Playing and Finishing Games on Steam Deck: My 2024 Recap

Fair warning on this post: it’s going to be an elongated, glorified list.

I may be a little different to some others who own handhelds. Since I bought my Steam Deck OLED, I’ve been crushing through a lot of games. And I don’t mean just building my collection and looking at them, but actually finishing games. Last year, I finished 28 games. As of writing, I’m up to 8 this year and nearly through my 9th. There is a very simple rule I implemented when I got started with my Steam Deck. That rule is: play until finished. If I install a game, I’m sticking with it until finished. There are a few caveats, naturally. It doesn’t mean that if I’m not enjoying a game that I must continue. If a game stinks, I’m definitely bailing out.

Thus far, I have only bailed out of one game. That is Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine. I’ve had on my list for a long while, I thought ‘what a perfect time to get stuck into it’. Mistake. The game is, quite obviously, a Tomb Raider clone wrapped in an Indiana Jones skin. It’s carries with it, a bit more jank. The game also doesn’t quite display properly on the Steam Deck’s screen, no matter what resolution you select. But what really breaks the game, outside of the janky mechanics, is saving and loading. Say you miss a ledge and fall to your gruesome death, it will then take an excruciatingly long time to get back to your quicksave. And you have to use quicksave, as the save and load menu doesn’t function. I did map the back buttons as quicksave and quickload but that simply isn’t enough to workaround it if you die. If you die, and you will, you have to quit out of the game and start again from the first level to then load your quicksave. Are there better ways to play the game? Probably. But even when I pushed through a few levels, I wasn’t enjoying the game. I decided it wasn’t for me and I moved on.

Through 2024 I replayed old favourites, tried new games and revisited games I never finished. I started with some of my absolute favourites, the Fallout series. A common theme with Fallout games new or old is that mods can be essential. I started with the original Fallout with the Et Tu mod for a bit of quality of life. I even wrote a guide on getting Fallout Et Tu running on your Steam Deck. The controls take some getting used to. Being an isometric RPG you’d be reaching for, at the very least, a mouse. But when utilising the Steam Deck’s trackpads and a binding a couple keys you can make this possibly the best classic Fallout experience there is. Fallout 2 came next, with the restoration project mod. Both classic Fallout games were enjoyable as ever to play and I was quite surprised how the Steam Deck’s controls complemented them. Moving into the 3D universe with the Tale of Two Wastelands mod for Fallout 3 and New Vegas. I’m not gonna lie, it does take some setting up. But once it’s running, it is quite possibly the best experience of both games there is. Fallout 4 I surprisingly tackled without any mods and it was a great experience, except for the crashes of course. Across the board, the whole series runs well on the Steam Deck and I’d highly recommend ripping through every one of them if you’re a fan. You can probably skip Fallout Tactics. It’s not a bad game, but personally I prefer the story driven nature of the rest of the series.

After the grueling grind of Fallout I decided to go back to some older titles. I once again played through Day of the Tentacle Remastered, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and Full Throttle Remastered. I play LucasArts adventure games sometimes 2-3 times per year, so it’s comforting to know they work perfectly on the Steam Deck. These games are always a good place to revisit every once in a while. In 2024, I did generally stick to older titles, games I’ve played or games I’m familiar with. If there was an older series, you better believe I was playing that.

Grand Theft Auto was yet another series I decided to revisit. After running into several issues simply installing the original, I moved on. I gave another childhood classic a crack: Grand Theft Auto 2. I added a mod which gives you a minimap. If you haven’t played the original Grand Theft Auto games, you’ll first notice that the arrows which point to your objective are actually quite difficult to rely on and there is a clear lack of a minimap. The original game you had to rely on your knowledge and the paper maps that came in the game box to get around effectively. The second game, was a little more forgiving but still has much the same issue. Adding a minimap is a godsend, making it infinitely more playable. Proud to say, I have finally finished Grand Theft Auto 2. I did move through the rest of the series, sans Grand Theft Auto 5. For GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas I played the Definitive Editions. Torches and pitchforks down, please. I get it, most people love the originals. I’m one of them. But hear me out. The Definitive Editions give much needed quality of life improvements, especially considering the controls. Classic lighting was recently released in an update which gives a more authentic feel to each game. That was enough to get me over the line. I enjoyed all three Definitive Editions. Say what you will about the graphical style Rockstar went with, but playing them on a Steam Deck, console or other handheld? It’s the best way to play. And yes, the final third of San Andreas still feels like a grind. I also finally finished Grand Theft Auto 4, I’ve owned it on several platforms and never completed it since release. Until now. It honestly could be the best game in the entire series. The darker, grittier setting of Liberty City was simply fantastic.

While on the topic of games I never finished, I decided to revisit Duke Nukem 3D. It’s another game I’ve had on several platforms including the shareware version, original Atomic Edition, Steam, Xbox and Nintendo Switch. How many times did I finish it up until 2024? Exactly zero. The first episode’s levels were very familiar. The back end of the game was basically just brand new content for me. Duke3D is a great time and absolutely still holds up. It’s yet another fine example of an older title which runs perfectly on the Steam Deck.

