Game-Changing Mod Management is coming to Steam Deck!
This week, there's a ton of boomer shooter news. We'll review all the headlines. Plus, we'll take a look at the new Nexus Mods app and see what they've got in store. And what neat new feature has Valve added to the latest Steam Deck beta? All this and more today! Let's get right into the news.
A few months ago, Nightdive's Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster released. It was a good upgrade and it presented the open source project called TheForceEngine an opportunity: to support the HD assets in their engine!
Well, this week, version 1.10.000 was released and it features a whole host of changes. This includes supporting HD assets including textures, sprites and the HUD with cutscenes and briefings coming in the future.
They have also added support for a bunch of options and overrides to facilitate these updates as well as an asset browser and more. Hopefully this new update will hit Luxtorpeda soon.
If you're not familiar, Luxtorpeda is an open source Steam Play compatibility tool that allows you to launch Steam games using free and open source community-made engines. Games like RollerCoaster Tycoon 2, Tomb Raider and more have FOSS engines, and Dark Forces is among them. I made a video about Luxtorpeda a while ago, and it's still relevant here. You can check that with this link! And speaking of Luxtorpeda…
A few weeks ago during a news video, I covered the release of Marathon on Steam. If you've never heard of Marathon, you're missing out. It's one of the Bungie's earliest games. It's got Doom vibes and it has a style all its own.
So when it was released on Steam (for free, mind you) a little while ago, I was elated. I remember playing this game with my friend Karl on his dad's Mac in the mid-90s and being blown away by the atmosphere. It's great to see a classic like this on Steam. For free, no less.
But now, you can get the sequel to Marathon (Marathon 2: Durandal) on Steam. Once again, completely gratis.
It's also got the Xbox Live Arcade release's asset pack which upgrades textures and such. And while there isn't an explicit Linux release here, you can use Luxtorpeda to play the game!
Have you tried Luxtorpeda? Sound off in the comments below. I'd love to hear your take on it.
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Refurbished Steam Deck are back in stock
So Valve's got a new batch of refurbished Steam Decks for sale. You can find a link to them below. If you're looking to get into the Deck game (or your looking to pick up a Deck for child or family member) at a lower cost, then the refurbished program might be what you're looking for!
According to the refurbished page, quote:
Each Certified Refurbished Steam Deck has been thoroughly tested to the same high standards as our retail units. Every device goes through a complete factory reset, software update, and an extensive examination involving over 100 tests at one of Valve's facilities. Among the tests are all controller inputs, the audio system, the screen, and internals. Battery health is also assessed to ensure proper functionality and longevity.\n\nAll refurbished units meet or even exceed the performance standards of new retail units. Although they may have minor cosmetic blemishes, they provide a reliable, high-quality gaming experience at a lower cost.
Each unit has the same one year warranty, a refurbished power supply, and a carrying case.
The 512 model is just $359, the 256 model comes in at a cool $319, and you can get a refurbished 64 GB Steam Deck for just $279. That's an absolute STEAL.
And if you pick up one of these refurbished models, you'll probably want an SD card or even an SSD upgrade. You can use my affiliate links below to get one (or even both) of those. I highly recommend this 1TB SanDisk SD Card, it's what I've got in my Deck. But if you're looking for a more permanent upgrade there's also the Sabrent Rocket 2230 NVMe. These are both devices I've personally tested with my Deck and they come highly recommended!
I'm not sure how I missed this one, but apparently NexusMods is working on a new, cross-platform, and open source mod app that should considerably reduce the terrible state of mod management on Linux.
Yes. The Nexus Mods App is a mod installer, creator and manager for all your popular games.
According to their GitHub, it's quote "easy to use, runs on your standard Windows PC and Linux alike. Don't waste time troubleshooting, play your games, fill those knees with arrows and most importantly, Have Fun!"
This is super exciting since, as I said, manually managing mods for every game on your Linux system can get a bit tedious (not to mention, cumbersome). Especially when you consider the Steam Deck's input limitations.
With all that in mind, this new release of the Nexus Mods App provides fixes for Stardew Valley and introduces (extremely experimental) support for Cyberpunk 2077.
As it stands right now, the support for games with this new application is limited. But support will continue to grow
So, Humble's Management Material bundle has a massive 26 pack of games and DLC on offer for only $15. This is huge!
The games on offer are Tropico 6 - El Prez Edition (which is Playable), Railway Empire (Playable), Tropico 5 (Playable), Port Royale 4 Extended Edition (Playbable), Spacebase Startopia (Verified), Tropico 4 (ProtonDB Gold), Port Royale 3 (ProtonDB Platinum), and Tropico 3 (Playable) along with DLC for most of the games in this list.
As usual with Humble, a portion of your purchase goes towards charity. And if you use my affiliate link below, you'll be helping this show at no additional cost to you. So thanks!
The latest Steam Deck beta includes some exciting new fixes that we need to talk about. Released on July 16th, this beta update's release notes are extensive. So we'll go review the highlights here.
General
- Improvements to keyboard event tracking and audio latency in updated SDL build
- Improved timeout logic when establishing initial connection from UI layer to steam client's API layer
- Improved client startup performance
- …along with various fixes\n
Game Recording
- Improved thumbnail smoothness when mouse tracking across different highlights / regions on the timeline
- Added a max framerate setting. Currently supports 30 or 60 fps.
- …and many fixes
Desktop Mode
- Fixed Ctrl-F not focusing search box in library
Remote Play
- Simplify encoding options to a hardware encoding enable checkbox\n
Steam Input
- Fixed for SIAPI GetMotionData not returning any information on every controller but the first one plugged in.
-- Chapters --
00:00 Introduction
00:23 TheForceEngine's new upgrade supports HD assets
01:51 Marathon 2 on Steam
03:24 Refubished Steam Decks offer steep discount
05:25 Nexus Mods App to improve Linux Mod Management
06:46 Steam Deck Beta Update