Over the weekend, the first full-fledged Steam Deck reviews began to appear on the network. Many reviewers praise the device for its performance in AAA games, an open operating system, and sometimes call it a new word in the portable gaming market. One of the main advantages is the ability to easily emulate titles from old PlayStation and Nintendo Switch.
Briefly about the launch
On February 25, the mailing of invitations began, allowing you to place an order for the purchase of Steam Deck. So far, we are talking only about the countries of the first wave, which does not include Russia.
In honor of this, Valve also published a release trailer for the device and introduced a new free game Aperture Desk Job. Its action takes place in the Portal universe, and the project itself will be released for Steam Deck on March 1.
Greg Coomer, one of the Steam Deck developers, told Axios that Valve’s portable PC is a new unique category of devices. The company plans to maintain and develop it for many years.
The seriousness of Valve’s intentions is also indicated by the post of the company’s programmer Pierre-Loup Griffais. He showed the work of an optimized version of Elden Rin g for Steam Deck. Apparently, with the help of Valve’s own fix, it was possible to get rid of frequent statters and slowdowns that occurred when loading individual areas during the game, even on top-end PCs.
The graphics team has been hard at work on optimizing ELDEN RING for Steam Deck. Fixes for heavy stutter during background streaming of assets will be available in a Proton release next week, but are available to test now on the bleeding-edge branch of Experimental. pic.twitter.com/5oSnXtF2OG
— Pierre-Loup Griffais (@Plagman2) February 26, 2022
At the same time, users on the network noticed that some orders in Seattle seem to be delivered personally by Gabe Newell. The autograph of the head of Valve is also present on the covers of such devices.
The main thing from the reviews
- Richard Leadbetter, technology editor of Digital Foundry, noted that Steam Deck takes portable devices to a new level. According to him, Valve managed to combine the performance of the PS4 with the mobility of the Nintendo Switch.
The Digital Foundry editor has also tested the Steam Deck in a variety of games. Many modern titles like God of War, Death Stranding and Control work stably in resolutions from 720p-800p with PS4-level graphics settings.
At the same time, some games have compatibility problems. Among them are The Witcher 2, Cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2. Despite this, Digital Foundry praised the Steam Deck and its performance.
- Jason Schreier, in his review for Bloomberg, called the Steam Deck an ideal device for busy parents who have young children. As disadvantages, he highlighted the rapid discharge of the battery in “heavy” games, but this can be sacrificed for the sake of an open system, a unique experience and comfort.
“Probably, the Valve device does not prevent Nintendo executives from sleeping at night — after all, there is no Mario or Zelda on the Steam Deck. However, due to its convenience and mobility, it looks more like a full-fledged competitor than all other similar devices before. And those of you who have small children will feel all the benefits the best,” said Schreier.
- At the same time, some publications were dissatisfied with the Steam Deck. The Verge portal noted that Valve hurried with the release of the Steam Deck and presented an unfinished, buggy and unstable device. Among the disadvantages are an inconvenient OS, drawdowns in some games and lack of support for popular titles (GTA V, PUBG, Destiny 2).
- PC Gamer gave Steam Deck 85 out of 100 points: “This is such a high-quality portable device that it becomes ridiculous how much cheaper it is than other portable PCs, which usually cost around $ 1000. It makes no sense to call them competitors, because the Steam Deck is one of a kind.”
- The publication also tested Steam Deck as an emulator, calling it one of the best systems for retrogaming. All popular emulators can be installed in just a few clicks from under the Arch Linux system. There were no performance problems in Metroid Prime (60 fps, 5.5 hours of battery life), Persona 3 FES (60 fps, 6.5 hours) and some other games.
- Jeff Grubb from VentureBeat also shared his impressions about the device. He called the Steam Deck “the best gaming PC ever created.” According to the journalist, the novelty from Valve puts the experience of players at the forefront and almost does not compromise on this issue.
Grubb had only two complaints about the Steam Deck — its size and weight. Otherwise, the company was able to create a device that is completely tailored for games. Steam Deck allows you to fine-tune any title by adjusting power consumption and graphic settings. It is this flexibility that makes it a unique device.
Elden Ring has improved with recent updates. I know get closer to 50 fps instead of 35. But it’s still the harshest on the battery because of its intense RAM and CPU needs. But this is not just playable, it’s great. pic.twitter.com/Qf0toEXB89
— Jeff Grubb (@JeffGrubb) February 25, 2022
- The Rock, Paper, Shotgun portal called the Steam Deck an ambitious device: “It allows you to play blockbusters on the way to town and dig into the Humble Bundle on the way home; you can turn off your PC and continue playing in bed from the same cloud storage; this is a new and convenient way to play games that you already have there is, but sufficient performance and openness do not allow us to call this device another marketing ploy.”