EDIT (2/12/2023): this is for the UNOFFICIAL remaster. Not the official. If you’re like me, you were probably left with a bad taste in your mouth after this year’s Nintendo Direct. No Metroid announcements whatsoever. There were rumors of an official remaster of Metroid Prime coming this year. It would have made sense considering this year marks the 20th anniversary of the beloved title. But, of course, our expectations got crushed.

The folks over at System76 have been quite busy. A few months ago the Oryx Pro got Alder Lake processors and RTX 30-series Ti GPUs. And just last week they released the new version of the Thelio desktop with swappable accents. Now they’ve upgraded the Oryx Pro once more, both in terms of the screen and the RAM. The RAM has been upgraded from DDR4 to DDR5. According to the press documentation, this newer class of RAM boasts “50 percent faster transfer speeds” over the previous generation while drawing less power.

Two new Deck client updates have been pushed out to the Beta/Preview channel, both of which have come out on the same day. The first mostly focuses on fixes, including cloud sync being attempted while offline. Virtual menu previews in the Configurator now highlight the appropriate button when navigating to its associated command in the command list. On the Preview channel, a few more bugs have been fixed pertaining to the resolution dropdown screen, changing resolutions causing a crash, and the resolution dropdown sometimes showing an incorrect current resolution.

The folks at PressEngine were kind enough to send over a review copy of Kena: Bridge of Spirits to me. While I won’t have the full review until a few weeks from now, I at least wanted to give a brief overview of how this game plays on Deck. Kena: Bridge of Spirits is Deck Verified. And, low and behold, they finally got the rating right this time. It works well out of the box with Proton 7.

UPDATE (10/7/2022): this tutorial is no longer relevant, Valve has made it easier to replace the bootloader video with this week’s update to the Steam Deck client. The beauty of the Steam Deck is how insanely customizable it is. We can go so far as replacing the Steam intro video when turning the device on, or when switching to Game Mode. So if you wanted something like this: Your browser does not support the video tag.

Steam Deck DeckCleaner is a great utility for freeing up some of your hard drive space SteamOS beta improves FSR frame pacing, plus a new update for the stable Deck client with tons of changes curious how the repair process works? I’ve documented it Valve says “we don’t consider the Nintendo Switch to be a competitor” Canadians, you may temporaily be on hold as far as your reservation is concerned Native Linux Games I reviewed Flashout 3, a racing game closely inspired by the Wipeout series 26 new games out this week Hardware System76 unveils a rebranded Thelio desktop with swappable front accents.

When downloading games on the Steam Deck, more space on the hard drive gets occupied than just the game itself. Shaders will either be downloaded along with the game, or they will get added as you play the game. While these shaders can be useful for reducing in-game stutter, these shaders will pile up over time. Games that you no longer play will still have their shaders intact, thus taking up space that could be used for something more important.

SteamTinkerLaunch version 11.11, codenamed “!Elfeins” came out yesterday. Here’s some of the highlights: Polish translation updated non-Steam Proton games should now launch obs-vkcapture was changed to obs-gamecapture so OpenGL and Vulkan games can be recorded non-Steam games are now listed as a category Deck improvements; cabextract is now handled automatically, and a differentiation has been added when running the launcher in Game Mode versus Desktop Mode custom Proton list is now automatically updated if newly added Proton versions are possibly missing several bug fixes and improvements To coincide with this release, ProtonUp-Qt has also been updated to fix the STL installer.

I’m a sucker when it comes to racing games. Not so much the simulation type, but more so the arcade-y racers with weapons. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, PocketCars, and GRIP are just a few examples. It’s thrilling action that’s almost akin to fighting games. The Wipeout series is another example. It was certainly an excellent IP at its’ core. Anit-gravity racing machines loaded with turrets, mines, EMPs, the whole nine yards, set in a futuristic era.

As if it wasn’t enough for a Steam Deck/SteamOS update today, Valve also pushed an update to the Steam desktop client. Again, the list of patch notes is far too much to cover here, but here are some of the highlights: a Games to Play Together section has been added with your friends who have the same games in common the “updated purchase approval dialog” has been added specifically to Linux and Mac OS reduced network usage on startup CEF has been updated to 85.