Steam Deck – a double-edged sword (pic: Valve)

A reader is frustrated that the video games industry is stuck in a rut and the Steam Deck only helps to highlight the lack of advancement.

In 1983 I realised that I loved videogaming. I bought Crash Magazine every month to keep up with the news, spent my formative years hanging around the arcades and game stores, spending every bit of pocket money I had on games. As I got older my income increased and expenditure did as well. I’ve owned every console format at one time or another and always had a lot of fun, everything from Assassin’s Creed to Zelda.

But one thing always remained constant; the latest consoles offered a gaming experience impossible in previous generations. The Amiga was a different world to the Spectrum, Sonic was better than Zool, and Super Mario 64 was better than, well, anything. By the time we reached the Xbox 360 era and played multiplayer Gears Of War over broadband it really did feel like things couldn’t get better than this. And it didn’t, much.

The PlayStation 4 and 5 era hasn’t offered us that leap in gameplay. Graphics are better, sure, but gaming feels much the same as it was, with only VR offering something new. The Gran Turismo series was groundbreaking on PlayStation, but subsequent iterations simply refine, not redefine, the gaming experience.

Gran Turismo 3 (PlayStation 2, 2001) runs at 60 frames per second and looks similar to a current gen game on a CRT monitor. Today, many similar games on PlayStation 4 and 5 need you to tone the graphics settings down to achieve 60fps.

In the absence of Crash Magazine I find myself gleaning my information from the internet. When I see a preview of a new game, I look forward to anything that might interest me, but I subconsciously want to revisit the joy of video games I loved in the past.

I got excited for Exoprimal because it appears to be Earth Defense Force but with dinosaurs. I was excited for Hotshot Racing in the hope it would be like Burnout 2. I loved Bloodstained because it was pretty much Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night all over again.

When I bought the Steam Deck, I found it created the opportunity to have my entire collection of games to hand. Meanwhile there seems to be very little going on with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S and the marketing is all about big blockbuster titles that will tempt me with additional DLC charges. Where are the fun pick up and play titles?

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I don’t want to pay £70 for some epic, life consuming adventure, I just want to have fun playing video games. I remember the 1983 – 2008 period of gaming as a golden era, and the whole industry now feels formulaic and boring in comparison. Meanwhile the Steam Deck is getting more use than any other console I’ve owned, reminding me how much I love video games. Will Starfield put a big smile on my face like Sega’s Emergency Call Ambulance does? I doubt it.

By reader Stephen

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A reader is frustrated that the video games industry is stuck in a rut and the Steam Deck only helps to highlight the lack of advancement.