Towerborne was provided by Xbox for review. Thank you!
The game is in early access, so there may be changes as the game develops. Treat this more as a preview of the launch state of the game, and we will review once it launches into 1.0.
I wasn't sure what to expect when starting Towerborne. Having seen the trailers and a 2.5D beat 'em up, a genre I have little experience in, I was excited to see what was on offer. For better or worse, I was pretty surprised when I eventually got into the game. And I'll preface this review by saying Towerborne is an online-only game. You need to be connected to the internet to play. This means you can't pause the game, even in solo play, and you may experience network lag, even when playing alone.
The basic storyline is that monsters have invaded the realm and destroyed the primary city of mankind, causing its residents to flee to the "Belfry," a large tower now acting as a haven for humanity. As an "Ace," you will protect the people of the Belfry from the encroaching monster forces and take back the realm.
After playing the prologue, you'll end up in the game's lobby/hub. From here, you can see what jobs are available. These are generally secondary tasks you complete during missions. You can also find the game's characters here, accept their main story quests, and upgrade your weapons and gear at the forge.
The Belfry is also an online lobby; you're still technically in an online lobby, even traveling to the world map. Unfortunately, and very strangely, I couldn't find a way to communicate with other players beyond the emote system the game has. Towerborne doesn't appear to have voice or text chat support in the game, which is baffling for an online-only game with a heavy co-op focus. Whenever you start a mission, it prioritizes playing in a group over the option to play solo, so it's a little confusing that you can't communicate with your team.
Once you leave the Belfry and go to the world map, you'll be placed on a hexagonal map, with each tile representing a mission. They are all largely similar in how they play out. Once you select a tile, you can choose the difficulty mission you want. The basic tiles aren't repeatable, but the boss tiles, such as Snaggleshire shown below, can be replayed multiple times.
The combat is perhaps Towerborne's strongest point. With different classes to choose from, various weapons to equip, and upgradable gear, you're always on the lookout for that next piece of equipment to give you the edge in a tough combat situation. The game starts pretty difficult, but once you get some good gear, it falls into the range of challenging but not tough. Different gear can have different traits, and I tried to keep gear equipped that gave me life regen and life stealing, which meant I could stay alive much easier.
As the Sentinel class, one of 4 available to you, you'll have a light and heavy melee attack and the ability to dodge and block with your shield. This was my favorite class to play. With my life-regen/steal build, I could heal between battles, which was invaluable since there was no other way to heal. Taking hits early on in a mission can be a death knell, leaving you vulnerable if stronger enemies emerge later.
You can also hit enemies into the air with certain moves, allowing you to "juggle" them. However, I am no fighting game player and was terrible at this. I found that putting myself in the air, which stops you from being able to dodge, was a death sentence, and I died attempting to juggle. I also discovered that if you get knocked down when a large group of enemies is nearby, you'll get stun-locked into oblivion and die. Fortunately, you do get extra lives to respawn.
Aside from your weapons, you'll be followed by a creature known as an Umbra with special abilities. Your starting Umbra will fire a bolt of energy at an enemy you are facing, which can be a good way to deal that extra bit of damage or help control the crowd, especially if you've just been knocked down. The second Umbra I got was able to deploy a static orb that dealt massive damage to enemies that walked into it.
Enemy AI is what you'd expect from a beat 'em-up. They do their job well enough, and I can't say I noticed them doing anything "stupid."
Towerborne is very much built around its gear system. Not only do you have your character level, but you also have a gear level, showing how good the gear you have equipped is. As you explore the world, missions you take on will have a recommended gear level, which increases the further you are from the Belfry, so you must always be finding or upgrading gear. Gear can also have traits that make building a set that suits your playstyle interesting.
Although Towerborne will launch as a paid game, the aim is to make it Free-To-Play and fund the game via micro-transactions, which are already in the game but are largely just emotes and cosmetics right now. Buying a founders pack gives you access to the game now, while it's in early access, as well as some cosmetics.
I can see Towerborne as a game that, upon its final release, will be intended to be played for 100+ hours, with an ever-increasing amount of content to keep players involved, similar to how Hoyoverse runs games like Genshin Impact. This "live service" game has promised seasonal content and a changing world map.
Visually, the game has a nice art style, mixing an almost anime-like look with 3D elements. It works pretty well, and new equipment does reflect your character's appearance, which is always a nice touch. The game's music is also pleasant, ranging from calm piano music in the lobby and world map to tense battle music when on a mission.
Towerborne has some good potential, and I enjoy the combat and the gear system. I'm just worried about the game that surrounds these two things. It's a little rough around the edges, with strange UI and control decisions for keyboard players, no local map for the Belfry, which can take a little getting used to. The game sometimes tells you to speak to a certain person but does not tell you *where* that person is. The game's content is also repetitive, with environments and enemies staying the same long before you find something new.
But, if you're using a gamepad and you have some friends to bring along with you and a better way to communicate, such as Discord, Towerborne should probably keep you entertained for a while.
Sadly, the game does not boot on the Steam Deck right now and crashes as it attempts to load the main menu. I contacted the developers, who said the game had worked correctly on the Steam Deck, but a recent update had broken compatibility. They couldn't offer a timeframe on when the game might be fixed on the Steam Deck but did say that they want to achieve Steam Deck compatibility.
Strangely, Towerborne has an accessibility button right on the main menu. When you click on it, you get taken to the accessibility menu, which has two options: the font size and the ability to disable the camera shake. It's oddly prominent, considering there isn't any accessibility in the game. The font size was a bit smaller, even on my PC, so I would bump it up a tad.
Towerborne has the potential to be a mainstay title, with an increase in the variety of content, such as different mission types and objectives, perhaps some improvement to the multiplayer communication method, and some polish, such as adding certain missing quality-of-life features.
I did enjoy the game for the first few hours. Still, after playing solo for all that time, I started to wish I had friends to play with me, and I quickly started just trying to beeline progress so I could explore something new rather than taking my time finishing the world map missions. In a group of friends, I imagine the game is more enjoyable for longer, with you and your friends discussing the new loot you got at the end of the mission and trying out different combinations to see what works well together.
You can't fault Towerborne's amount of content, and I just question whether the variety of content is enough to keep players hooked for the amount of time the game wants from you.
Sadly, the game doesn't function at all on the Steam Deck, crashing during the opening sequence of logos, so, at least for now, this is one you'll need to play on another device. I tested it on the ROG Ally, and the game is perfectly playable at 60 FPS with a 15W TDP in lower graphical settings.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Creatures of Ava was provided by 11 bit studios for review. Thank you!
This review used an LCD Steam Deck. OLED details will be coming later.
Creatures of Ava is an interesting game in terms of gameplay mechanics and premises. I haven't played one like this before, and there are both positive and negative aspects. But I think Creatures of Ava is a game everyone should check out to see if it will be their kind of game.
To cut out a lot of the exposition, the basic story is that the planet of Ava is dying, slowly being taken over by an infection known as the "Withering." As an employee of a corporation, our protagonist, Vic, is sent to the planet to rescue as many creatures as she can, transporting them to the "BioArk" before the Withering takes over completely.
This puts her at odds with the Naam, Ava's Indigenous sentient species, who have mixed opinions. Some take the threat of the Withering seriously, others plead ignorance of the danger, and others are aware but believe it is the natural course of things and should be allowed to run its course. Regardless, you will be tasked with carrying on Vic's mission, rescuing the creatures of Ava while teaming up with a Naam Archaeologist who is studying an ancient race that existed before the Naam.
Unfortunately, Fetch Quests seem to be one of the ways you'll attempt to save Ava. When you aren't directly capturing animals for the BioArk, you'll probably be running back and forth around the map collecting seeds, delivering items, or doing something else that's fairly mundane for one of the Naam whose planet seemingly has hours left to live. I'm used to quests like this in an MMO or even a regular RPG, but it grates on me a little more in an Adventure game.
If you can look past that, the gameplay loop in Creatures of Ava is OK. You'll mostly be exploring the region you're currently in, finding collectibles, using your staff to destroy the Withering, as well as healing infected animals in what is the closest this game gets to combat, which is essentially holding LT and occasionally pressing RT while dodging their attacks. It plays somewhat similarly to a Souls-like, except your attack is having a button constantly, and it's not quite as brutal.
The difficulty can be adjusted to be easier or harder than the Normal I played on, so I think the game is fairly accessible regardless of how difficult you want it to be. Normal will pose a challenge for most players later in the game.
