Before I get into the whole gyro spiel, I just want to say that the Steam Deck is my first ‘console’ in upwards of a decade. The last Halo title I played was Halo 4 on my Xbox 360 Slim, so forgive me if my info on controller aiming is outdated.
When my Steam Deck [finally] arrived last month, I couldn’t think of any games to play. My main go-to genre has always been first-person shooters, so it’s not like there’s a shortage of options on Steam. I wanted to try a free-to-play option first, though, as I hadn’t decided if the Deck was a good investment yet. So… TF2? Nah—too many hackers. How about… CS:GO? Nope—too sweaty. Then there’s… Halo Infinite? Yeah—that could work. I used to fw Halo so hard back in the day.
I’ll spare you all from a paragraph on how much nostalgia I got from the menu music, so let’s jump right in.
I first started playing against offline enemies. My aim was expectedly trash, and not just because I hadn’t played a video game in a long time. Trying shooters on a handheld without strong aim assist feels super janky to me. I have a PSP with hundreds of hours spent on Star Wars Battlefront II to prove it.
Then, something clicked in my brain. The SD has a gyro aiming option, yeah? What’s the harm in turning it on? So, I did just that.
At first, nothing changed. My aim was still a hot mess express, and I continued getting dunked on by robots that didn’t even have the decency to tbag me. But the more I played, the more I realized… ‘wait, this is working’. I stayed in the training arena for about 30 minutes; by the end, I’d cranked up the bots to the highest difficulty and was feeling like a god. Next, I went to the weapon drills section. I got perfect scores in, like, seven of the highest-tier ones. Real matchmaking is still going to be the final test, but guys and gals… gyro aiming feels nuts.
You can call it a gimmick, a fad, just hype, or whatever you want. I’m on that ‘gyro is the future’ train now, though, and I don’t plan on getting off. The aiming is like having the precision of a mouse and keyboard without the drawbacks. I don’t know why more games haven’t implemented it yet. All those years of watching people mock Splatoon players… and now I know where that community is coming from.
If you have a Steam Deck, just try it. You won’t regret it.