davep

Finally used the Steam Controller

2026-05-16T19:48:28+01:00

Well, this week didn't quite go according to plan, so I didn't get to test out the Steam Controller straight after it arrived. This afternoon, after messing about with code and agents for a few hours, I decided it was high time I stopped doing coding things (and to some extent day-job learning things) and instead did gaming things.

I dragged the Steam Deck and its dock into the living room, hooked everything up, and had a few hours of running and shooting and stuff. Before I could get started I had to plug the "puck" into the Deck with the supplied cable, and let it update. I then had to unplug the puck and plug in the controller to do the same. Finally I had to plug the puck back in (I hadn't quite realised, but it's the wireless connector for the controller) and I was good to go.

I messed around with a few things, including Brotato, DooM II, Cyberpunk 2077 and a lot of Suit For Hire. All felt good. All worked well. For some reason, this more than ever, makes me look forward to the Steam Machine.

I have a funny feeling I'll be joining the reservation queue when I get the chance.

As for the controller itself: it's a controller. It feels good in the hand. It feels comfortable. All the buttons feel in the right place. As someone who's used a Deck for a while it feels like having all the benefits of the Deck without having to hold the Deck itself. If you are already partly in the Valve hardware ecosystem it makes perfect sense as a thing to own.

Yes, I did try dropping it (carefully). No, I didn't manage to make it scream.

Planning on returning to streaming

2026-05-15T08:38:53+01:00

For the past few years, pretty much every evening for a couple of hours, I would stream while playing games on my PS5. Before that I went through a period of streaming while playing games on my VR gaming setup, often mucking about in things like Cyube VR and Gunman Contracts. It was a fun time and I got the chance to make some fun acquaintances online. All of this was made possible by the fact that I had a really nice, fast fibre connection where I lived.

Late on last year I moved. Unfortunately the location I moved to didn't have fibre available. That's not to say the house lacked fibre; it was that it wasn't even possible to get it to the house. For some time it wasn't clear that it ever would be. So I was back on 35Mbps down and 3Mbps up, on a good day. Not a good streaming experience at all.

I tried. I had a few sessions. Sometimes it would fail. Sometimes it would work but the quality would be bad. It wasn't a good time. Because of this I've taken an extended break from streaming.

The complete lack of availability of fibre changed a couple of months ago. Since moving I've made a point, every few weeks, of going and seeing if there are any plans to run fibre to our location. Finally, back in March, one day, I checked and I COULD ORDER FIBRE!

I'd actually been through this whole thing once before. When I moved back in 2019, I went from a 35/3 connection (which still seemed pretty fast then) down to a horrible 5/0.6, on a good day, kind of connection. That was hard (although a deeply worthwhile trade under the circumstances at the time). When I finally got fibre at that place it was amazing. I went from 5/0.6 to 950/150 overnight. It felt like I had my whole Steam Library locally available the whole time.

So, when I realised that fibre was available to me again, that was an instant sell. As I say, this happened back in March and I still don't have it, because actual digging and stuff has had to happen. People had to write to people to get permission to do things, and so on. It's been kind of agonising watching the slow but steady progress towards being very online again.

But, soon enough, I should be back. I won't stream as much as I used to, just because the move entailed having other things to be doing in my evenings, and having new responsibilities. But I do aim to get some gaming in two or three times a week, most weeks. Also, whereas the last few times I've streamed it's been me mostly messing about in Death Stranding 2, once I have a reasonable connection again I think it'll be time to pick a new game and (attempt to) play it through.

No plans on which game yet, but there's a handful on my "to consider" list.

Steam Controller is here

2026-05-11T15:25:57+01:00

It has arrived!

I feel that Valve have upped their presentation game a little. Even the box feels quality; I don't remember my Steam Deck turning up in such a nice box.

I might give it a go tonight. I probably should. On the other hand there's some coding I want to mess with so I have competing desires!

The plan, at the moment, given my Windows gaming PC is still kind of packed up after moving late last year, is to pair this up with either the Deck, or perhaps even my MacBook (it's got Steam on it now too) and try out a couple of games and see how it feels.

Steam Controller is close

2026-05-11T09:15:17+01:00

Looks like my Steam Controller is close! Very close!

Good job I updated the OS on the Steam Deck yesterday. It's almost like I anticipated this.

Steam Controller in the UK

2026-05-08T13:33:30+01:00

Not that I'm avidly tracking it because I'm envious of all the pictures I'm seeing on Reddit, but...