Once an animal is cleansed, it calms down, and you can use your flute to guide it to a rescue-bot in a pied-piper style. If the animal isn't infected, you'll have to play a music/rhythm minigame for each type of animal to calm it, where you must play simon-says but with musical notes. They start pretty easy and gradually get more difficult.
I wouldn't say a deaf gamer wouldn't be able to play Creatures of Ava, but I did notice that when playing with my sound off, I found it harder to follow the on-screen prompts. Towards the end of the game, you can play around 10 notes you must memorize, although there is an accessibility option to show you the next note to play.
Puzzles also form quite a bit of the gameplay. However, they are pretty basic. Vic has 2 or 3 powers through her staff at her disposal, which she must use at various points to progress, and it's very apparent which skill you must use at each point. Perhaps the most difficult puzzles are those that require you to calm creatures. Using the correct creature's abilities, you can open up additional rescue points and new areas with more collectibles.
These vary from using a horse to charge down vines, using a wolf-like creature to bite through vines to lower bridges, and using a frog to jump over... vines so you can access an area... Yeah, there's a lot of vines in Creatures of Ava.
This, unfortunately, brings us to another problem I have with Creatures of Ava. As you rescue creatures from the planet, they will disappear from the game world permanently. So, if you rescued all of one species before doing a task that requires one of those species, then you just won't ever be able to do that task. The developers have stated this can never happen for story/main quests, but side quests and certain collectibles can become unobtainable if you rescue a species too soon.
So unless you are playing with a walkthrough guide, or you are checking every nook and cranny, don't expect to get 100% on Creatures of Ava on your first playthrough, you'll very likely be missing some collectibles, skills, and achievements by the time you finish the game. The game world is also broken up into 4 reasonably sized regions. However, once you leave a region, you can never return to it.
This, the developers say, is unavoidable because of the game's narrative, which I understand. Still, issues like these were overcome a very long time ago by a simple reworking of the timeline, such as the "point of no return" many RPGs have, where after the final boss, you are returned to a previous time to finish any side quests.
The game does warn you that once you leave a region, your progress for that region will be locked forever, but it's still frustrating that you have to stay in that part of the game until you find everything before you can progress if you want to 100% the game.
The main saving grace here is that Creatures of Ava is fairly short, like most games where the focus is on the narrative. You can finish the main story in about 7-8 hours, depending on if you beeline the main story quests or not.
There's also a skill system in the game, allowing you to improve Vic's abilities and stats, but I'll be honest: I largely found myself forgetting about it. It's nice to have and lends some extra sense of progression to the game, but it almost feels out of place in such a short game. The key skills are gained through story progression, so skill points are mostly spent enhancing your wand skills and making healing potions heal slightly more than usual.
While I have been quite negative about the game in some aspects, Creatures of Ava does have its charm. Its creatures are unique and cute, you can pet them all, even accidentally at times if they get in the way of another prompt! And the narrative world-building, for the most part, works well. Sometimes, voice acting has some oddities, but it doesn't take you out of the game. The visuals aren't impressive, but they're good enough and won't distract you. Music-wise, the game has good and calming ambient music that fits the game's theme quite well.
Creatures of Ava feels like a comment on Human arrogance to me. How humans arrive and come to "save the day," but their methods of doing so are misguided, or perhaps not even wanted at all, and the game does a good job of portraying that. The story itself is quite beautiful, and if you can focus on that aspect and aren't bothered with "completion," then you'll probably get a good amount of enjoyment.
Creatures of Ava starts off mostly positively. It supports 1280x800, so there are no black bars around the screen, and it has good controller support throughout the menus and gameplay.
By default, however, Creatures of Ava has all of its graphical settings disabled on the Steam Deck, with the developers opting to create and enforce their own graphical settings for Deck users. This is often a bit of a double-edged sword, as it can simplify things for many users, but it can also remove that flexibility that makes PC gaming so interesting.
I'm only offering 1 preset for Creatures of Ava, as it pushes the Steam Deck hard.
In your SteamOS settings, set an FPS Limit of 30 FPS / 60Hz, but we won't have a TDP Limit set.
You can disable the enforced graphics settings by using SteamDeck=0 %command% as a launch option for Creatures of Ava in Steam. However, upon further investigation, the default settings the developers have put in place for the Steam Deck are the lowest settings available anyway, which is wise, as the Steam Deck struggles to get beyond 30 FPS in this game. The only way to improve performance is to switch from TSR to FSR3 and enable Frame Generation, but as we're running at such a low frame rate, the input lag becomes unbearable.
Sadly, Creatures of Ava has performance issues on Steam Deck. The 1st region runs well, with a constant 30 FPS throughout and little to no stutters. However, once you reach the 2nd region, certain areas will drop to 23-25 FPS, and traversal stutter kicks in quite badly at points. The later regions of the game are more stable but still suffer from an occasional stutter.
So, ultimately, my advice is to run with the default settings chosen by the developers and deal with the frame drops and stutters that begin in the second region. There are performance issues on desktop PCs, so hopefully, the game will receive some optimization.
Creatures of Ava is greedy for power, and your Steam Deck will likely be drawing around 23-26W nearly all the time. Steam Deck LCD owners should expect no more than 1.5 hours of battery, and Steam Deck OLED users might just squeeze 2 hours if they're lucky.
It also runs the Steam Deck pretty hot, ranging from 75 to 85C. The fan spins up and is noisy throughout the game.
Creatures of Ava has some accessibility options, largely to help with the note-playing minigame, especially for those who are hearing-impaired. Letting you see the note to be played visually, and you can even enable seeing the note to be played next as well, to help your memory. All voice lines and dialogue are subtitled; by default, they are set to a large, readable font.
Creatures of Ava is a unique game. It aims to tell a conservation story from multiple standpoints, from a species coming in from the outside thinking they have all the solutions to the problem and a species who is perhaps prepared to let nature take its course and thinks these things should not be meddled with.
Creatures of Ava makes you think about things a little, even if certain aspects of the game attempt to distract you from the narrative that the developers seem desperate for players to follow. If you can overlook some of the things that are rough around the edges, such as dodgy collisions and some odd design choices, Creatures of Ava has an enjoyable narrative. I just wish it didn't come at the cost of some gameplay conveniences.
Performance on Steam Deck is a little disappointing, the game doesn't look good enough to be as challenging as it is to run, but those are the facts right now, be prepared for some frame drops and stutters that do tend to increase as you progress through the game. Is Creatures of Ava a great experience on the Steam Deck? No, it's not. Is it a playable one? Definitely.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Dungeons of Hinterberg was provided by Curve Games for review. Thank you!
This review used an LCD Steam Deck. OLED details will be coming later.
I wasn't thrilled about Dungeons of Hinterberg when I saw a trailer a few months back. It seemed like a generic game without much charm or anything to make it stand out. Even the frame rate seemed a little off in the trailers. Well, I'm pleased to say that my initial impressions of Dungeons of Hinterberg were well off the mark, and having gotten the chance to play it, I am thoroughly enjoying my time with this fairly easy-going and fun adventure.
Dungeons of Hinterberg takes place in, you guessed it, Hinterberg! This fictional Austrian mountain village is where two worlds collide: the human world we're all used to and a magical world filled with monsters and the unknown. Enter Luisa, the game's protagonist, who, tired of her everyday routine, is off on holiday to Hinterberg to become a monster Slayer.
What follows is largely up to you. Days in the game are broken up into 4 sections. These are Morning, Noon, Evening, and Night.
During the morning, there's usually a short introduction to the day, often a conversation with one of the many characters in the game. Then, at Noon, you will explore one of the four regions of the game, dotted with dungeons and scenic views, both of which offer rewards. Then, time will advance to the Evening, where you can wander the town of Hinterberg and chat with the locals to boost your friendships and social stats. At night, you can either go to sleep or take a penalty to your HP for the next day and boost your social stats.
While Dungeons of Hinterberg is fairly linear in its layout, the exploration of regions and choice of what to do gives you a much-appreciated sense of freedom. The social stats you gain from spending a chunk of your time at a scenic view or talking to a villager can boost you to certain weapons or armor and relationship perks you get often give you the upper hand in combat with buffs to Luisa and her abilities.
The hub worlds are quite pretty and generally relaxing places to explore. You occasionally fight the odd group of enemies, but they are less dangerous than you will face in the dungeons. There are also plenty of things to find and loot, so it pays to spend a few minutes each day looking around.
