- This topic has 3 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 6 months ago by
.
Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
-
Anyone else preorder one of these babies? I plan to use it on that Steam Machine I built earlier this year and showed off at Furry Migration. I think the idea of a traditional/touch hybrid controller is a neat idea that might work well for PC games if supported well enough.
Also…does anyone else remember when the preorders are supposed to ship out? Any day now I think.
So I totally spaced out and forgot to post updates here, I’ve had my controller for about two weeks now thanks to being an early preorder (and brought it to the last meet to show off to my geek buddies), and here are my impressions:- The controller feels pretty solid and is pretty comfortable despite its bizarre, concave-shaped grip wings instead of convex like traditional controllers. The angled shoulder bumpers are nicely ergonomic also.
- I may be spoiled by the Xbox One and PS4 but I wish the joystick was concave to grip it more easily. It feels pretty great otherwise.
- The face buttons are kinda small and easy for someone with fat thumbs like me to mash together but don’t feel cheap either.
- The dual touchpads actually work pretty great, they’re very sensitive and able to be reprogrammed to function like many different things, namely joysticks, trackballs and mousepads. I got a little spooked at first by the haptic feedback (the touchpads “click” and vibrate in accordance to how you use them) but after a while I found it a necessary placebo for the physical feel of a trackball or joystick. However I wish there were some textures to help me figure out where I am on the pad without have to take my eyes off the game. The left one kind-of has one for the d-pad, but I feel like it’s too flat and easy to gloss over.
- The triggers have a hidden, secondary button when you pull them all the way, like a GameCube controller. However I can’t seem to find a use for these secondary buttons and mapping the same function to both the “soft” and “hard” pulls seems to get a little glitchy. The triggers also don’t have a long pull distance so it’s harder to get analog control, which could be problematic for driving games.
- The new grip triggers (a feature I imagine borrowed from the Xbox Elite Controller at the last minute) have been rather useful due to the awkward layout of the controller and tiny face buttons, and are just firm enough to keep from accidentally clicking (unless you have a very tight grip).
- Haven’t found a use for the motion sensors yet aside from bumping tables in The Pinball Arcade, but I’m sure it could be good for other things like flying games, or maybe Audiosurf. Doesn’t quite feel as sensitive as a Wii controller but I’m sure I just don’t have it programmed properly.
- Most of the issues I’ve had from the controller seem to come from glitches with how Steam Big Picture Mode handles certain games rather than the hardware itself. The controller does NOT have Windows drivers — it works by emulating a mouse/keyboard or Xbox controller through Steam itself. Therefore, you must run all games through BPM in order to use the controller, even non-Steam games like Minecraft or Spelunky Classic. (I even got a fangame called Another Metroid 2 Remake working great through BPM.) Some games, especially older PC games, don’t play nice with Steam BPM or Steam Overlay, and therefore the controller does not work as well in them. Mods like GoldenEye Source don’t seem to work very well either.
- Programming is VITAL. The whole gimmick with the controller is that through Steam itself you can hotkey every button and every function of the controller to anything your heart desires and theoretically make any mouse/keyboard game controller-friendly. It does take a little knowledge to fine-tune aspects such as analog joysticks but it isn’t terribly complicated and it explains most settings to you. The community settings panel is especially helpful for finding good custom layouts, and I’ve submitted a few I’ve made myself for people to use.
I think it’s got some great ideas but it might be off to a wee bit of a bumpy start. I’m sure patches and hardware revisions will improve upon it with time and with the release of the Steam Machines the whole PC-console-hybrid market might take off the ground.
Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
