So, to get the Russia/Ukraine bit out of the way... yes, Putin's still being a bastard, the invasion tries to continue, not much new there. Well, I suppose Putin unilaterally declaring (and unilaterally breaking) an Orthodox Christmas cease-fire counts as new, but it's neither particularly unexpected nor particularly effective, so there's that.
Right, well, that out of the way, happier news, in that I got a new toy. No, not the electric car I put on order back in September, no motion on that as of yet. Rather, I finally picked up a Steam Deck. It's early days yet, but I mostly like what I've seen so far. Once I've got a dock to go along with (currently en route), it might even supplant my old Windows 10 gaming PC as my "main" computer for most tasks. Here's to maybe escaping the Microsoft tax at home, at least!
Of course, the main point of a Steam Deck is games. While I've got a decent backlog of PC goodness to explore with the new hardware, I'm not going to go too deep into choices and possibilities here - trying to sort through hundreds of games at one go and determine what works, what doesn't, and why... well, I already did a fair amount of that when I first started playing with my Steam Link to the living room TV, and I'm not eager to repeat that experience. Rather, I'm going to start with a small selection of games, best described as "whatever jumps out at me", with an eye towards playing individual games of a particular genre until I'm done with it (be that completion or distraction), then remove that game and try the next one. Here's my initial results so far:
- 7 Grand Steps (Compatibility: Playable) - A turn-based, mainly mouse-driven affair, this game will likely be on my Deck basically forever, being tiny and unique. The only issue I ran across (which I'm sure I'll hit again and again with some older games) is that the one time I needed to use the keyboard (entering my family name), it wouldn't recognize the virtual keyboard. I was able to work around that by modifying controller inputs, thankfully.
- Pixel Puzzles Ultimate (Compatibility: Playable) - Maybe it's just my advancing years, but I find it relaxing, every so often, to just work on an old-fashioned jigsaw puzzle. However, I still don't feel that enough to set aside a space in my house for that purpose, plus cats further complicate matters. Luckily, this game (and others like it) exist to scratch that itch. Unfortunately, the "pond" mechanism this game uses for pieces just doesn't work for me on a smaller screen. I'll likely give it another go when I've got the Deck set up in a dock, but otherwise I'll just have to stick to streaming from a regular PC for this one.
- Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (Compatibility: Verified) - Fair odds, this will cover the "RPG" niche on my Deck for a while at least. I've tried streaming it before, but the Steam Controller I have hooked up to my TV lacks a dedicated right analog stick, which is pretty much essential. That, and the smaller screen has me a bit more forgiving towards the dated graphics involved.
So that's it, a new hardware adventure embarked upon, a backlog to mine... I'm almost hoping that this year's new releases are as generally disappointing as last year's were, so I can truly enjoy going back over older games for a bit. Not likely, but I guess I basically win, either way.