One step closer to getting my hands on my Steam Controller!

Steam Controller is shipped

2026-05-06T21:04:00+01:00

Well, that was pretty quick. This morning it was in the packaged state and, checking just now:

When I've bought hardware from Valve before, I'm pretty sure it's taken around 3 days to get here, coming from the Netherlands. I can see this is shipping from there too, so I'm going to guess about the same amount of time.

So, some time early next week at the latest, perhaps?

Steam Controller is packaged

2026-05-06T08:32:29+01:00

After a day of no movement, I wake up to see this:

One step closer to getting my hands on it!

I'm oddly kind of invested in getting my hands on this. A regret I have is that I never bought one of the originals. Back in the day I did buy (and still own) a Steam Link and it served me well for a while, 4 homes ago. The 1st gen controller would have been ideal with that but somehow I just never got round to grabbing one.

And, sure, while I have Xbox and Sony controllers kicking around (I especially like my Death Stranding 2 DualSense controller), there's something very appealing about a controller that feels the way the Steam Deck does; I find it a really pleasant gaming experience in the hand.

So, this time, I'm not missing out.

My primary intended use at the moment is to pair it with my Steam Deck and use it as my "Steam Console", plugged into the TV while I game from the sofa. Eventually I hope to be pairing it with a Steam Machine, of course.

Meanwhile, since moving last year, I've not set up my Windows gaming machine yet. It's a bit bulky to have in the current living room setup, but not impossible to set up in the office. Perhaps... perhaps I should actually dig out the Steam Link again and set it up with that!

Steam Controller ordered

2026-05-05T08:33:37+01:00

After dropping one in my basket at 18:00 (UTC+01:00) yesterday, it took around 70 minutes of trying and trying and trying to get to a point where I could pay.

It paid off.

Now I just need to wait however long it takes for it to turn up.

When I first dropped the controller in my basket it was showing that shipping would be within 3 to 5 working days; by the time I managed to pay it was saying 6 to 10 working days.

Which is fine, it's not like I need this right now. My plan is to use it with my Steam Deck in console mode, plugged into the TV; eventually though I hope I'll be using it with a Steam Machine.

So, yeah, I can wait a couple of weeks.

My new favourite game on Steam

2026-05-04T18:42:33+01:00

So the new Steam Controller is released. I kind of fancy one. I love my Steam Deck, so a controller with similar abilities, which I can use with the 'Deck or with my Windows PC (and perhaps my future Steam Machine?), is a bit of a no-brainer.

Buying one is going just as well as you'd imagine. Added to the basket at the moment of release. Here I am, over 40 minutes later, playing the worst clicker game going...

Just... one... more... click...

Back to Death Stranding

2024-02-05T07:45:00+00:00

Death Stranding is easily one of my top 5 games ever. I bought the PS4 version, on a whim, back in early 2020, to see what all the fuss was about. I didn't know much about it other than the love/hate it seemed to be getting. I can still remember the first session, being a bit confused about what was going on, and then suddenly hitting a perfect moment in the game where I knew it was for me, and that I was going to love it.

That moment? It's when you're setting out for the incinerator, the camera pulls back, the landscape opens up before you, and Bones by Low Roar kicks in. Perfection!

I went on to finish the story in around 45 to 50 hours (much of that overlapping with the first week or so of lockdown during the pandemic); and then played at least as much again just exploring, building zip lines, roads, etc.

I even kept a photoblog of my time in the game.

About a year back I bought the Director's Cut of the game, this time for PC. I'd decided that I had to play it through again and did start streaming it. Annoyingly though the PC setup wasn't great. The game itself ran just fine on my PC, but the controller setup meant that, as I sat on the sofa, it would drop connection from time to time. The only workaround for this was to sit on my office chair closer to the TV and, really, this wasn't comfortable.

Eventually that play-through fell away.

Fast forward to last week and the release of the 10 minute Death Stranding 2 trailer and I was hooked all over again! While it never totally went away, my obsession with this game was back full force.

I had to play again!

Meanwhile, between the attempt to play through on the PC and now, I'd acquired a PS5 and at some point I'd upgraded my PS4 version of Death Stranding to the PS5 Director's Cut.

So I had to. I just had to. I'd had a great time streaming my play through the story of Cyberpunk 2077 so it made sense to do the same with Death Stranding.

Last night I hit New game on my PS5 and played for just over 2 hours. This play through is likely going to take a long time -- my work situation means I have a longer and more tiring commute -- but I'm determined to do it. I want to experience all of the extra things in the Director's Cut, including the extra story (which I've read there is, but haven't seen or read about).

