Oliver Stogden's Reviews
Farming Simulator 25 talks a big game about the new features it has over previous iterations of the series. But those changes aren't quite big enough for me to recommend that you dive in right now. Give mods some time to catch up to the level they are in Farming Simulator 22, fix a couple of collision bugs I encountered, and maybe go on a sale, and then it's worth the upgrade. It runs well on the Steam Deck for the most part. The controls are great, and while performance in larger multiplayer games borders on unplayable, if you play solo or with a small group, it should run just fine.
VED has an interesting premise both for the storyline and for the gameplay mechanics. Sadly, the story suffers from poor pacing and inconsistencies. It really feels like the game would benefit from being a slightly longer adventure, not an 8-hour one, but I suppose the developers have to draw the line at some point. Poor voice acting and somewhat repetitive, if well-drawn, art also let the game down for its world-building. One thing you can't fault VED on, however, is how it runs on the Steam Deck. It provides an essentially flawless experience with great battery life, even on the highest settings. Controller support is also top-notch here.
[REDACTED] is a game the developers should be proud of. The combat is fast-paced and smooth, and the variety of upgrades keeps the gameplay fresh, even though the world is quite repetitive. While I wish the game had more content so it lasted longer, it is a budget title and priced accordingly. I wouldn't say no to some DLC that added a set of biomes to play through, though that might be difficult with the game closely following The Callisto Protocol's world. As far as how [REDACTED] plays on the Steam Deck, I can't offer any criticisms here. The game is basically flawless. The controls work well, the graphics can be run on their highest settings, and we can keep a modest TDP limit, all of which make [REDACTED] a great game to play on your Steam Deck.
Life is Strange: Double Exposure starts off with a strange story, which quickly turns into a perplexing one and ends up being slightly bizarre and worrying. If you wanted to continue Max's story from the original Life is Strange, this should satisfy that desire. The original game is referenced quite heavily throughout, so if you haven't played the original Life is Strange, I recommend you do so before playing Double Exposure to get a full grasp of everything mentioned. If you don't fancy playing the first game, then Double Exposure does explain some of the events that take place so you can get by. You just might not fully appreciate everything mentioned. The gameplay is pretty middling. There's nothing particularly interesting going on here, and Max's powers of going between timelines, while novel, are on the basic side, and you use them for the same thing over and over again. The story more than makes up for this, though, and as the game progresses, it takes over more and more from the gameplay. As for Steam Deck performance, it isn't quite as performant as I'd like. You will have to accept some frame rate drops from 30 FPS to make the game look "OK," but I played the entire game through on my Steam Deck, so while I would recommend you use a more powerful device to play this if you have one available, don't hold off on buying Life is Strange: Double Exposure if all you have to it play on is a Steam Deck.
Fruitbus is a relaxing and cozy game, barring some annoying design choices. It's the perfect cozy game with little consequence to your actions, and it's interesting to make different recipes and customize your bus. It does have some bugs, but the developers are working on ironing those out before release. However, performance on the Steam Deck is a bit of a mixed bag.
My primary feeling about Funko Fusion is confusion. Funko Pops and their design often appeal to children, and Funko Fusion feels like it should be a kid's game by its design. The game seems to tiptoe around the area of violence in some worlds, and then straight up lets you blow people's heads off with a shotgun and blood splatter a few moments later in another world. At this point, I wonder if Universal dictated to the developers what was and wasn't allowed to be portrayed concerning certain IPs. While this isn't a dealbreaker in itself, it highlights a problem throughout Funko Fusion: the game seems to have many half-baked ideas. Still, the dev team lacked the time or imagination to carry them out. The visual presentation and the technical aspects, such as movement and mechanics, work fine. The problem is that the puzzles are repetitive and tedious, the combat feels hollow, and many missions worldwide are variations on finding lost animals or defeating a series of minibosses. Performance on the Steam Deck is at least decent. You can play Funko Fusion at 40 FPS if you run the lowest settings, with the option to go down to 30 FPS to save some battery life. The controllers also work great, although some of the text in speech bubbles may be hard to read sometimes.
MechWarrior 5: Clans is a Mech game for Mech fans. If you want a game that portrays these mechs for the whatever-ton steel beasts they are, then this is the game for you. The storyline takes a bit of a backstep, but the characters are interesting enough, and the gameplay more than makes up for a somewhat vague storyline. There are some issues, such as the friendly AI doing some things that will make your life difficult, and the performance seems far worse than it should be, but if you have a PC to brute-force through the performance issues, the game overall is solid. I would have given MechWarrior 5: Clans an 8/10 for gameplay, but the severe performance issues and crashes lower it to a 7/10 gameplay score for me. Unfortunately, the above-mentioned performance means that the game is unplayable on the Steam Deck, and given how poor the performance is, I don't think it'll just be a case of "a patch will fix it" for this one.
SWORD ART ONLINE Fractured Daydream has a crowd that it caters to and caters to that crowd well, in my opinion. The story mode is designed with SWORD ART ONLINE fans in mind, with references to numerous anime story arcs and characters appearing with sound cues that signify that their presence is significant. Sadly, why their presence is significant isn't conveyed in the game, so your poor reviewer (who isn't an SAO fan) had to go look at a wiki to find out why this person appearing is such a big deal! Fortunately, for non-SAO fans, the storyline is generally decent, the concept of SAO is easy enough to grasp, and you can sort of figure out what's going on as the story progresses. The gameplay also doesn't disappoint, with over-the-top visual effects firing off in every direction, making you feel like you're using weapons of mass destruction on that spider-looking thing about the size of a large dog. Performance on Steam Deck is middling, and while the story mode largely runs well, you do have to put up with some pixelation due to the resolution scaling if you want somewhat stable performance in online play. However, the game is fully playable on the Steam Deck, with great controls and acceptable performance. If you are a SWORD ART ONLINE fan, I don't think it would be a stretch to say that Fractured Daydream might be the best SWORD ART ONLINE video game yet.
Undisputed is an unapologetically complex fighting game. With controls that will take some getting used to and AI that will proceed to beat you down until you get used to them, this isn't a game for everybody. But if you are looking for a boxing game and you've been starving for a good one for some time, Undisputed is at least worth giving a chance and seeing if it's the one for you. The performance on Steam Deck is a little disappointing. We have to run at the lowest graphical settings to get the game up to 40 FPS, which is the minimal "playable" frame rate. Even then, we get dips close to 30 FPS on some arenas without removing all of the crowd. Undisputed can be played on the Steam Deck, but it's far from the best way to play it.
As I said earlier, Akimbot feels like a condensed form of a Ratchet & Clank game, and that's great. The game is short, and most players will be done here in less than 10 hours. While there are collectibles in the form of data logs, they don't add much to the game besides backstory, so I don't think this is the kind of game you'd play through more than once. However, the shortened length keeps the story going, meaning things are interesting. Good, fluid movement backed up by a solid combat system means Akimbot is a game I can recommend to any 3D action-platformer fans looking to embark on a new adventure. The dynamic between our 2 protagonists is good, even if it does take some time for Exe to lighten up a little. As for Steam Deck performance, we are kept to 40 FPS and will still get frame rate drops occasionally. We're also running on low settings with resolution scaling, so the visual fidelity isn't particularly great. Still, the game remains perfectly playable, and at no point did I feel I died due to performance issues or lack of clarity. So I can give Akimbot the thumbs up to be played on the Steam Deck.