Steam Controller

The Steam Controller for Use on Steam Machines and Steam Big Picture Mode! 

These are my thoughts and experience using the Steam Controller. 

I have had an Alienware Alpha (i5) Steam Machine for a while now, but at the time of purchase, the Steam Controller was not available so it came with an Xbox 360 controller. Upon release of the Steam Controller, i picked one up as it was one of the things i was interested in when the Steam Machines were announced. 

The Steam Controller offers a different experience from traditional gamepads because it is isn't geared towards consoles only. It is also capable of playing more traditional keyboard and mouse PC games, via Steams Big Picture mode on your PC, TV using Steam Link or via Steam Machines. This, for me, is why Steam Controllers are worth the purchase, or at least worth trying out. My steam collection is not the largest in the world, but i have tried it on a few games. The controller has weaknesses in some areas and strengths in others. However, whether you are used to playing games exclusively with a mouse and keyboard, or you are a console gamer or gamepad user, you will encounter a learning curve. 

 

The steam controller comes with one thumb stick, rather than two, a d-pad which also operates as a trackpad, another trackpad, the traditional face buttons, two shoulder buttons and two rear paddles. All buttons, triggers and paddles on the controller can be remapped to suit your needs and brilliantly, you can download and apply pre-configured layouts created by the developer or the Steam Community.

The controller itself, is fairly bulky but not uncomfortable, even with small hands, and is easy to hold. But the placement of the face buttons is unfamiliar to anyone who uses a gamepad as they are placed where you have become accustomed to using a right thumb stick, so takes some getting used to but isn't difficult once you've used it for a short time. The trackpad is very responsive and the triggers and paddles all operate as you would expect. The controller doesn't come with a rechargeable battery, but instead takes two AA batteries, one inserted in each of the controllers handles, or can be played wired via the included micro USB cable.

 

Playing first person shooters with this controller is a slightly awkward experience in my opinion, because for consoles gamers, you are used to using one thumb stick for movement and one for aiming, and the familiarity of that is thrown off by having to use a trackpad for aiming instead, which is very difficult to get used to and accuracy is affected. Thumb sticks also have the advantage of popping back into the central position when let go of, this means in order to turn around 180 degrees for example, you simply push the thumb stick all the way to one side and hold, your character will then keep spinning until you let go. The Steam Controller on the other hand, will only turn as long as you reach the end of the track pad, you then have to lift your thumb, place it back in the centre and move again, this creates a jerky movement on screen and is very difficult to get right in quick sequences. You are supposed to be able to change the trackpad to operate more like a thumb stick, but i'm yet seen this done to any standard which matches a more traditional controller. People who play FPS's with a keyboard and mouse will also have trouble with this as the accuracy of the trackpad simply cannot match that of a mouse. In short, FPS's are not the game of choice for this controller at all.

Playing other games, however, has been a great experience. I've been a console gamer far longer than PC gamer and i prefer the use of gamespads over mouse and keyboard. Racing games feel excellent as the trackpad isn't really required. Third Person adventures are served very well, especially as the controls are mappable meaning you can change buttons to suit your needs. Also, the trackpad doesn't suffer from the accuracy issues like it does with FPS's as the camera angles aren't such an issue as accurate shooting is.

I have played Cities: Skylines for hours with this controller so far and the experience is fantastic. The game itself was built for use with a mouse and keyboard, but after applying the controller layout created by the developer themselves, it is very easy to use. the trackpad in this instance doesn't have any accuracy issues compared to a mouse and moving the screen with the thumb stick actually feels more natural to me then using the WASD buttons on keyboard. The same goes for playing TerraTech, this is a game which feels more natural to play with a controller than keyboard and mouse and again, the WASD buttons work better as an analogue stick.

 

Recommend?

I would recommend the Steam Controller to a gamer who uses Console and PC. The familiarity of using a gamepad for any PC game you choose just feels more natural and a lot of the times more efficient than using a mouse and keyboard. However if you are a strict PC only gamer, it will likely feel very alien, and the learning curve will likely feel too cumbersome for you to stick it out.

However, whether you are an exclusive PC gamer or both PC and Console, i would not recommend this for any FPS. The trackpad just fails to offer the level of accuracy and speed of a mouse and keyboard or analogue stick.

I am very pleased with the product and it's also great to see a company offer something different and untraditional. After all, having options can never be a bad thing. The ability to offer re-mappable controls is great and downloading pre-configured layouts from the community and devs is a great addition. Worth a purchase.