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Fear the Spotlight became one of my favorite horror games, and I almost immediately played it this year. The story is engaging, even if it is semi-predictable, and I love how you interact with the world and how the physics works. I do wish it was a little longer, and it is quite short and easy, but it's a great experience that I recommend, especially if you enjoy classic horror games. It also runs almost flawlessly on the Steam Deck, both at 30 FPS for a more retro feel and 60 FPS for a more modern feel. Both are great ways to experience the game; you can't go wrong either way.
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.
2024 has seen many fantastic indie titles, and Arco is among them. If you like tactical games with deep world-building, or if you want a challenge, it will sate those taste buds. I like both, and although Arco pushed me to hell and back on the difficulty front, it deserves its Overwhelmingly Positive score on Steam with every juicy mouthful of berries, and it is a great Steam Deck performer.
Just like Nightdive Studios continually does, Killing Time: Resurrected is the definitive way to enjoy this title. It is definitely not a game I was expecting to see Nightdive tackle, and it's a new one for me, but the wacky real actors, story, and tight, responsive retro shooting sold me on it. With how weird the game is, and it being a retro shooter, it won't appeal to everyone, but it is definitely worth your time to try it at the very least. And with fantastic support for the Steam Deck, this is a great first-person shooter to dive into wherever you are.
Unknown 9: Awakening left me with a mixed feeling, but I ultimately had a good time. I love the lore and world that is being built through this game and all the other forms of media around it, and the voice acting is superb against the mediocre story. The powers you have really shake up combat a lot, and it is so much fun when chaining everything together, but the janky camera and small issues all build up and create an obnoxious when not using the abilities you have. And while it is technically playable on Steam Deck, it does require compromises and will have drops. But, if you are looking for a linear adventure with PS3/Xbox 360 vibes, you are in the right place and will have a great time here.
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.
Neva is an outstanding short experience that wows on so many fronts. The visuals are extremely appealing and vibrant, while the story tells an emotional, wholesome tale that feels elevated thanks to telling it in a more unique way through actions versus dialogue. The gameplay is a bit simple, but it does the job for the scope of the game. And while I had some stopping points with the environment, it was ultimately worthwhile and didn't take too long to figure out. It is also perfect to play on the Steam Deck, and I can't say that enough! This is an essential for your portable library, especially if you have an OLED screen.
Europa is a short but sweet adventure through a beautiful world that really shines on the Steam Deck. The game is phenomenal looking, and in almost every scene, I found areas that I could take a screenshot of that would be a perfect wallpaper for my phone or desktop. The gameplay is simple, but for the length of the game, it works really well, especially with the interesting story attached. The game itself runs great at the highest settings and can hit 60 FPS with some minor tweaks, all while keeping the great-looking visuals. As long as you go into this expecting a 3-4 hour adventure, you will not be disappointed playing this one on the go.
In the time I played Frostpunk 2, it became my go-to city builder. I love the post-apocalyptic theme, and it is very replayable, but the fact that every single element in the game has some importance to it made me feel like I had to utilize everything at my disposal to really keep my people happy. It is a lot of information at times, and there are some UI elements I would have wanted to see more often, but it is small in the grand scheme and is just such a fun game to play. It is a bit harder to run on the Steam Deck, and the RAM creeping up is a little concerning, but this is still wonderful to play on the Deck. I hope that future patches can help it perform a bit better with gamepad support and lower RAM usage, but I am happy overall!
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.
Even with some issues that I found a bit obnoxious, Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero is by far my favorite Dragon Ball game. It modernizes the Budokai Tenkaichi gameplay into something more accessible, cinematic, and downright beautiful. The gameplay is addicting while being deep once you get into the nitty-gritty of the moves you can use, and I adore the custom battles you can make. I do wish the UI and menus were less tedious, and the camera angles in some instances during battle can get in the way, but the sheer fun I had actually battling outweighed it all. I do wish performance on the Steam Deck matched the amount of fun I really had with the game, and I do hope it will get better with some patches, but it is technically playable, as long as you can deal with the drops and slowdowns that could occur.
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.
Caravan SandWitch is a delightful morsel of exploration and storytelling. While the gameplay’s simplicity might put people off if they need a challenge to their games, I appreciate how much love and care went into this. While its performance on the Steam Deck is more power dependent than I expected, I had enormous fun with it, and it is probably something that can be improved with patches. I will not be surprised if it makes my Top 10 list in December.