Tagged “video-games”

Steam Deck vs Ayaneo 2

tl;dr - If you're most people, get a Steam Deck. If you've got similar use cases to me Ayaneo 2 might be for you.

I don't think I've ever posted about this before, but I wanted to take a bit of time to talk about one of my pretty-obvious hobbies. Despite having way too many side projects, and working too many hours in the week, I still like to try and find some time to play video games.

After working 50-60 hours a week, I like to unwind - but I don't really have a great place to play console games - my PS 5 is at the same desk where I work, and at the end of the day I really like to get away from all of that. I solved this problem with a gaming laptop (13" Razer Blade - love that thing), but it still required a fair amount of effort - keeping a controller near it, having a lap desk so it didn't burn my legs, etc.

Enter the Steam Deck. I preordered one the moment it became available (well, like an hour in because the servers were crashing) and then waited well over a year for it to arrive. But when it arrived.... oh boy was that thing awesome. The controller layout is top-notch, it's comfortable to hold (if a bit heavy), and since I was playing on the couch - the laughably short battery life wasn't an issue. It solved basically all of my problems... except for one major one.

You see, dear readers, every year I do Extra Life - and every year I need to stream for a full 24 hours. While concievably I could do this on the Steam Deck - the amount of CPU things like OBS take up would be pushing the Deck's hardware to the limit. That, coupled with the screen being a bit sub-par in terms of color saturation and resolution, I started to look for alternatives.

Specifically alternatives that support an eGPU.

Enter the Ayaneo 2. Now, for those of you who don't know about Ayaneo - they're a small Chinese company who (for a good while) had a reputation for the best support of the not-Valve handhelds (because no one is going to match Valve in this space - they're simply the largest player), with a reputation for quality. So, I figured I'd give the 2's Indiegogo campaign a go¹.

Long story short, they had a number of issues with that campaign and a lot of folks were having issues with either delivery, faulty hardware, support, or the like. I was not one of those people - I had zero issues with the 2 when it arrived. Let me tell you, I love this thing. The screen is beautiful, it's comfortable to hold (though the Deck has the superior inputs), and after a lot of tinkering and driver updates - I got it to work with my eGPU. Problem solved, I will be able to stream this year without resorting to hijacking what is now my Fiancee's gaming laptop and have a solution for when I need to play those games that have a bit higher graphical demands.

So, how do the two consoles stack up to each other?

• Input: The back buttons are amazing and really really useful. Especially when you remap one of them to "right stick depress" - makes toggling run in a bunch of games much easier. Also, trackpads are exceptionally useful for certain games.
• Comfort: It's just slightly nicer to hold for longer periods due to where the sticks are placed vs. the d-pad.
• Software: The Software experience on SteamOS is really tight. It just works^tm. That cannot be said about the Win 11 experience on Ayaneo - and Ayaspace is semi-necessary for changing TDP and mouse support, but it's clunky.

• Screen: The screen is beautiful, and higher resolution. Even when dropping the resolution on AAA games to get better performance, it just looks better.
• Performance: You can set the TDP on this thing fairly high, higher than the Deck, and at higher TDPs you get better performance for your trouble.
• eGPU support: The Deck doesn't have a USB-4 port so it cannot do eGPUs even if it wanted to, so.... here we are.

All in all, they're both great hardware and the Ayaneo 2 is working great for me - but for most people, I think the Steam Deck is going to be the way to go -

1: Full disclosure, I'd already gotten an Air from them at this point, and enjoyed it. The air is my travel console.

22 Apr 2023 by cthos

blog video-games fun

Little Kitty, Big City

Overall: A+ go get it.

Little Kitty Big City just came out on May 9th, and I've been playing it for a few hours now and I absolutely love it.

Like one of my other favorite cat-themed game, Stray (honorable mention to Catlateral Damage) in Little Kitty, Big City you take on the role of a house cat who finds themselves on the street unexpectedly and has to make their way home. Along the way you interact with other animals in the city, as well as the throngs of faceless humans wandering around.

Your primary objective is to get home, which is complicated by the fact that home is an apartment at the top of a skyscraper. In order to do that, you need to eat fish so you'll have enough energy to climb. The first fish is behind a quest that you'll uncover very quickly and there are several more around the map - usually behind a simple puzzle (involving tricking humans).

During this journey, you do all of the things a cat might do, including:

• Tripping humans
• Stealing bread
• Catching (and releasing) birds
• Climbing
• Giving dogs snacks
• Stealing fish
• Sitting in boxes
• Napping on things
• Meeting other animals
• Doing cute poses
• Collecting hats

The stand out part of this game for me is the writing. There's not a lot of it, but when there is it's pretty dang funny and spot-on. Each of the animals you encounter has a distinct personality and that really comes through. I think Crow is my favorite, but the Tanuki is also pretty great.

Overall I've had a lot of fun with it. It is a pretty short game, if you run it quickly I think you could get home within 20ish minutes if you know where you're going. I expect we'll see an any% speedrun of this game at some point. If you want to collect all of the hats, find all the sleep spots, and sit in a bunch of boxes it'll take a bit longer for you to explore the city and find all those spots.

If you've got Game Pass, it's a no brainer. Go install it or play it via streaming, it's well worth it. Otherwise, it's available on Switch and Steam for a price I think is reasonable from an indie dev making a fun cat-themed game.

12 May 2024 by cthos

reviews reviews gaming video-games