can do with it, and another thing you can do with it, which I am going to go into more detail about in another article is that you can install windows on the Steam Deck.
When my games were finally downloaded and I was able to play, it was an absolute joy to play, as I mentioned above, it was comfortable to hold and the games played smoothly. Some games do need frame rates restricting or other tweaks doing, similar too other gaming PCs, but this is easily manageable with the 3 dots button on the right hand side of the console. When this is pressed it will bring up a side menu on the right (similar to the Steam menu on the left) which will give different options such as showing notifications, friends list, quick settings for things like setting the brightness, turning wifi, bluetooth and a few other settings on or off. It will also show you a performance section which is where you can limit the frame rate, the refresh rate of the screen, you can also limit the processing power to save battery life as well as manually set the GPU clock control.
As you can see, there is a lot of play with here to get your games running smoothly or at a comfortable playing level. What I like most about this is the simplicity of being able to access it, even when in game all you have to do it press the 3 dots button and the menu is there for you to change. I guess there’s then the thing that as long as you know what you’re changing and understand it, you should be OK, but there is plenty of help out there in the internet world to help you through, so there is never a need to panic, and the website I mention above, a lot of the reviews come with the basics of what you need to change.
In terms of battery life, I can’t really make a solid assessment on this as I mainly play with my Steam Deck plugged in, but from what I have played the battery has generally lasted about 2-3 hours. Again, this will be down to whatever game it is you’re playing. So for example, I will get a good 3 hours maybe more if i’m playing Vampire Survivors, but if I then swap over to Spider-man Remastered, then I will get maybe an hour out of the console, so there is that to bear in mind if you’re thinking about getting on and taking it out and about with you. The more resource intense the game is, the higher the battery use is going to be.
My overall assessment of the Steam Deck is that this is a fantastic piece of equipment, the ability to take my Steam library with me and play wherever I want. My Steam Library has definitely grown a lot in the 3 months that I’ve this console and it has allowed me to just pick up and play more easily when I’ve come home from work and my wife is watching TV, which is another bonus, as she now can have free reign over the TV, however, she does love playing on her Xbox as well.
Would I recommend a Steam Deck? Absolutely, especially if you already have some games in your Steam Library, even if you don’t, there are some brilliant deals to be had in the weekly sales as well as some of the bigger sales that Valve put on during the year.
Which again was another deciding factor for me, games tend to be generally cheaper on Steam than on console and there is no subscription model if I wanted to play online. All an added bonus.
Also, the flexibility of the device as mentioned above, allows for other game libraries to be brought across as well, especially if you’re picking up some of the freebies on Epic Games.
The last thing that I will say is that this is the best gaming purchase I have made in 2022, the Steam Deck is a fantastic little device, and if you're on the fence about getting one, I would highly recommend taking the plunge. You won't be disappointed.
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