Steam Deck

I'd say you'll get it Monday.

Not got a recent PC so my Steam backlog is a bit ancient but I did play through Portal 2 and Half-Life 2 to which I really enjoyed with the motion controls, however I did experience a few crashes.

I picked up Sekiro, but struggling with it, feels like £25 wasted at the moment

Not sure what to go for next, I've played through the subnauticas on PS5 and really enjoyed them, so may buy those if in a good enough sale.

I'd be interested in playing something like Dyson sphere program, but not sure how well it's going to control on the deck.

While DSP will run on the Steam Deck, I just couldn't get anywhere near a decent control layout. Every one felt like too much of a compromise. I'd also worry that the hardware would start to struggle with once you got a decent sized production line going...

I've been hammering Titanfall 2 & Vampire Survivors mainly. Grabbed River city girls earlier and had a faff with sleeping dogs.

Actually arrived today. Not really had too much time to try it today, but gave Aperture Desk Job a go. Fun little game and gives a good sense of the controls. I was particularly surprised by how good the gyro controls were, although I expect the shooting gallery nature of that section lent themselves well to gyro. I could see them being a bit more fiddly in an actual FPS, but certainly willing to give them a go.

Only negative I've really found control-wise is with the rear buttons. They needed a reasonable amount of force to press (sensible), but that meant I found I was squeezing them rather than pressing. I wouldn't want to use them independently, as trying to just squeeze the button under your little finger and not squeeze the one under your ring finger seems an awkward action. Besides that though, all feels pretty good.

Definitely feels like it will be quite a bit more comfortable than the Switch, which I find makes my fingers go numb after just a few minutes of use, even with my not particularly large hands.

Have Elden Ring downloaded and ready to go. Also downloaded Bayonetta, which is a game I haven't actually played, but seems like it will be a good fit.

I think everyone does this. Press the flat bits with the tip of your fingers,don't try and press or squeeze the bits on the grip.

Something I learnt off reddit today, the click on the touchpads is pure haptic feedback!

I've still not played huge amounts with my Deck, but I have to say the thing that has really sold me on how fantastic this device is was something quite simple. I recently started playing Dark Forces on PC, with the intention of playing the series. I was mid playing it on PC and I assume it won't have cloud saves, so I decided to give Dark Forces 2 a go on the Deck. I fully expected this to not work, being an ancient game and I don't actually think it works on modern Windows without fiddling around with it.

It was flawless. I couldn't believe that it was literally download and play. I did have to get a user made control scheme, but besides that everything was like playing it 25 years ago, except doing so on a portable device.

I don't expect that will be the case with all games and I'm sure there will be some that will refuse to work on Linux, but so far I am 3 for 3 on completely perfect experiences. Quite impressive what Valve have done, not just on the hardware level, but with the OS too.

Has anyone had issues with control templates seemingly not applying?

A friend was interested in how Dyson Sphere and Factorio would play on the Deck, so gave them a go yesterday. Dyson Sphere had a few community made templates, but nothing seemed to work with the controls. It just had the right stick as a mouse, with the triggers acting as mouse buttons. Switched to another template and had the same.

Factorio seemed to be fine, although the official layout is madness. Could be playable, but I wouldn't want to solely play this on the Deck. I assume with the Switch version just announced, they are going to do an overhaul of the UI to make it console/handheld friendly. Hopefully they will transfer that over to the Deck too.

Ah, maybe. It was one that was automatically selected though. I'll try again later.

Also, are people using a dock and connecting keyboard/mouse when messing around setting up emulators and the like? If so, any recommendations?

Tried to play around setting up game pass streaming, but it was a bit of a pain navigating desktop mode on the Deck itself. Definitely seems like you should connect K+M if you are going to mess around outside of game mode.

Yeah, desktop mode really needs k&m. My dock from jsaux took ages to arrive, luckily I had a couple from the time I used a Macbook and those were fine.

The keyboard & mouse I use (Keychron K2 / Logitech Master 2S) already support switching between multiple bluetooth devices, so it's super convenient to connect when using desktop mode for more than a couple of minutes. I probably wouldn't want to use either for gaming, but it's perfect for not wanting to throw my Deck out the window every time I use the software keyboard.

Anyone tried Divinity Original Sin 2 (or similar) on the Deck? Looking for a decent RPG to work through on the go and wondering whether these translate well control wise (and it's currently on sale)