Emulation is also a pretty big deal on the Steam Deck with EmuDeck. You can emulate anything from the original Atari to PlayStation 3. As my first foray into Steam Deck emulation, I played through my favourite original Sonic games. I tend to skip the original, not because it’s bad, but it just doesn’t hit as hard for me as the others. Sonic 2 was my first console game and much like how I revisit LucasArts games every so often, I do the same with the Sonic games. Sonic 2, Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles always go one after the other in quick succession. They’re still a boatload of fun. Moving into more graphically demanding consoles, I did a run of Tony Hawk’s Underground on PlayStation 2. I’d say it is my favourite Tony Hawk game. Pro Skater 1 and 2 are classics, sure, but throwing a story into a skateboarding game at the time just felt next level. Still does. And Eric Sparrow is still a giant asshole. Continuing on with sports games, I’m a wrestling fan. The WWF/E Attitude Era was the best era of wrestling there ever was. I’ve had runs on WWF/E games before, but I thought it was time to try the WWE ’13 Attitude Era Mode I’ve heard so much about. The Wii version is the easiest to emulate, so I rolled with that. Yeah, they’re right, it’s unreal. It helped that I was re-watching RAW, Smackdown and the Pay-Per-Views in order at the time as well. I was watching it unfold and playing along in WWE ’13. Pushing emulation even further, I played through a PlayStation 3 classic. The Godfather: Dons Edition. This ran just like my original copy with a few concessions. I don’t have a Sixaxis PlayStation 3 controller to use, so some of the actions in The Godfather you simply can’t do. But there are workarounds which are easy enough to use to progress the story. Great game, highly recommend it.

Returning to another older game which I never finished, I thought it was time to tick Dead Island off the list. The definitive edition of the game simply looks incredible. It’s a pretty basic fetch and carry, kill zombie here and there sort of game, but it’s rewarding enough to keep you moving the story along. LEGO Star Wars is another game I never finished. I had only ever finished one or two of the movie stories, but never the entire thing. Mostly I played this on Nintendo Switch when I owned one, but I sold that shortly after buying a Steam Deck. It’s a little toned down graphically on the Switch, which is obvious from playing the PC version. You might be saying ‘oh but that’s a kids game’. Sure, it may be aimed at kids, but holy hell it’s a lot of fun. I can’t recommend it enough, it’s truly a very fun and really relaxing experience. The LEGO games have a signature slapstick-style comedy to them which just adds to the experience.

Remastered games were fairly common for me in 2024, whether these be fan games or commercial releases. A fantastic fan remaster I played was Scarface: The World is Yours. The Remastered Project makes the game actually playable out of the box. The Neonix Modding Team managed to remaster the game almost entirely with refreshed textures, sound enhancements, restored content from the console versions and updated weapon models. The game itself is basically like Grand Theft Auto: Scarface. I plan cover it more extensively down the line. Still on remasters, I’ve always enjoyed Warcraft games and the original two games recently received the remaster treatment. Warcraft: Orcs and Humans I never finished due to the janky early RTS mechanics. It also didn’t help that I played Warcraft 2 first. Warcraft 2 was much more refined and the interface is quite fluid. The remasters allowed me to easily enjoy both, without tinkering around with DosBOX or other such software. The original Warcraft is pretty basic but I still quite enjoyed it. Warcraft 2 is very nostalgic, I’m sure my original disc is still at my parent’s house somewhere. We never had the expansion years ago and I haven’t tried it until now. Beyond the Dark Portal I feel Blizzard just being harsh, the difficulty feels dialed up significantly on the base game. The challenge was nice, but you have to keep your wits about you. RTS games really aren’t bad on the Steam Deck, but if you do have a dock, mouse and an external monitor you may be better served playing that way. Personally, I quite like using the trackpads and found it to be a pretty decent experience.

I didn’t play a lot of newer games, but the newer games I did play were top tier. Hitman: World of Assassination, while not exactly new, is new for me. I played the earlier games. Naturally, I haven’t finished them, as is tradition. It’s not the most straightforward game to buy, but I bought what I think translates to the base game. The core missions of the newer Hitman 1, 2 and 3. I have to say, it ran very well and it was legitimately a great game. Or…uh, games? Whatever. You just continue unraveling conspiracies as Agent 47 and you can do it however you want. Stealth is preferred and more enjoyable. But if you really want, you can just unleash hell and bring a bloodbath upon whichever city you’re headed to next. Freedom of choice.

The best game I finally got around to playing in 2024 was The Last of Us Part 1. This is the 2023 remastered version. Yeah, I played this on the Steam Deck OLED without streaming from a PC or Console. I read a lot about it before buying it on Steam and most of it was negative. The majority of posts I found were that it was going to run like absolute dogshit. That’s not actually the case. Yeah, you won’t be playing it at 4K on ultra settings, but you can still have a good experience. Yes, I used FSR and I had a fantastic time. Fight me. The atmosphere, the story and the characters are what make this game. Post-apocalyptic environments have been done in many different ways before, but The Last of Us really nails it. The gameplay and game mechanics aren’t anything special, but they suit the game awfully well. It’s not that the mechanics are bad in any sense, they’re just fairly basic. But they don’t need to be overly complicated, after all it’s a fairly linear 3rd person story-driven shooter. But damn, it is easily my top pick out of everything I played in 2024.

Well, that was my 2024 gaming experience had entirely on my Steam Deck OLED. I feel I got through a pretty decent mix of games from varying genres. Some old, some new and some that were left unfinished for a long time. I assume 2025 will be more of the same but maybe with a larger list of games. All will be well if I stick to my own rule: play until finished.