You'll also find both dungeons and scenic views, which are the 2 main ways to advance time and spend your day. However, dungeons tend to progress the story, give you equipment, and earn you that lovely dollar bill. Scenic views boost your stats, much like socializing with the villagers, which could make a difference for you if you're struggling with a particular dungeon. You can also do little puzzles and objectives in the hub worlds, which can snag you some nice loot if you figure them out.
The dungeons themselves are usually fairly confined spaces, and the vast majority of the time, you will either be figuring out puzzles or fighting enemies. It is a fairly even 50-50 split in the dungeons. The puzzles aren't too complex, and what you're aiming for is often quite straightforward. There were a couple of times when I was confused, but I never got to the point of feeling frustrated with the puzzles given to me. The game does a good job of giving you a puzzle with only a couple of ways to solve it, so if you get it wrong, you can probably realize your mistake and get it right the next time.
The combat in Dungeons of Hinterberg feels pretty good as well. Luisa can use light and heavy attacks with her sword, as well as 2 special attacks, which can be swapped out depending on what you have unlocked, and can let her unleash shockwaves, absorb health from projectiles, and much more. Finally, you will have 2 magical abilities, which change depending on which of the 4 regions you are in.
This switch-up of magical abilities is fairly ingenious. It keeps the gameplay fresh, and it can be used at any time. The game makes liberal use of these abilities to solve puzzles, as well as to fight foes. Whether you're throwing a projectile to rotate a crank, summoning a magical ball to activate a pressure plate, or catching yourself up into a tornado to traverse areas you normally couldn't, there's a bunch of ways Dungeons of Hinterberg makes use of this change in abilities.
That being said, difficulty isn't the name of the game here. While there are different difficulty settings, I played on "Normal," and I found the game pretty easy, both in terms of puzzles and combat. You will have to dodge some attacks from more powerful foes and use magical abilities to break down the shields of some enemies, so although it is on the easier side, it isn't just mindless button-mashing when you're in combat.
If you want a challenge, there is "Tough Mode," and for those who truly want this game to be a relaxing experience that they can wade their way through, there is a "Vacation Mode," too. I imagine that's very easy, considering the Normal mode isn't challenging. The puzzle difficulty is also easier in Vacation Mode.
Dungeons of Hinterberg is a solid little game. It's oddly relaxing, with the game world and its characters exuding a very "carefree" attitude towards life. Your protagonist is on vacation, and the game does a pretty good job of making you feel like you're joining her on that vacation.
Dungeons of Hinterberg doesn't offer much variety in its graphical settings, but we can adjust the game to optimize for visual quality or a higher frame rate. There's not too much to say regarding anything Steam Deck-specific; the controls work great, the UI is scaled well, and I have no complaints.
In your SteamOS settings, set an FPS Limit of 60 FPS / 60Hz and then a 10W TDP limit.
We basically run the minimum graphics settings in-game. Visually, it doesn't actually change much from higher settings. The main difference is the lack of shadows, but in a game with this visual style, the lack of shadows isn't too jarring.
These settings will let you run at 60 FPS almost the entire time, except in very specific areas and a couple of cutscenes when you enter an area that will drop the framerate a bit. Fortunately, the game's dungeons are easier to run than the hub worlds, so when in more intense combat, framerate drops are unlikely.
Using these settings, the device will draw around 16-19W of power, so Steam Deck LCD owners should get 2 hours of battery life, and Steam Deck OLED users at least 2.5 hours.
Temperatures don't get too hot and tend to hover between 70-75C. There is some fan noise, but it doesn't tend to ramp up too high.
If you want to preserve battery life, use these settings but with a 40 FPS limit. The power draw will be around 12-14W then, which might net you an extra hour of battery life.
If you want the best visual quality the Steam Deck can offer, these settings are for you.
Set your SteamOS Frame Limiter to 40 FPS and 40Hz/80Hz, then apply a TDP Limit of 12W.
We can run with the settings much higher now. We're only aiming for 40 FPS, and every setting is as high as it can go, except Shadows, which we only set to "Low." Unfortunately, we can't even manage 30 FPS with Shadows on Normal.
I found the stability to be much the same as the recommended preset above, with a solid framerate, with the exception of some specific places and the cutscenes, which don't really affect the gameplay at all.
The power draw is similar to the Recommended preset, hovering around 15-18W. So again, expect a little more than 2 hours of battery from the Steam Deck LCD and about 2.5 hours from a Steam Deck OLED.
Likewise, the temperatures also hover around the 70-75C mark.
Dungeons of Hinterberg doesn't offer much accessibility. You can disable camera shaking and place a border around the UI designed to prevent motion sickness, although I'm not sure why that would be an issue. You can also entirely disable the player being able to die, which I guess would make "Vacation Mode" even easier. All dialogue is subtitled in the game.
Dungeons of Hinterberg is a delightful little adventure. It oozes more charm than I thought it would and is a genuinely relaxing experience. I think it'd be the perfect game to cozy up with on a Winter's day and just enjoy life in this tranquil, albeit quirky, Austrian village.
The game isn't too difficult, but I don't think it's meant to be. The puzzles are enough to get you thinking without being frustrating; the combat is simple yet not boring, and the number of abilities available and the variety of people to talk to keep the game fresh even several hours in.
Dungeons of Hinterberg plays well on the Steam Deck, too. Depending on the settings you use, you can play at 60 FPS or 40 FPS with some visual upgrades. The controls are perfect for a gamepad, and the UI is scaled very well; you shouldn't have any difficulty reading text.
I can recommend this game to someone looking for an adventure game that doesn't put too much pressure on the player and has a nice mix of character-building and adventuring.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Surmount was provided by popagenda for review. Thank you!
This review used an LCD Steam Deck. OLED details will be coming later.
If I had to describe Surmount in one sentence, I would probably say: It's like Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy but with more checkpoints and less infuriating controls. The checkpoints and easier-to-handle controls of Surmount! By using the shoulder buttons. Your character can grab onto various elements in the scenery or background, thus allowing you to navigate the mountain with a surprising amount of control. It also opens up a large amount of techniques that you can use to reach your objective.
But let's go back to why you're climbing in the first place. Surmount takes place in a village at the foot of Mount Om, a mountain that no one has ever summited, the tallest in the world. And as you seem to be some sort of climbing guru straight from the get-go, you're here to climb to the top before anyone else. There are plenty of quests to find at the village and points along your journey up Mount Om.
Mount Om is procedurally generated, so every player will have a different experience when climbing the mountain. However, when you accept quests, I believe the quest maps are hand-made, so everyone should be on the same level when it comes to those.
While the procedural generation is a nice touch, it can lead to some issues. At launch, the generator sometimes created impossible levels. This seems to have been fixed at this point. But while I was playing, some oddities still existed, such as water being generated in mid-air. It can also make different "runs" up the mountain vary greatly in difficulty.
The climbing itself does feel good and is satisfying when you pull off a good move. Using the LB and RB buttons, you can grip the mountain with your left and right hands. By gripping with just one hand, for example, you can rotate the left thumbstick to start swinging your character in circles, and then letting go of the rock allows your character to use momentum to jump to another surface that you can grab onto, provided you swung correctly, of course.
The swinging technique was my most used move, and I think it's intended, as it's what the game teaches you to use in the tutorial levels, but there are other ways you can use momentum to scale the mountain.
This all can get a little infuriating if you mess up, though; you might lose a lot of progress. Although the game features handy little anchor points placed around the map, protecting you from most falls. Without these anchor points, the game would have frustrated me too much. As you can see in the image below, I'm attached to an anchor point, so if I were to fall off the platform, I wouldn't drop to my death but be able to suspend in mid-air and retract the rope to gain height.
Your health and stamina in Surmount are the same. While you start with a full bar, falling from too great a height, swinging too hard into a rock face, or hitting obstacles like thorns or a mountain goat will cause you to take damage, lowering your max stamina and making it much harder to progress. Stamina gets used by holding onto objects with your hands, so less stamina means you have less time to make your moves and think things through. However, you can forage in trees and bushes to get food that restores some health.
You'll also have items to help you on your way. A grappling hook can help you traverse an area without easily climbing points. Chalk can help you grip onto passing climbable points when falling and help you stop quicker when you grab them. You can even use a rocket boost to propel yourself in a direction when you use it.
I'll be honest: Surmount isn't really my kind of game, and after playing it for a few hours, I still feel the same way, but if you're up for a tough challenge, climbing up the mountain using various techniques and items, or you just want a game like Getting Over It where there's a point to the game, then Surmount should be on your radar. It's pretty, and it would be a relaxing time if I didn't despair every time I messed up a swing!
Now, let's take a look at how Surmount runs on the Steam Deck because it's interesting.