I hope, eventually, the playlist I started will have the full story plus lots more fun and building and exploring in it. Hopefully I'll be done just in time for the release of DS2! (and GTA6, it's going to be a busy year for gaming next year!)

Steam Deck

2023-12-14T16:47:00+01:00

Back in 2021, I think it was, when Value first announced the Steam Deck, I was all "hell yes sign me up!"; like... really, I signed up there and then to go on the waiting list. The idea of a wee device that would let me play a ton of games in my Steam library seemed like a great idea. The price seemed right too.

So, I signed up, and waited, and waited, and life moved on.

When I finally (I think it was the best part of 18 months later?) got the email saying my Deck was up for grabs and did I want to complete the purchase I... said nah. By this point I was so heavily into VR gaming that mucking with stuff on a Deck didn't seem to make much sense to me any more.

I moved on.

Then a few weeks back they announced the OLED version and I took a second look. There was now over a year of reviews to read, hacks to notice, fun to follow; now I could get an idea if a Deck was any good and if it was for me. So after a bit of review-reading and review-watching, Thursday last week, I slapped down an order; and by Tuesday the Deck turned up.

The overturning of my original decision to not buy came down to a couple of things. The first was: I recognised that there were a lot of games in my library, sometimes things I'd bought (often in a sale), sometimes things I'd got as part of a Humble Bundle, that just never got played. This, I noticed, was sort of down to an unfortunate relationship I'd developed with gaming.

See... VR has won me over. I love gaming in VR. Also, I love recording my gaming sessions and throwing them on YouTube. This means that, to some extent, in my head, there's effort to getting going with playing a game: I've got to power up the Windows PC; I've got to let it update stuff; I've got to let Steam update stuff; I've got to power up the VR headset; I've got to get it to connect to the PC (which generally works fine but on occasion needs a complete restart of everything); I need to decide what I'm playing next and what to record; I've got to get the recording software going; I've got to...

You get the idea.

Also, of course, I've got to be in the right state to be okay with having a computer strapped to my face (sometimes you don't feel 100% and being lost in a virtual world isn't the best thing to be doing).

This can feel like too much effort. It also means that gaming tends to be left for when I've got a few hours to dedicate to it.¹

But I also love playing games.

My thinking then was a Deck would be a great way of "forcing" myself to play the more casual stuff. There's no easy (that I know of) way to record or stream from the Deck; it's also easy to have it on the sofa and turn it on in a moment. This felt like the ideal device to have to hand, that was dedicated to gaming, and which would encourage me to take smaller gaming sessions when the time arises.

Like... sometimes I'll put something on to cook, come into the living room, pick up the tablet and scroll through the Internet. While I try not to doom-scroll too much, I can see that it would be more healthy to pick up the Deck and play DooM!

So far, two days in, I'm convinced this was an excellent idea and I'm totally won over.

I'm still getting a feel for what does and doesn't work best on the Deck, from a "my taste in games" point of view, but things that allow for dipping in and having a quick blast are winners.

Hong Kong Massacre has finally got a play, despite me owning it ever since I saw John Wick 4.

DooM II got installed and is working well -- I may have to slowly play my way through the whole thing. I've also installed Abyss Odyssey and so far am finding it quite charming and fun (it's an example of a game that isn't really my kind of thing; but I got it in a Humble Bundle, I think, and it's been sat there with 0 hours for way too long).

I've also failed to resist one of the more questionable titles from my younger days...

The real surprise for me though has been a game I bought on a whim a couple of weeks back, which was going cheap, looked fun, seemed nice and casual and which I installed on the PC and totally ignored (because, again, turning on the PC to have a quick game seems like a lot of faff): Brotato.

This game is frantic, way over the top, kinda confusing in parts (for me) but accessible enough that I can actually have a ton of fun with it; and what's really important is that I can pick up the Deck, turn it on, play a game of this for 10 minutes and then go on to do the thing I needed to do next. It's the perfect game to play while waiting for the next step in dinner to cook.

So, yeah, The Steam Deck... I'm won over; I'm so won over. And I haven't even properly explored the fact that it has a full GNU/Linux desktop inside it that I can use as a desktop machine...

Some of this is also true with gaming on the PS5; while it's easier to turn on and get going, and while I don't have a VR setup for it, I do have it in my head that it's more for "epic gaming" than quick casual stuff; see Death Stranding or Cyberpunk 2077 for example. ↩