Ceno
April 19, 2016, 8:17pm
1
Posting this here because several Grim Dawners were asking me about it.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/141592653589793238462643/recommended/353370
Ceno:
Nope. Don’t enjoy using this at all.
Got my Steam Controller bundled with Dark Souls 3, and while I was waiting for it to arrive I played through the entire game (twice!) on my friend’s 360 Controller. My Steam Controller arrived recently and I’ve been testing it out on various games.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s pretty terrible when it comes to needing to react quickly to things. As this concept seems to apply to the vast majority of games on Steam, I cannot in good faith recommend the Steam Controller to people. I could imagine the controller being particularly good with slower-paced games, however. I’m looking forward to testing it out on Factorio later on in the week. Games that require more precision and choices rather than speed and adaptability are likely significantly better suited for the Steam Controller than otherwise.
The Steam Controller attempts to do too much with too much. The two trackpads are massive and overly-touchy at their centers but incredibly difficult to work with as you near their edges. The left trackpad is also the highly-sensitive D-Pad of the controller, and both trackpads can be pushed down and function as buttons themselves. You’ve also got the standard ABXY buttons, though they’re placed slightly off-center of the controller rather than further out, meaning the highly-ergonomic thumb-angle familiar to 360/PSX controllers does not apply here. For games that sparsely use the ABXY buttons, this isn’t so much an issue, but for others that are centered around those buttons (Dark Souls), expect mass-frustration. Swapping the location of these buttons and the rightmost trackpad would go a long way to improving cross-controller familiarity and general ease-of-use. As it stands, the thumb is inclined to hover over the trackpad rather than the set of buttons.
And let’s talk about buttons, shall we? Alongside the ABXY buttons, you have a SELECT/START pair of buttons as well as a central ‘Steam’ button. You’ve also got R1/R2 and L1/L2…but also R3 and L3, found on the back of the controller over the batteries. I hit these mostly by accident, and frankly would prefer that they were simply not there. You also have the 3 ‘buttons’ from pressing in the trackpads/joystick. Ignoring the Steam button, that’s a whopping 15 things for you to press while also finagling with two trackpads and a joystick. And one of those trackpads is actually four minitrackpads (the DPAD). Sound daunting? It is.
In short, and as I said before, the Steam Controller attempts to do too much with too much. It attempts to replace typical controllers and keyboard/mouse alike, but ultimately falls short on both fronts due to too much complexity and illogical default mappings (Yes, I’ve changed the mappings for my various games as some users have suggested. No, it doesn’t help.) For $50, I cannot recommend this product. I’ve already ordered a $30 XBox 360 controller and if I wanted to I could buy a keyboard/mouse combo for <$20 and be vastly more satisfied with the usability of the products than I am with the Steam Controller.
If you have comments or questions about this review, let me know here or on Steam (via messaging or in the review’s comments)!
Fiach
April 23, 2016, 7:15am
2
Thanks for posting this, my PC is banjaxed and I was considering a Steam console, cheers :).
Aprreciate the review…been on the fence for a bit on whether to get one or not. Guess that’ll be a no for GD type games
I also have Factorio (and Don’t Starve, Flame in the Flood) and would be interested in how the Steam controller works for you on those type games
arnge
April 27, 2016, 7:56pm
4
Kinda late here, didn’t see this when originally posted.
Very nice review. I had a strong feeling that the steam controller would have these issues, hence why i didn’t get the DKS3 bundle with it. Speaking of DKS, this was my first thought about the controller, i use my thumb on the stick (360 controller) and my index to hold B to run. with the setup on the steam controller that would be impossible. although i could use my thumb for B and index to move the camera, but that would just feel very odd and ineffective.
As you said
The Steam Controller attempts to do too much with too much.
Thanks for the review man