Surmount doesn't have a great deal of settings available for you to mess with, but it also doesn't need there to be a great deal of settings.
The game has excellent controller support, and all the menus and gameplay can be controlled with your Steam Deck. I imagine playing with a gamepad is much easier than playing with a keyboard in this case. We also have support for 1280x800, so we can run at the Steam Deck's native resolution.
I'm providing 2 settings presets today, both of which will target 60 FPS.
In your SteamOS settings, set an FPS Limit of 60 FPS / 60Hz, and we'll set a TDP Limit of 9W.
In the in-game graphics menu, we're setting Video Quality to High and resolution to 1280x800. We're also removing the FPS limit and V-Sync, as they seemed to cause uneven frame times when I tested them. (You can set OLED to 60 FPS/Hz for these settings).
Using these settings, the game was a fairly stable 60 FPS, there were a few bumps in the frametime graph, but overall it was pretty stable, and the experience was good considering that this lower TDP limit actually gives us a pretty nice battery life.
Power draw hovers around the 12W mark with these settings, so Steam Deck LCD players can expect a solid 3 hours of battery life, and Steam Deck OLED users could see 4 hours.
Temperatures were a non-issue, being around 60-65C, so the Deck stayed relatively cool and quiet.
In your SteamOS settings, set an FPS Limit of 60 FPS / 60Hz, and the TDP limit we're lowering to 4W.
For this preset, we're lowering the Video Quality to Lowest, keeping the Resolution at 1280x800, and removing the in-game frame limiter and V-Sync. (You can set OLED to 60 FPS/Hz for these settings).
Performance is similar to the Recommended preset above, if slightly less stable. But for the most part, you will be seeing 60 FPS. We lose some shading and finer details, but the game still looks pretty. We only save a little bit on battery life regarding wattage, but that does make a big difference to battery life at the end of the day.
The power draw is down to 8-10W now, which means Steam Deck LCD users could easily see 4 hours of battery life, and Steam Deck OLED users in excess of 5 hours.
Temperatures also dropped down to around 55C, meaning the Deck's fan is hardly running to keep the device cool.
While the settings above kept the game at 60 FPS 90% of the time, there was one occasion where there were quite severe performance issues that meant I had to remove the TDP limit on the Recommended preset and raise the TDP Limit to around 11W on the Battery Saver preset.
This was on a randomly generated map, so I'm unsure if something generated was causing issues. Still, the CPU usage was very high, drawing a constant 7-8W of power from the Steam Deck's CPU on this particular map. It was also raining, and the only map I played was raining, so there may be an issue with the rain causing high CPU usage. If you encounter a map like this, you should turn your TDP limit off and then reapply it back to the recommended setting after passing the level.
Surmount doesn't offer too much general accessibility, but it does offer climbing assists if you're struggling with the game mechanics. I didn't use these to test them out, but they're there if you want an easier time. They can range from disabling gravity, preventing damage, and swinging slower so you can time your swings better. I'm sure these will make the game less frustrating if you want a more relaxing time.
I feel like Surmount is a game targeting a specific group of people. If you're into a challenge and want to have the satisfaction of pulling off precise moves to summit a mountain with little room for error, then this game will likely appeal to you. If you're a more casual video game player or can get frustrated with difficult games, you'll probably want to play this game with the assists turned on or give it a miss. Don't let the somewhat cartoonish look of the game fool you. Surmount is a difficult challenge.
Aside from the single performance issue mentioned above, Surmount runs very well on the Steam Deck, with the option of running at high settings for nice visuals or low settings for some great battery life. The controls are also as good as they will get on the Steam Deck, so I can't fault how the game plays on the device.
It's also worth mentioning that the game has a two-player local co-op mode, which I did not try. That could ease the game's more frustrating/difficult parts if you are playing through it with a friend.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip was provided by Super Rare Originals for review. Thank you!
This review used an LCD Steam Deck. OLED details will be coming later.
One of the perks of being a video game reviewer is the chance to play games you perhaps wouldn't normally interact with. Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip fits that bill for me. While at first glance, it may look like a silly, perhaps even childish, attempt at a driving adventure title, it's an awful lot of fun once you've settled down to enjoy it. So, let's buckle in and see what Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip is all about. Plus, that name is quite fun to say out loud...
Terry is a peculiar fellow—or should I say child, as it appears that our protagonist is still in elementary school despite being left alone for the Summer by his parents! But all this opens up the opportunity for our little protagonist to go off on an adventure not soon forgotten. Somehow, he applies for a job as a taxi driver, but not to ferry passengers; he just wants a car to ride up the Sky Tower and get to space!
This pretty much sets the scene for Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip, it's a whimsical and often humorous adventure of a child, struggling in school, who wants nothing more than to go to space and leave everything behind. The game somehow manages to evoke emotions with few words, with you quickly feeling sorry for Terry and the situation he finds himself in, despite Terry seemingly not feeling sorry for himself at all. He's on a mission, and it's your job to help him.
The car the taxi company gave him won't get him up the Sky Tower, so it's your job to explore the island and find junk that he can use to upgrade his turbo boost and get him to space. You'll meet a cast of quirky and interesting characters, go on quests to find hidden treasure, commit crimes (which aren't crimes in this city, apparently!), and even play some sports!
While you can walk around the entire map on foot, much of your game in Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip will be spent driving around in your car. The closest game I can equate the physics to is The Simpsons: Hit & Run, or Crazy Taxi. It's quite arcadey, there's no punishment for crashing, and it's easy to drive. It's nothing special, but how much can you do with a car?
The dialogue in the game is often humourous. Terry hardly speaks at all, often saying just 1 or 2 words in reply to a long question posed by the other participant, which often made me chuckle. The quests are as out there as the game's premise, and at times, the game almost has a Goat Simulator vibe with the random things you're asked to do.
Much like Goat Simulator, exploration is the word of the day here. The key resources you're after are junk to upgrade your car and money to make getting junk easier. You can find both of these dotted around the map; some are in plain sight, and others require you to use your "weapon" to smash open crates or your shovel to dig up treasure. There are also other collectibles you can find throughout the map, which all add to the list of things to do. Not to mention, many of the buildings in the game are accessible, often housing an activity or a shop, such as hats!
The game's presentation airs on the simple, perhaps basic, side of things, but it gets across what it needs to and has its unique charm. The sound follows the same suit, fitting well with the game, with no sounds that stand out as "annoying". It just does the job it has to do.
Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip is not a long game, and you will likely have finished at least the main story in less than 10 hours. If you want to collect everything, you'll probably want to add a few more hours unless you're using a guide.
However, as the "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews on Steam (as of this review) indicate, Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip is a short but very sweet adventure. It oozes charm and is funny and lighthearted while occasionally dealing with situations that might seem upsetting. Seeing Terry power through and stubbornly reach for his dreams no matter what is just a wholesome thing to see, and I'm glad that the world he inhabits permits him to do so.
Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip gets off to a great start. The game defaults to 1280x800 and does have some preset settings. However, they're a bit too intense for the Steam Deck, and you can't play at 60 FPS with them.
The controls function just great on the Deck, and there's nothing to say here other than that using a controller feels like the way to go in Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip.
With all that in mind, let's look at our settings presets for TIny Terry's Turbo Trip. I have one focusing on Quality and Framerate, which runs at 60 FPS with nice visuals, and one focusing on Battery Life, which runs at 40 FPS, and sacrifices some visuals, but greatly improves your playing time.
In your SteamOS settings, set an FPS Limit of 60 FPS / 60Hz. This preset does not have a TDP Limit.
You'll want to set your Texture Quality to High, Crowd Density to Ultra, LOD to High, Anti-Aliasing to None, and Shadow Quality to Medium. Then, enable Full Screen and Vsync and disable Bloom and SSAO.
While the Target Framerate setting seems to work fine for the most part, if you constantly see uneven frame times, you can try changing it to Unlimited instead of 60. I had this issue a couple of times.
For the most part, we can run at a stable 60 FPS with these settings. The one exception I found is that the game's grass taxes the Steam Deck. If you go into an area with a lot of grass, the framerate can easily drop to the low 50s, especially if you're walking/driving in the grass. Fortunately, the grass isn't too common, and for 80% of the map, you can hold 60 just fine, just expect some unavoidable drops in rural areas of the map.
The power draw stays around 16-20W, meaning Steam Deck LCD owners can expect around 2 hours of battery life from this preset and Steam Deck OLED users around 2.5 hours.
Temperatures varied from 70 to 80C, with the higher temperatures occurring more in areas with grass, which can cause the fan to ramp up and make a bit of noise.
