Right now, I’m playing the early access version of Baldurs Gate 3. I’m getting ready to put it down (frustrated: BG3 has the potential to be good, but without controller support, I’m getting really frustrated with the UI. ) and switch to Yakuza Like a Dragon.
What are you playing now and what are you looking forward to playing next?
After religiously following the order number tracking efforts on the Steam Deck subreddit (finally got mine May '22) it’s been my ‘clearing the backlog whilst sitting with the significant other’ device…heavily punctuated with Vampire Survivors and, lately, Diablo 4. It’s a great little roguelike device – stuff like Cult of the Lamb, Spelunky 2, and Rogue Legacy 2 – that I can just play for a few minutes wherever the Heck I’d like.
I still find it like holding black magic. I’m a software engineer, and I understand how it works, but playing a Windows port of a PS4 game (like Horizon) in Linux in my hands is something I don’t think I’ll ever not be impressed by!
I got to ask: what’s your secret on still clearing the backlog since that time? I’ve gotten mine since June '22 if I remember correctly, and my backlog-beating definitely got reduced.
+rep for Spelunky and Rogue Legacy 2! Really loved my short play session with RL2 when trying several games out for my backlog list, but haven’t gotten back to it. Spelunky I adore, but I can’t deny it’s frustrating to get through it despite actually making progress after a while.
Big respect to Valve and CrossOver for turning Wine into something more usable for handheld devices running Linux (and now even macOS is profiting from it with their Game Porting Kit). There are still caveats, but it’s definitely good enough for me. Software engineers like us can easily tweak with settings or improve compatibility with quick tricks compared to a regular Joe, but it’s still impressive. I’ve always wanted to build a tiny Raspberry Pi handheld just for coding, but this is way better.
Honestly my backlog has still somewhat grown at a steady pace, but I’ve kept my Steam Deck mostly roguelikes for killing time and one or two ‘main’ games which helps keep focus. The steady stream of disappointing 2023 releases has certainly helped too…! It’ll be interesting to see stats if Valve do another Steam Replay; 2022 on Deck for me was Vampire Survivors, Rogue Legacy 2, Horizon, Hitman 3, and Elden Ring.
I also still alternate between the Deck and my main machine, playing more controller-focused stuff on Deck. My main machine is more FPS and driving-sim focused – although it would be amusing to play a sim on Deck hooked up to my racing rig…!
Hmm, I definitely should start planning one or two main games to beat on the Deck during commute. Definitely got some time to spare for playing something, would help knock down the backlog a peg or two.
I’ve definitely switched away from my main machine (gaming laptop) as it just overheats and hampers performance because of that, sadly. And you could play a racing sim quite easily on the Deck to be honest. You’ll only need something to mount the Deck or dock it.