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Welcome to this week’s edition of the Steam Deck Weekly. Like I said last week, there are just too many interesting games releasing these days, and I’m trying to cover as much as I can. If you missed our coverage from earlier in the week, read about how awesome Final Fantasy XIV is on Steam Deck here and my thoughts on the early hours of Monster Hunter Stories’ remaster here. In addition to the games I’ve reviewed, there’s some interesting news across fighting games, Steam sales, and more today. Let’s get into the reviews and impressions first.
Steam Deck Game Reviews & Impressions
Arctic Eggs Steam Deck Review
I love cooking and fishing mini-games. I almost always spend too much time fishing in any game or getting obsessed with whatever recipes a game includes. When it launched, my friend gifted me Arctic Eggs on Steam, and I thought it was going to be one of those joke games that people buy to stream, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. It is an incredible, short, and challenging experience that has been on my mind ever since I played the opening few minutes. Arctic Eggs has a few issues on Steam Deck, but it is equal parts thought provoking and funny, and is one of the most interesting games I’ve played in a while.
Arctic Eggs from The Water Museum hit Steam a few days ago, and it is a sci-fi cooking game about being stuck in Antarctica and trying to find a way out while cooking eggs for colorful people. The eggs you cook and the requirements are basically different types of puzzles with modifiers through over the top combinations you need to cook. After a basic tutorial to get used to the controls and fry a single egg, you start getting more varied requests involving other items and even multiple eggs. You can keep trying and failing as well, and the game lets you avoid some requests while tackling things in a different order if you’re ever stuck. There are also three difficulty options. I stuck to normal for the most part. Hard mode on the Steam Deck seems like a good challenge for me this weekend, especially for some of the later requests.
The reason I haven’t said much about the story here, is that just like Umurangi Generation, I want more people to try this without knowing much about the world. If the concept of a sci-fi cooking game about frying eggs, cigarettes, and other things together sounds good to you, just get Arctic Eggs.
I love the vibe Arctic Eggs has, but the real highlights barring the actual egg requests and NPCs, are the visuals and music. Arctic Eggs has an incredible soundtrack that I’ve been listening to for about a week now. Just like the eggs you need to fry for many people, the way the music brings together different instruments you’d not expect is commendable. I also love how the aesthetic carries into every animation, particle effect, and even the UI. Finishing the game completely also unlocks sandbox mode.
Arctic Eggs is a game clearly built for playing with a mouse, but that has never stopped me from playing something on Steam Deck. After a bit of tweaking, I found myself enjoying it quite a bit on Valve’s handheld. I then ended up using the community layout mentioned here, and it basically felt perfect with the trackpads. I haven’t run into any performance issues either. It runs perfectly on Steam Deck OLED aside from some instances of camera panning or cutting where it drops frames for a few seconds.
Arctic Eggs is currently unrated for Steam Deck by Valve, but the only thing I’d love to see fixed soon is adding Steam Cloud support. I also hope improved controller support is added at some point. The community layout basically elevated my experience quite a bit here.
Arctic Eggs. What a game. What an experience. In this super busy month of quality indie games hitting non stop, I think Arctic Eggs will stick with me for a long time. While it isn’t ideal on Steam Deck out of the box, the community control layout made it my favorite way to experience Arctic Eggs. The soundtrack, aesthetic, and vibe are superb here. It’s time to fry eggs and change lives.
Arctic Eggs Steam Deck Review Score: 4.5/5
Mullet Madjack Steam Deck Review
When I first saw the trailer for Mullet Madjack, I thought it looked brilliant, but wasn’t sure how it would feel to play. It was a different take on a boomer shooter from what I’m used to, but the 90s anime aesthetic and synthwave soundtrack were enough to get me to play it. I have bad news for everyone reading this because Mullet Madjack is another Banger Indie Release from May 2024™. Hammer95 and Epopeia Games have something special here, and it is immediately in my top 10 games of 2024, and excellent on Steam Deck with one caveat.
Mullet Madjack ships with its main campaign, endless mode, leaderboards, a manual, and options. Before getting into the game, I want to highlight just how good the manual is. The developers put more effort into just the manual being interactive with its own interface than I’ve seen from almost every other game.
When I first tried Mullet Madjack, it felt like an anime roguelike take on Ghostrunner. It has a lot of weapon variety, never feels one note, and had me captivated for over a week on Steam Deck. The combat is smooth, and Mullet Madjack succeeds at making the player feel like an absolute badass nonstop. Even death is accompanied by excellent dialog and effects work. The developers nailed the VHS and retro anime aesthetic in every category. If you aren’t a fan of all the post-processing, you can disable the VHS filter, flashing, and more.
In Mullet Madjack, health is time. You get more time by killing. There’s not much of a story here, and I didn’t expect one, but it is carried by the awesome narration in between levels and when you choose upgrades, or even die. You play as a moderator, Mullet Mad Jack, and you need to keep killing to refill the 10 seconds of life you have. This 10 seconds is on the normal mode, and there are many options to tweak difficulty, including one that removes the timer letting you play as a traditional boomer shooter. It features custom stages at random across different chapters, and is one of the best arcade experiences of 2024.
Mullet Madjack is another game that is a stunner on the Steam Deck OLED screen. Every cut-scene, particle effect, and animation feel made for the display. I just wish it had HDR support. It isn’t Steam Deck Verified by Valve yet, but it may as well be with how good it plays on the