Fortunately, Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip offers flexibility, allowing us to bring the power draw right down as long as we make some visual sacrifices. You can set your SteamOS framerate limit to 40 FPS / 40Hz here and your TDP Limit to 6W.
For the graphics, we're setting Texture Quality to High, Crowd Density to Low, Resolution to 1280x800, LOD to Low, Anti-Aliasing to None, Shadow Quality to None, Full Screen to On, Vsync to On, Bloom Off, and SSAO Off.
The Target Framerate issue doesn't apply here, as we're not getting close to the 60 FPS limit anyway.
Stability is similar to the Quality Preset, with the game holding 40 FPS for most of the time, but you can see drops around the grassy areas, which are a killer for the Steam Deck. The game always stays above 30 FPS and remains perfectly playable.
These lower settings drastically reduce the power draw, putting us at about 10-12W most of the time. Steam Deck LCD users should easily see 3 Hours of battery life, and Steam Deck OLED users at least 4 Hours, which is pretty nice.
Temperatures held around 60-65C for this preset. The fan noise was pretty quiet for the majority of playing.
Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip doesn't offer much accessibility, although whether it needs many options is debatable. The game doesn't have voiced lines, so there's no need for subtitles. While the sound is nice, there are no parts of the game where hearing something is essential. There are camera sensitivity options, the ability to disable camera shaking, and UI scale and FoV sliders, but I found the scaling to be fine by default.
Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip is a delightful adventure that will give you a few days of enjoyment, depending on how hard you go at it. It's been priced reasonably ($20 at the time of writing), and I think it's well worth the purchase if you're looking for a game with no pressures or time constraints being placed upon you. From what I played of the game, no mistake has any lasting penalty, and you can quickly retry any challenges within a few seconds of failing.
Terry is a mostly silent but endearing protagonist, and it's great to be able to help him achieve his dreams. I would love to see him feature in another game in the future.
Performance on the Steam Deck isn't perfect, but it's pretty close, and we have some flexibility to increase battery life or go all out on the visuals. It's just that pesky grass that gives us issues! Controls are perfect on the Deck; there are no issues there.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Outcast: A New Beginning was provided by THQ Nordic for review. Thank you!
This game was tested with a Steam Deck LCD. OLED testing is coming soon.
I had pretty low expectations for Outcast: A New Beginning when first setting out. Having covered the game and keeping an eye on it pre-release, I wasn't sure how the quality of the game would hold up. It seemed like an arcadey shooter that would fail to hold up to its promises, with weak combat and grating dialogue. Having played the game and giving it a fair shot, I think I was both right and wrong about it.
Let's cover the basics of the game, movement, and combat. The movement feels quite nice. Your character is maneuverable and gains more maneuverability as you play through the start of the game, gaining a jetpack, which lets you jump higher and dodge, both adding a new dimension to your movement. The jetpack is also upgradable, allowing even more flexibility. While I did find it somewhat difficult to control at times, I think that's more down to how the game runs on the Steam Deck, but more on that later.
The combat of the game is more satisfying than I expected. When looking at the trailers for the game, it seemed as though firing a weapon would feel weak and offer little feedback, whereas the opposite is true. Although there's a pretty hefty auto-aim in the game, lining up your shots and ensuring your hit is vital. Headshots do count here, and enemies die in a few shots, provided you've got the right equipment for the job. I am happy that enemies aren't bullet sponges.
In terms of visuals, the world of Outcast: A New Beginning is quite beautiful, and largely based in forested areas with plenty of foliage and dense tree cover. The game makes use of this to create subtle lighting effects of dappled shade. Other areas in the game are more open, however, such as grassy plains, beaches, and some mountainous areas. Regardless of where you are, there are probably lots of trees or lots of grass. The downside of all this foliage, however, is performance. The trees cast shadows, and a lot of the foliage is interactable, too, moving when the player character gets near; all of this undoubtedly has a toll on the game's performance.
While I don't feel that Outcast breaks any new boundaries in terms of graphical fidelity, I do feel that the choice of location/environment greatly helps Outcast look its best, even on low settings.
When it comes to character visuals and design, there's nothing too much to complain about here. The animations and visuals do the job they have to do, although I will say that at times, the player character's animations do look a little stiff and stilted. Jumping while standing still looks a bit... odd to me.
In addition to satisfying combat and a beautiful game world, Outcast also has an upgrade system in place, where you can use resources found in the game world to upgrade your weapons, equipment, and jetpack. Weapons, for example, can have modules fitted to them, and your jetpack and general combat skills can be upgraded by finding resources/crystals in the game world and collecting them. This helps to keep the game from becoming monotonous. You're always on the lookout for those crafting and upgrading resources so you can better yourself. As it happens, the guns in the game also use certain crystals as ammunition, so it's good to keep scanning so you can find any that are nearby.
In terms of storyline, Outcast: A New Beginning has a reasonable story that punctuates gameplay with cutscenes from time to time. It is technically a sequel to the original Outcast game, but at the same time, a reboot. I wouldn't say you need to be familiar with the original to enjoy this game's story. Long story short, you are resurrected back to life on the planet you originally visited in the first game. However, much has changed, and a robot army is invading Adelpha, a planet of the mostly peaceful Talan race. In the original game, you were hailed as a "Messiah," so you again take up the mantle to protect the Talan race from the robot invaders and find out who is behind this invasion.
You aren't just doing this for the Talans' sake, though, and you are in danger of running into more cliches. You also have amnesia. You get glimpses into your past as you play through the game, which is centered on you and your family relationships. Your main aim is to help the Talans, with the belief that this will help you return to Earth and find out what happened with your family.
The dialogue can be a little grating, and Cutter Slade (the player character) is a little irksome at times. I think the game tries to pass it off as him being dead for a while, so his vocabulary is a little dated, making him an "old-school Navy SEAL," but I could have done without it.
But now we get onto the real killer: performance on the Steam Deck.
When booting Outcast: A New Beginning, you'll be asked if you want to boot in DirectX 11 or DirectX 12 modes. Make sure you pick DirectX12, as in my testing, DX12 tended to offer about a 3-5 FPS performance improvement depending on where you are in the game.
The game does get some basics right. It supports 16:10 resolutions and has pretty solid controller support, covering both the menus and the gameplay. However, the occasional menu is still controlled via a gamepad-controlled mouse cursor, which is very odd and does actually cause some issues.
Shockingly, the game has no upscaling support, there's no integration of FSR, XeSS, or even DLSS here, very strange for a fairly demanding title in 2024. Because of this, we'll need to use the FSR1 built into the Steam Deck when setting up our Deck for the game.
There's also no support for going below 720p when using the in-game resolution selector, so we'll need to force a lower game resolution in the Steam Game Properties.
In the Game Properties, force a Game Resolution of 800x500. Please note that forcing this resolution does cause some oddities, such as the cursor not reaching the whole screen. This doesn't matter for most menus, as they use the gamepad for controls, but a couple of menus use a gamepad-controlled cursor, and these menus do not work if we force the resolution this low.
In your SteamOS settings, set a 60 FPS/ 60Hz limit and your TDP limit to 15W or Off. Make sure your scaling filter is set to FSR and the FSR Sharpness is set to 5.
In the in-game graphics settings, you can go ahead and select the "Low" Preset. This sets everything as low as it can go, and that's what we'll need. You'll also want to set the "Max FPS" to "30." We're using the in-game FPS cap rather than the Steam Deck's, as it introduces less input lag, and we need to minimize that as much as possible.
Using these settings, we can hit 30 FPS at points in the game, often in the open plains or when overlooking a vista. Unfortunately, a lot of the game takes place in dense forests or places with lots of close vegetation, and in these places, the game will typically run around the mid-20s in FPS. Any areas with a great deal of NPCs, such as villages, will also tend to run closer to 20 than 30 as the CPU starts to take more power away from the GPU.
As you can see from the screenshots above, the game is both CPU and GPU-bound, which results in the game almost never achieving a fully stable 30 FPS, regardless of where you are. The game heavily leans on single-thread performance, a weak point of the Steam Deck. Often, one of the threads is almost locked to 100% load.
Unfortunately, these low frame rates introduce some input lag, which can make the game's combat a little difficult. The low frame rate can easily cause you to miss shots or overreact to movement, not to mention making combat difficult in the first place.
Outcast maxes out the Steam Deck, even in menus, so battery drain is around 25-26W the entire time, which puts your expected battery life at around 80-90 minutes at best. Temperatures can vary, but generally expect 80-90C, with the CPU being more towards the higher end and GPU towards the lower end of that range. In short, your Deck will get hot.
