Another great example of the lighting in the museum of Animal Crossing New Horizons, featuring two cool dinosaur fossils and some coprolite! Oh and I guess there's also silly ol' me there too!
The gummiest cat around, baby!
- they/them
Hello, I am usually referred to as Espurr! I love stuff like videogames, dinosaurs, kaiju, and generally enjoying the sweet pleasures of life!
Profile picture made by the amazing @TheButtWitch
Okay so very quickly after the last post of gummy cat rambles, comes my ramble about the Steam Deck!
So for starters, I bought the 512 GB NVME SSD variant while it was on sale during the Steam Summer Sale (I had been saving for months, and this let me get it early!)
The 512 GB NVME SSD variant comes with the aforementioned storage space, anti-glare etched glass, exclusive carrying case, a Steam community profile bundle, and an exclusive virtual keyboard theme (I actually use it.)
Overall I'd say my feelings on the Steam Deck are good. It's a solid feeling device that handles generally well. My R1 button is a little loose, but it's not an issue in the slightest since it only feels that way with no actual pressing issues. I'll go through pros and cons now though.
Pros:
-It can play quite a bit of games, way more than I thought it would.
-It is an emulation machine! It can play up to a big chunk of the PS2 library.
-It has many customization options to tinker with when customizing your graphics/performance/battery life ratio.
-The community has made many tools that help further your experience even more!
-It feels generally nice to hold with my big meaty claws!
-The carrying case it comes with is pretty solid, and they even include a nice microfiber cloth.
-If you've got computer tinkering knowledge, you can buy a cheaper model and insert your own storage option into it. I just got the 512 GB NVME one because I don't have that courage. This also leads to physical customization as there is a market for getting custom shells! I one day want a clear purple plastic shell.
-Most games have cloud saving, which means you can generally seamlessly switch between your setups that have Steam downloaded and setup on them! You can even stream games from stuff like your desktop PC to the Steam Deck if you want to.
Cons:
-The thing is HUGE. If you're someone with smaller hands or has weaker arms, this thing is agony and it is not very portable unless you accommodate it.
-While it can play many games, there's a lot you can't play due to it running on Linux. Anything with anticheat needs to be essentially tinkerered with by the company for it to run on the Steam Deck. This means no games like Fortnite or Genshin Impact (Some companies have made this work though, so games like Battlebit Remastered or Dead by Daylight are playable)
-Those aforementioned customization options can be extremely overwhelming to people not used to that stuff.
-Steam uses a version of Proton that doesn't include what's needed to run video files, so getting a non-Steam version of Proton is needed unless you enjoy looking at colored bars. (For example, Resident Evil Village's opening video won't play without it)
-The buttons are mostly fine except the R1/L1 triggers. A lot of people have weird ones like I do where one might be loose and needs fixing, and they're also just in awful placements. The other buttons feels good though.
-The mousepads are not what they're cracked up to be, but they're great for the desktop mode and some mouse/keyboard games. (Like Bejeweled 2 Deluxe for me in particular, teehee.)
-Battery life is all over the place and depends highly on the software you're running along with what settings. I can get three plus hours with essentially cranked out Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, but a game like Resident Evil Village at medium 30 fps is only gonna be there for two hours.
My verdict is that the machine is worth it if you're willing to tinker and have some prior computer knowledge. I have been using it constantly since I got it last month, and have played many games on it. It has replaced my Switch for third party games, and I want to get more stuff for it!
You know what I wish would come back in full force as a trend? I wish phone charms would come back in full force! I absolutely adore phone charms a ton! They were such a cool thing to put on phones. I kinda wanna put some on like my Steam Deck case.
Oh yeah also I've got a Steam Deck! It's a funky little handheld device! It's huge, so maybe phone charms wouldn't be great on it, but also aesthetic triumphs comfort! No pain, no cutesy! I'll make a longer post about the Steam Deck though.
So back to phone charms. I think the loss of stuff like phone charms as a trend also happened because phones as a whole kind became more standardized. Like with games it's nice that some standardization happened (L2 and R2 being the aim & shoot buttons for example), but it also reduces the fun little individuality of things you had before. Like most phones are just the sleek touchscreen brick now. Again not like evil in the slightest, but I do yearn for the wild west of companies putting out random designs again.
The lighting in Animal Crossing New Horizons is honestly really good, but especially in the museum. I feel like many of the museum areas are super atmospheric, and of course that also lends to some cute selfies in front of critters like fish!