Finally, I Get to Give My First Impressions on the Steam Deck

I, like many other children of the early 90’s, became a gamer thanks to Nintendo’s GameBoy. Mine in particular was a clear see-thru GameBoy Pocket that I still am in possession of alongside Kirby: Star Stackers, Tetris Blast, and Pokemon Silver (Pokemon Blue has been lost in time). And to the original device’s design, durability and credit, the damn thing still can turn on nearly three decades later with a fresh set of batteries if only for a couple of minutes. Handheld gaming has also been a key part of the video game ecosystem. Between the historic accessibility and availability (yes, I recognize the irony of this word given the title), handheld systems have acted as a gateway to video games. Between the original GameBoy Pocket, the GameBoy Advance, the DS, the PSP, the PS VITA, the 3DS, and even the Switch, there has not been a generation of handheld consoles that I haven’t at least partook in. So of course when Steam announced the proverbial “game-changer,” a portable device that could replicate the power of a PC with the double joysticks and on-the-go gaming, I (as a responsible gaming journalist) had to acquire for science.

A Loyal Companion to the Child-Version of Me

And the moment I could put the deposit down (which according to my records was nearly a year ago), I did so and then I waited. And then I waited a long time. Between a delay announcement in November, I didn’t hear anything about my Steam Deck even though I saw that the device existed and then last month…