There isn't too much accessibility in Outcast: A New Beginning. You can have subtitles, although they are a little difficult to read, given the low resolution we need to use on the Steam Deck. You can also change the basics like sensitivity and FoV, as well as the contrast/brightness and re-bindable keys. Sadly, there's no UI scaling, which could have benefitted the Steam Deck or other handhelds. There is, however, a filter for different types of colorblindness. Presumably, this would alter things like blips on the minimap and icons for resources to be different colors.
I think Outcast: A New Beginning is an enjoyable game at its heart, far more enjoyable than I first thought when I was watching the trailers for the game. However, the Steam Deck isn't the place to enjoy this game.
If you have a decent gaming PC, laptop, or maybe even a higher-end handheld running an AMD 7840U or 8840U, I think Outcast: A New Beginning could be a great third-person Shooter with RPG elements. It's not a game to be taken too seriously, but to pick up and play in 30-minute stints, I think the game has the potential to be a good bit of fun. The upgrades keep things fresh, and the game world is large, but there's usually something to do, so it doesn't feel sparse or empty.
All-in-all, I would recommend the game itself, as long as it's played on the right hardware.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
South Park: Snow Day! was provided by THQ Nordic for review. Thank you!
South Park: Snow Day! is an interesting game. After the successes of South Park: Stick of Truth and Fractured But Whole, I expected a continuation of this type of game, but instead, Snow Day! It goes in a completely different direction as a third-person action game with Roguelite elements.
Now, as a general rule of thumb, games in the Roguelite genre tend to be fairly short games but lean on their difficulty and progression systems to allow players to do repeat playthroughs of the game to gain power, try out new strategies, and sometimes visit new areas. South Park: Snow Day! is definitely on the shorter side, but seemed to miss the memo regarding difficulty and progression. The game is short; you can play through all 5 levels in 4 - 5 hours, even less if you're playing a co-op game with decent players.
As it was, I had to play single-player for my review with AI party members, who aren't the sharpest tools in the shed, often walking around and attacking the wrong enemy, such as focusing on a healed enemy instead of the one healing them.
There are 6 weapons in total, 3 melee and 3 ranged, with the game allowing you to have 1 ranged and 1 melee weapon equipped. Melee consists of spamming the X button to do a repetitive combo against your enemies. the ranged weapon has you holding down LT and letting it go in the case of the Bow and Staff, or just holding down LT and aiming at enemies in the case of the wand. It's mindless, and combat doesn't feel satisfying, with melee attack sounds seeming quiet and having no impact.
There are "elements" to your attacks, such as being able to set enemies on fire or cause them to vomit, but once you get your weapon, you just kind of stick with it. There isn't a huge variety of weapons you can use, and I just found myself using the fire wand and holding LT while looking at enemies. That did the job just fine, so there was no need to experiment.
You'd hope that the game would be difficult to prolong the length of the game and to allow players to improve their character and give it another go with a stronger set of skills or a new and better set of cards, but playing on the "Normal" difficulty setting, I wasn't particularly troubled by anything at all. As long as you keep moving/dodging and placing down the infinite healing totem you get, it's quite difficult to die.
There is an "Easy" and a "Hard" difficulty setting, and on "Hard," I could imagine finding things quite challenging. Still, I'm not the best gamer anyway, so being unphased by the "Normal" difficulty is quite concerning. I think some of my difficulties came from the incompetence of my AI partners. Had I been playing with a 4 player human group, I would imagine the game would become mind-numbingly easy. A case in point: when fighting against the 2nd boss in the game, I was only hit once.
South Park: Snow Day! uses a system called the "Pissed Off" meter to limit how often you can use your special moves. The problem is, it's nearly always full. I don't think there was ever a point where I tried to use an ability but couldn't. Your character gets pissed off at everything: dealing damage, taking damage, and even looking at snow. It makes the meter seem pretty pointless, and you can just spam attacks or heals because of it. Upgrade your meter to hold more and ensure you never run out!
The card system is one of the only positives I found with the game. At the start of each "run," you'll get to pick a couple of starting cards, giving you a buff to one of your skills or weapons and an ability you can use during the run. The card's power adjusts depending on the rarity of the card, and you can pay to increase their rarity. Periodically, while playing, you can also encounter Jimmy or Henrietta, who will allow you to bring additional cards into play. This system was well made, and you certainly get excited when seeing what cards you're being dealt.
Many people complained about the game's transition from South Park's usual 2D approach to a 3D style; however, I wasn't too bothered by it. It may lack some of the charm of the 2D style, but I think the characters were transitioned fairly well into 3D, and the game world still maintains a cartoony feel. It's basically how you would imagine South Park would be in 3D.
But surely the story is good. I mean, it's a South Park game, right? Well, things get a little confusing here. The writing and storyline are inspired by South Park and its humor, but at the same time, it feels a bit watered-down. I don't know if this was done to ensure the game received a 16+ age rating instead of the 18+ rating both of its predecessors received, but the somewhat off-color humor of South Park was toned down a bit for this game.
Certain jokes from the main series are referenced here but are slightly censored. While South Park is known for targeting certain groups, that doesn't seem to be the case in Snow Day!, simply preferring to use generic toilet humor for many of the gags rather than jumping on the bandwagon of disparaging certain demographics.
So, if you find the humor in South Park's TV series funny, you will probably be disappointed by the toned-down humor. And if you find the humor in the TV series distasteful, you'll probably still find Snow Day!'s humor, too. It feels like the writers chose the worst possible path of being inspired by South Park but were unwilling to follow it fully. Despite all this, I found the voice acting to be quite good.
South Park: Snow Day! gets some things right when it comes to working with the Steam Deck. For one, it supports 16:10 aspect ratio resolutions, so we can run at the Deck's 1280x800 resolution. It also has excellent controller support, with all menus and gameplay elements fully accessible using nothing but the gamepad. There is no need to use the touchscreen or touchpads at any point.
We also have a nice array of video settings to choose from, although many of the settings seemed to have negligible impact on performance. The main exceptions to this are the Volumetric Lighting and Shadow Quality.
So, let's dive into my first and only settings preset for South Park: Snow Day!:
The game may appear to run well at Ultra settings and is able to hold 40 FPS in some areas. However, once combat starts, it often runs in the low to mid-30s, and intense combat drops it into the 20s with a solid 25W battery drain.
So, for my recommended settings, set a 40 FPS / 40Hz limit and turn off your TDP limit. A lot of the game ran fine with a 12W TDP limit, but there are certain points when the screen gets busy with enemies and effects where the 15W TDP limit will have fewer frame drops.
We will set everything to "Low" or "Off," except for Texture Quality, which we can keep on "Ultra." I also set the Resolution Scale to 80% here. With the game's style, the resolution scale saves us a few FPS without being noticeably worse in quality.
With these settings, we get an almost constant 40 FPS. There's the odd dropped frame here and there, but it's mostly consistent. Towards the latter stages of the game (Level 3-5 in my experience), I did get dips in certain places to around 37-38 FPS.
The Level 4 Boss also has a lot of fire/explosions, which caused severe drops down to the low 30s and occasionally high 20s that aren't avoidable.
South Park: Snow Day! varies quite wildly when it comes to power draw, most of the time drawing around 16-18W. However, in intense combat situations, this can go up to 25-26W. I expect an average battery life of about 2 hours from a Steam Deck LCD and about 2.5 - 3 Hours from the OLED. Temperatures range around 70-75C when in light combat or just walking around the levels. I noticed a peak of about 80C in an intensive combat situation with 10+ enemies and many visual effects.
It's also worth noting that for whatever reason, there appear to be moments of intense CPU usage, at which point the FPS will plummet to about 15-20 FPS for several seconds, and there's not much you can do to stop it.
There is an accessibility menu in South Park: Snow Day! which has a few nice features, such as subtitles and their size, color blindness modes, and the ability to skip certain button-mashing sequences that occasionally pop up in the game.
South Park: Snow Day! feels like it suffers from an identity crisis in numerous ways. It falls partially into the "roguelite" genre, with "runs" and different cards you can play to make each playthrough feel "slightly" different. However, it's too easy to require multiple runs, and the cards don't really change the gameplay all that much.
The writing adds further to its identity crisis, feeling like it's trying to bridge the gap between being as crass and edgy as South Park while trying not to offend. A lot of South Park's humor comes from its indifference to whether something is offensive or not; the two can't mix.
