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A reader explains why he began to prefer PC handheld gaming over consoles, first with the Steam Deck and now with the Legion Go.
As a day one adopter of the PlayStation 5 I was more than happy with the console. Like many, I’d been flat out through Covid, being an NHS worker, and my time had either been spent at work or on childcare duty looking after both my own children and, at times, my niece and nephew – as my sister and brother-in-law were also key workers.
Coupled with that, my brother unfortunately passed away, so the PlayStation 5 was a welcome distraction. And for the first few years I was more than happy enjoying games such as Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, and God Of War: Ragnarök; as well as third party games such as Resident Evil Village and Elden Ring.
However, by the end of 2022 I’d started to lose some enthusiasm for the PlayStation 5. Partly it was to do with circumstance. I’d started a master’s degree in addition to working full time and having kids, so my spare time had dwindled. The other issue was that I’d played many of the big games and there was nothing on the horizon I had much interest in.
I decided, therefore, to trade in my PlayStation 5 and some games for a base Steam Deck and an SD card, along with a few games.
My time with the Deck wasn’t without a few hiccups. Waiting for two weeks for it to ship was a pain and more so when the first model they sent had an issue where it wouldn’t reboot from sleep mode, so had to be replaced.
However, when I got to grips with the device I had a great time. For me, being able to come to bed with my wife every night and still be able to play games was great, or when the kids go to soft play or various activities where we have to wait outside or in the car the Steam Deck is also a huge advantage.
Another advantage is the price of games. Previously, as a console gamer, I was always an advocate of buying games second-hand where possible and trading in used games. For me, this was a necessity if I wanted to play a variety of games, as I didn’t have enough of a disposable income to justify spending £70 each time the latest game came out. This obviously isn’t feasible with digital games.
However, I’ve found that I’ve amassed a large collection of games for a fairly small amount. When I first got the Steam Deck I went a bit crazy and because I had a fair amount of cash from selling my PlayStation 5 and games, I bought a whole raft of AAA games, including Cyberpunk 2077, Spider-Man, Hogwarts Legacy, Days Gone, Far Cry 5, Far Cry: New Dawn, and the entire Arkham collection, including Arkham Origins.
Some of these games I’d played before, others not. Some, ironically, I could’ve played on the PlayStation 5 but the novelty of playing them on a handheld machine grabbed me. Even though this was a fairly big haul I think it was only about £100 in total. A few of the games cost around £30 but most were around the £10-£15 mark and the Arkham games were only about £3 each.
I’ve found that this has been a reoccurring theme with the prices of digital PC games, in that they are much cheaper in general. For instance, recently I bought a bundle of most of the mainline Resident Evil games, from Resident Evil Zero all the way to Village, and including the fairly recent remakes of 2 and 3. In fact, the only game not in the collection was the newest Resident Evil 4 remake and this only cost £20 or so.
My wife has an Amazon Prime subscription, so I’ve managed to get some fairly decent AA games for free via various storefronts, including the recent Tomb Raider trilogy, Guardians Of The Galaxy, Deathloop, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, and The Outer Worlds, among others.
In fact, for my 40th birthday this year I upgraded my Steam Deck to the Legion Go and am very pleased with the decision. The screen is a better resolution and bigger, the games generally perform better and I can play Xbox Games Pass without messing about.
The only slight issue I’ve had is when Astro Bot came out this year, after selling my PlayStation 5 only 18 months ago, I went and bought a second-hand PlayStation 5 because I wanted to play it. I felt an idiot to be honest and my wife wasn’t best pleased, but I had a little bit of birthday money left and also sold my Xbox One, which was gathering dust.
All the games I play are on Game Pass, which I play in Legion Go either downloaded to the device or via cloud streaming. Indiana Jones And The Great Circle doesn’t run great natively but cloud streaming is much better than I expected. The image quality is great, and I’ve had very little in the way of lag or stuttering.
I learned my lesson to be more patient in future and could probably have waited for the Legion Go from the start without the wheeling and dealing, either way I’m glad to have taken the plunge with handheld PC gaming.
By reader matc7884
The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.
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