Here at ninjarefinery.com I’m always looking at other approaches to how I can get useful/helpful information across to people. Reviews are useful, right? Understanding how things work is useful. Well, what about compatibility and functionality? I want to start to deliver some experiences of games on the Steam Deck.
Having had a Steam Deck for a few months, I’ve been slowly prepping my portable library to keep me entertained wherever I am, and whatever I’m doing.
With that in mind, I’m starting a new series of pieces called “On Deck” giving a brief rundown of some of the games in my library and how well they run. These will be a part of both ninjarefinery.com and fullsync.co.uk so keep eyes peeled for them! I might even appear over at enostech.com too….
The process
Process is king! And being consistent in approach is important to be able to deliver reliable content. So, whilst not a major in-depth analysis, lets set some expecations and understand what we’re looking for.
- Game age/origin Not all games are brand new, and let’s be honest, we’d expect older games and smaller games to run better than the latest and greatest, right? But not all games are Steam Deck compatible, and those that are, aren’t always the best experience ever. So we set thte stage for what we’d expect based on age, size and perhaps the developer? Is it listed as Deck verified?
- Default settings What settings is it defaulting to? How far could we push it to see changes in performance?
- Docked mode How does it look and perform when docked and played on a TV?
- Handheld mode How does it fare when handheld (my primary use for the Steam Deck)?
- Review of overall experience Is it delivering a great new way to experience the game? Is it too intense on power and resource to run reliably? Perhaps we had some performance issues or inconsistencies. Better still, it might have been a great overall experience!
Getting started
So, I’ve played a good amount of my Elden Ring playthrough on Steam Deck, plenty of time on things like Olli Olli World and Jedi: Fallen Order. I’ve even started testing Apex Legends and running Microsoft XCloud to get into that massive library of games, too.
It’s not all plain sailing, my Hitman Freelancer run was impacted by a crash which set me back a bit. Sometimes cloud save syncs aren’t perfect, either. So there’s a lot to investigate!
Coming up will be my view on Jedi: Fallen Order and Apex Legends. Then we’ll go from there.
It’s nice to have a new way to look at things, and a new toy to play with. The Steam Deck is breathing new life into older games, too. Letting me take old favourites on the road, or just in bed. This and the Nintendo Switch are my lifelines as I’m expecting to become a parent again very soon…..let’s use those late night feeds wisely!
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