While performance on the Steam Deck is generally fine and perfectly playable, I can't recommend the game itself. If you can get it for cheap, like say, $10, then it might be worth picking up and playing with some friends in the co-op mode for an afternoon gaming session, but it's a one-and-done game, you won't be back for more of South Park: Snow Day! once you finish the 4-5 hour campaign.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
This game was tested with a Steam Deck LCD. OLED testing is coming soon.
I'm back again, with another Yakuza review, the third this month! Every time I close my eyes, I see Kiryu...
As usual, if you're interested in the Yakuza series, you should definitely start with Yakuza 0. All the games are inter-linked, and if you start the series at number 6, you're going to be confused as to who all these characters are and the background behind them. But trust me, the time commitment to play all of these games is worth it thanks to how well-rounded and meaningful the stories are.
Yakuza 6's story takes a page out of the Fast & Furious book, it's all about family. Family has been a running theme throughout the Yakuza games. There's probably a family member protecting another one, or you know, killing another one in every game. But Yakuza 6 is very much based around Kiryu protecting those closest to him, even if they aren't related by blood.
Story-wise, a lot of your time will be spent running around trying to gather information on what happened to your "family" member, whom I won't disclose to keep from spoiling. The information gathering is pretty painfully slow, so you might want to mix it up with some intriguing side stories before you get frustrated about being told to go somewhere to get information and finding out that person doesn't know what you wanted to know, but they do want you to help them out with something!
Yakuza 6 actually turns in as the shortest game in the mainline Yakuza series (If you count Kiwami 1 and 2 as replacements for Yakuza 1 and 2), but it's still a good length. You'll likely still be plodding your way through the story at the 20-hour mark, and that's not including all the side missions and minigames that Yakuza games always have in abundance.
Combat gets a bit of a re-vamp with the newly introduced Dragon Engine. For the first time in the series, we actually get proper ragdolls, which are put to great use given that Kiryu can punch and kick people with the power of a thousand intercontinental ballistic missiles.
However, I found some frustrating points/issues with the game. The new combat system feels more fluid but seems to suffer from a bit of "looseness." This is most noticeable when locking on a target in combat. In older Yakuza games, the lock-on felt instant. If you were locked on, close to the target, and threw a punch, that punch would connect if the opponent didn't dodge. Now, although the combat feels more fluid and natural, it also means features like lock-on don't always work as well, and even when locked on, you can simply miss a punch or a kick and end up kicking to the side of an enemy, even if they didn't dodge.
Ultimately, it isn't a deal breaker, and most of the hitboxes are generous with Kiryu's moves so that attacks usually connect regardless. Still, on the odd occasion where Kiryu does kick thin air right next to an enemy, it is frustrating.
Regardless, it still doesn't excuse the developers from putting minigames like calming a crying baby every 30 seconds as you move through the city. Thankfully, it's only in a small portion of the game, but boy, was I getting annoyed by the end of it.
But let's get onto what you're here for: how the game performs on the Steam Deck.
Don't ask why, but while Yakuza 4 Remastered supported 16:10 resolutions, Yakuza 6 still does not. It uses the same trick as Yakuza 5 Remastered, where the game runs at 1280x720, and then artistic borders are put around the top and bottom of the screen to make it up to 1280x800. It's a novel idea, but it's still annoying that the game is restricted to 16:9 aspect ratios.
As we're accustomed to for Yakuza games, we have full controller support, and as always, it works without a hitch, so you won't have any difficulties playing on the Steam Deck itself. It's worth noting that Yakuza 6 does allow the player to pause the game at most points and save anywhere, and also allows players to reload at basically any point too, so having a long battery life isn't quite as urgent here as it was in the previous games.
Yakuza 6 is a little more customizable in the graphics settings than Yakuza 4 and 5 Remasters, so let's take a look and see what we can get out of our Steam Decks with this game. The basic graphics settings are the same across both presets we have here. Fortunately, one improvement Yakuza 6 does have over the remasters is that game logic is not tied to frame rate, so we can run at 40 FPS if we desire, not just 30 or 60.
This newfound ability to run at 40 FPS comes in handy because, regardless of what we do, we cannot maintain 60 FPS in Yakuza 6 on the Steam Deck, sadly. These settings are for the best-looking experience while still maintaining a smooth framerate, and are my preferred way to play Yakuza 6 on the Deck.
Set your Frame Rate Lock in SteamOS to 40 FPS/Hz and remove any TDP Limit, we'll need the full 15W for this. Then go into your advanced graphics settings and make sure they are configured as they are below. I found that keeping shadows on Medium instead of turning to Low helps prevent some strange artifacts on shadows when moving, which can get distracting. SSAO is a bit of a killer on performance, but it also improves how the game looks, especially the darker alleyways.
Yakuza 6 also gets a Resolution Scale option, and we're setting that to 85%, as it's hard to notice the drop, and it gives us the extra bump in performance we need for those Shadows and that SSAO.
With these settings, our power draw varies between 18W - 21W, which means we can expect around one and a half hours of battery life, maybe just a bit more, from a full charge. Temperatures reach around 80C in intensive areas, which can be a little hot, but it's only for brief periods, and the game often runs closer to 70C than 80C.
As you can see from the frame time graphs (upper left corner) of the above screenshots, in certain intensive battles, you will get slightly erratic frame times, but for 99% of the game, it is a fairly consistent experience. The 1st screenshot is an extreme example, where you are in a battle of over 20 individuals, once there were around ten remaining, the frame-pacing evened out, and most battles are with less than ten fighters.
First, we'll set a 30 FPS / 60Hz lock in our SteamOS settings, we can set an 8W TDP Limit here and hold the 30 FPS we need for a playable experience. We're losing out on the shadow quality and SSAO of the quality preset above, and we're also lowering our resolution scale to 75% here. While these are fairly big compromises on the visual quality of the game, they greatly reduce power draw. Because of the "Low" setting on shadows, though, you will likely notice shimmering/artifacts.
With this TDP limit, we get a power draw of around 10-12W, which gives us around 3 hours from a full charge, more than I expected to get, if I'm honest. The frame rate is pretty stable, and the game still looks decent, although far-away objects will appear aliased and slightly pixelated due to the lower resolution scale.
Personally, I'd rather play at 40 FPS and have greater visual quality than play at 30 FPS and gain an hour or so of battery life, but if you want to sit down for a longer play session, then this might be the right preset for you.
This is just a small note, but one worth making. Currently, the Puyo Puyo minigame will crash your Steam Deck if you attempt to play it. I tried it with Proton and Proton Experimental, and they resulted in an immediate crash back to SteamOS, Proton GE didn't crash, but resulted in garbled graphics inside the minigame, so you'll need to avoid it in Club SEGA venues.
Yet again, the only accessibility option in Yakuza 6 is subtitles. You can also limit the amount of gore shown, which I don't believe has been an option in previous Yakuza games, but you can't disable it entirely.
Yakuza 6 is a pretty short experience in the grand scheme of the series. It brought in a new game engine with pros and cons that would later be refined by its successors. While I don't think it's the best Yakuza game out there (that goes to Yakuza 0), it's another decent entry. In my opinion, Yakuza had a bit of a streak of "Good, but not great" games from Yakuza 3-5. Yakuza 6 has started to make changes to pick things up, but it's not quite there yet. That could have prompted the developers to completely change to a new protagonist and a turn-based combat system in the next release.
Regardless of the gameplay itself, I can't help but feel proud that the Steam Deck can handle every Yakuza game we've thrown at it. Even now, we still have some flexibility and can go for 40 FPS with nice visuals or drop down to 30 FPS and preserve battery life.
Yakuza 6 has received "Very Positive" user reviews on Steam and has a Steam Deck Compatibility Rating of "Unsupported." However, we found that it runs just fine without any tweaking, except the Puyo Puyo Minigame.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a third-person action-adventure title where you take on the role of Starkiller, Darth Vader's apprentice, intending to ultimately overthrow the Emperor. Follow Starkiller on his journey in this look at an alternative history of Star Wars.
Graphically speaking, The Force Unleashed holds up pretty well for a 2009 game. It’s nothing to write home about, but there are some nice reflections in areas such as Imperial ships. They do have lovely shiny floors in those things. Characters also have basic shadows, and there are some decent visual effects when using force powers such as shockwaves and distortions.
