RAVE: Steam Deck: My Experience

 

It all started with the simple video above. A perfect little snap-shot of what it could do and what it came with. For a person whom was on the fence for so many years about PC gaming, I finally saw my gateway to the supposed PC Master Race.

Immediately I started telling everyone I knew about it, my friends and family heard me go on and on about it and soon, I decided to put my money where my mouth was and reserved my spot to get one. The Steam Deck.

Now anyone late to the Steam Deck (now abbreviated as SD) party does not know that part of the great hardware/ chip shortage of 2022, there was a reservation queue to get one and you had to wait your turn. Not the now instant, order one and get it 2 weeks later business, nope. From the initial announcement (July 2021) to the first SD being sent out (Feb. 2022) and the actual SD being in my hands (End of Aug. 2022) it took about a month after the announcement for me to put down my reservation. Long I waited for it and even crazier was the day I finally got my email to purchase it, I even consider not doing it. I've been saving my money for it since I decided to get it and well, I low key convinced myself it was too expensive. Thankfully my wife, who knows me so well, knew how much I wanted it and how much I spoke about it for months on end and she was the one that convinced me to just put the money down and get it.

It was the best gaming decision I had ever made.

Speaking of gaming, as I mentioned before the Steam Deck I only owed one Steam game and whilst Marvel Puzzle Quest is still my game, it felt a bit underwhelming to run it on something as powerful as this. No I wanted to test it limits so I started watching videos and I fell down the rabbit hole of emulation. Soon my SD had tons of games from my yesterdays like Shining Force Resurrection of Dark Dragon for the GBA, Brute Force for the Xbox, even PS3 games like Demons Souls. I even revisited one of my faves; Hunter the Reckoning: Redeemer

I would come to learn very quickly how strong an emulation machine the SD was. On top of that, as a person who barely knew anything about gaming PCs and emulation, the SD was so easy to work with and the tutorial videos I watched were so comprehensive that I got all my emulations up and running pretty quickly (with the exception of some Saturn games but the Saturn is a real pain to emulate I've heard). I was in love, I had all these consoles of my past in the palm of my hand now and I could take them wherever I went.

However as powerful of a emulator it is, the SD is also capable of playing PC games I never had a chance too on the consoles I owned. I now had a chance to play Dead Rising 3 which I never had a chance to play before because I did not own a Xbox One and it was only release for Xbox and PC, I was able to play Thymesia which was only released for next gen consoles, Iratus; one of my favorite roguelikes and of course the big daddy of them all, I was (and still am) able to play Risk of Rain 2, the far superior PC version (with the DLC that looks like is never coming to console). My Steam Catalogue is much bigger now and these damn frequent but amazing Steam Sales always snatch my attention and I always grab a game (or two or three). On top of that, I continued to tinker with it beyond emulation and now I have so many plug-ins, intro videos for when I boot it up and my biggest achievement and modification for it, dual booting to Windows 11. With Windows, I can now play Risk of Rain 2 mods, I can get games from storefronts not Steam like Epic, Xbox Game Pass and Amazon Games.

For too long I played in the 'walled gardens' of Xbox, Sega, Nintendo and Playstation. I truly did not know what it was like to have the freedom to play games in which manner I saw fit. To modify them, to make tweaks and have full autonomy over the experience I was having.

I can honestly say, the Steam Deck has changed my life and I feel if anyone gave it a try, it'll change theirs too. The possibilities are endless and the future is so bright. I am all ready planning on playing with more mods in Risk of Rain 2, playing games not available on previous gen consoles like the new Deck 13 (makers of The Surge) game 'Atlas Fallen' and participate in indie showcases like Steam's 'Next Fest'. The Steam Deck maybe the last gaming console I'll ever buy and I do not think I'll regret that choice.