Combat is, however, what most of this game is about. I found the lightsaber to be a somewhat ineffective and clunky weapon, nor did it feel very satisfying to use. The somewhat stunted movement when using the lightsaber makes it feel useless at anything but very short range. The force powers, however, are really fun to play with. You can pick up enemies, throw them about like ragdolls, push them against objects, and throw objects into them; all are valid ways of defeating enemies. The physics system is really nice for a 2009 game and creates an environment where a lot of weaker enemies feel like toys, making you feel extremely powerful.
But how does the game run on a Steam Deck? Well, let's find out:
When first booting the game, you are presented with a launcher. You can’t control this with anything but your touchscreen. All I had to do was change the resolution to 1280x800 (which the game does support) and change the input device from Keyboard + Mouse to Xbox 360 Controller. This makes the game control perfectly fine with the Steam Deck controller. Also, make sure “High Detail” is ticked if it isn’t already. This is the only graphical setting I noticed, and interestingly, there are no graphics settings in the game.
By default, the game has a 30FPS lock, and you can’t remove it without modifying the game. There is an FPS unlocker out there, which you can use to set your FPS to 40, 50, 60, or unlimited; however, physics bugs will appear at higher frame rates. Because of this, I’m only recommending the 40FPS executable. The physics issue is very minor at this frame rate. Having tested the 60FPS version, the physics issue could cause you to make mistakes, so I don’t recommend using it.
Just copy the 40FPS EXE for The Force Unleashed and overwrite your current SWTFU.exe in your installation directory in Steam.
Installation Directory:
/home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Star Wars The Force Unleashed/We’re using 1280x800 resolution and “High Detail” in the launcher. You should enable the frame limiter in SteamOS, as the CPU seems to work overtime if we don’t impose our own framerate limit.
For 40FPS, we can set a 5W TDP and run the game smoothly. Battery life stays strong, hovering at just above 5 hours. If you’re fine with downloading the FPS Unlocker, we definitely recommend these settings. The extra FPS makes the game feel and look smoother, with hardly any compromise on battery life.
30FPS likewise needs a 5W TDP setting to stay stable. The game can get pretty intensive on a single CPU thread, especially when first loading an area. This can result in inconsistent frame times, but they usually clear up after a few seconds. A 5W TDP gives a solid 30FPS performance and good battery life. You can expect around 5 and a half hours of battery life at these settings.
In terms of accessibility, the game offers subtitles for dialogue, 4 difficulty levels that can be changed during gameplay, and a couple of ways to simplify controls, such as toggling instead of having to hold certain buttons. The subtitles are also of a good size and easily readable on the Steam Deck’s screen. There are also cloud saves and controller support in this game.
If you are encountering inconsistent frame times, try to pause and unpause the game; this will even out the frame pacing. I’m not sure why this happens, but it fixes it. It seems to happen each time you enter an area, load a saved game, or any form of cutscene plays. We do recommend enabling SteamOS’ built-in frame rate lock since this helps the frame time be more consistent, as the game naturally has poor frame pacing. At points, I noticed the game will suddenly accelerate to 50 or 60FPS before relocking if you don’t use the SteamOS lock.
There are some graphical glitches in the game, although it appears that they may be the game itself rather than any fault of Proton or the Steam Deck, most noticeable on far away objects and on some liquid surfaces.
The Force Unleashed wasn’t my favorite Star Wars experience. I’ve had a lot more fun with Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy in the past, and the newer games like Fallen Order definitely surpass TFU. But if you haven’t played this game yet and you’re looking to get a quick and cheap Star Wars fix, I don’t think TFU is a bad choice. It also runs pretty well on the Deck, especially when using the FPS Unlocker to make it feel extremely smooth.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back!
The Expanse: A Telltale Series was provided by Telltale for review. Thank you!
Due to this game having an episodic release, we will update the review as new episodes come out and re-check how performance is.
Telltale Games is back and it's wonderful. I have always been a huge fan of deep story-driven experiences and Telltale are the masters at that. And thankfully, I am so happy to say that with The Expanse -
A Telltale Series, they are back and better than ever.
Just like past Telltale games, The Expanse is closer to a interactive movie rather than a video game. You do have some parts where you can control your character and move around, allowing you to choose different parts of the world to interact with and expand the story past the defined narrative. You will have some quick-time events where you have to push a button or move the joystick within a certain amount of time and, of course, moments within the game's cutscenes where you have to make a decision that will reverberate throughout the rest of the episodes.
In The Expanse, all of this is here and really fantastic. As Camina Drummer, you are the captain of The Artemis where you, with your crew, will explore, scavenge, and survive the dangers of uncharted space beyond The Belt. The game is a prequel to the TV series, so you won't be missing a ton if you haven't seen the show, and it is fantastic. Without spoiling the story, which is the biggest aspect of this game, I will say the first episode sets up the story really well. It does a great job starting to show the characters and what you can expect from the rest of the episodes.
The first episode is very short, which I was surprised by, but I think it did a great job setting up the core of the story. Paired with the great-looking visuals and world building, The Expanse is shaping up to be exactly what Telltale needed to come back to. When buying this game though, don't go in looking for a 5-6 hour experience right away, this will be an investment for the other episodes, which come out every 2 weeks. This looks like it will be a worthwhile investment though, both with the game and on the Steam Deck.
The Expanse is not currently on Steam, it is an Epic Store exclusive. This won't last forever though, the game will come to Steam, but you can play it right now regardless! It will require installing a new launcher, which is where I recommend the open-source Heroic Games Launcher, and there will be an error that needs to be fixed. Don't worry though, I wrote a guide to both of these and how to just get the game up and running!
To preserve as much of the story as possible, I will be limiting my screenshots and blurring out some text. I want to avoid any spoilers, even smaller ones.
Since The Expanse is an Epic Exclusive, I was worried it would suffer from some performance issues or stuttering due to the missing shared shader cache, but I am happy to say that the game is very well optimized in most areas. Most of the time when you are running around, you will sit between 11W - 14W battery drain across all builds, while most cutscenes will sit around 13W - 17W. There are a couple of scenes or spots you can look at that will crank battery drain up, but these are far and few. The worst one is a spot where Camina turns on a mirror and performance will tank, though it will go right back up after the mirror is turned off.
Overall, I am impressed by the game so far and think this is very playable on the Deck regardless! I was shocked that The Expanse can hit 60 FPS on Steam Deck with some tweaking, but in the majority of areas, the drain will sit around 13W - 18W. There are many ways to enjoy the game on-the-go, so here are the ways I would recommend:
For our recommended build, I went for a mix between good quality settings and a decent framerate. For this, I set everything except Shadows and Effects quality to High, while keeping those two at medium. I was able to push a 45 FPS lock with these settings and the game looks fantastic.
I decided to keep the game's resolution down to 1152x720 to stabilize the framerate and use SteamOS's FSR at Sharpness 0 to upscale. The game honestly looks almost the same as native, maybe just slightly sharper. I personally like how this looks though as it helps the dark world stand out a bit more.
With all of that, the 45 FPS is able to stick through most of those hard scenes, with the exception of the mirror part and two others. Otherwise, I can guarantee you will have a great experience with this build!
Next, I wanted to see how far I could push the device with its quality settings, which I was actually able to do quite well. With resolution at 1280x800 and everything on Cinematic (highest setting) except for Effects at High and Shadows at Medium, we can get a solid 40 FPS with no drops other than the harder scenes mentioned above. The majority of the game will be between 13W - 19W, but there will be some areas where it pushes to 21W - 22W, but these are not often.
There might be some minor dips in framerate during 1-2 cutscenes, but if I didn't have the overlay on, I wouldn't have noticed. The game looks phenomenal and it is great being able to push it like this.
Finally, we get to the 60 FPS build. Personally, I am still pretty amazed that the game can hold 60 FPS at all, but here we are! There will be a bit heavier drops during the harder scenes, but 95% of the game will stick to 60 and those include the most important parts of the game. The drain is a bit higher than the other builds with an average between 14W - 20W, but it will be smooth as butter.
While the in-game resolution says it is using 1280x800 and 1152x720 resolutions, which are 16:10, the game does have those black bars, so it doesn't actually support those resolutions. Luckily, the game has full controller support. Since the game is using Epic, there are no cloud saves here either.
The Expanse is Telltale Game's first release since its return and they showed that they still got it. The first episode, while short, got me into the characters and made me start wishing episode 2 was released. The world is looking great, the voice-acting is well done, and I am hooked on the story. I am constantly thinking about what could be coming next and how the choices I made could impact the story. And I know I will be able to enjoy it on the Steam Deck, even without it being on Steam.
If you miss Telltale or want an engrossing story, do not miss this one. It will start off short, but in the coming weeks, there will be so much more to get excited about, I am sure of it!
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
