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I sold off a bunch of my TF2 weapons and Steam trading cards and used the money to buy a Steam Controller ($49.99 + $7.99 for shipping). I received it in the mail yesterday, and I've had a little chance to play around with it:


Front of the Box


Back of the Box


Opening the box


Underneath the controller


Bottom of the box.

Just enough in there to get started.
- Controller
- AA batteries
- USB dongle for wireless
- USB A to micro-B cable (standard connectors)
- USB micro-B to A adapter lump. (Allows the cable to act as an extension cable for the dongle, I don't know if this lump has any electronics in it, or if it's just dumb wires, but it's heavily weighted so it'll probably hold itself down pretty well.)

You can plug in the controller with any micro USB cable, and it will work without the wireless dongle (and appears to work without the batteries, as well, despite reports to the contrary I've read online. YMMV) I've heard the dongle supports up to 4 controllers.

I've been using Eneloop batteries, and they're a very tight fit in the battery compartments. They do work fine, they're just a pain to get back out. (If you've used rechargeable batteries, you know this problem is far from unique to the Steam Controller.)

Most of my time has been spent in Red Faction Guerrilla (more on that later), with a short hop into Saints Row: Gat out of Hell. I'll update more as I play other games.

The bullet points.
Pros:
- Fantastic shape. This fits my hand even better than the 360 controller.
- Feels solid
- Haptic feedback is good.
- Tons of customization. It's almost intimidating how much you can tweak in the software.
- Tons of buttons*

Cons:
- The analog stick is very roughly textured, I'm starting to get a blister. (This may be a pro for people who think the 360 pads are too slick.)
- The analog stick and buttons are in the secondary position.**
- Triggers don't have a lot of travel

Not sure:
- The touchpad is taking a lot to get used to.***
- Don't know if the controller supports rumble or not. I expected it would, because of the haptic feedback, but it doesn't seem to.

* A, B, X, Y
L & R shoulder buttons
L & R analog triggers (with button press at the end of travel, like the Gamecube)
L & R underside buttons (hit with the ring/pinky fingers)
Analog stick clicks
Each trackpack clicks
Forward & Back (Start & Select)
- plus the Steam button which turns the controller on, and brings up the Steam overlay
- plus you can configure one of the trackpads to bring up a virtual menu, with up to 9 (I think) regions to click on, complete with graphic representations (at least in some games, have not tested this yet).

** I realize this is necessary to get good positioning for the track pads, but I can tell it's not going to be as nice as a 360 pad when playing games that focus on stick and button controls. A minor thing, but a point in favor of a 360 controller, if you play a lot of platformers, or Batman: Arkham style games.

*** Sometimes the touchpad feels a lot better than a stick, and other times I'm fumbling around like a complete noob. There's definitely a lot of promise there, especially with how customizable the software is, but it's going to take a while to master, and YMMV.


As for my specific experiences with RF:G, I'm not really sure yet. My first time through the game was mostly with mouse and keyboard, switching to gamepad for some of the driving sections. I really didn't like the way shooting feels with a gamepad, and that's from someone who has played through Saints Row 2, 3, 4, & GooH with a gamepad, and found the shooting there to work just fine. I don't know if this game controls better on console with a gamepad, but M&K is the way to go on PC. The trackpad shows promise of making things enough better than an analog stick that I might stick with it, especially how much better driving controls with an analog stick, but I don't know.

There are multiple ways to configure the input from the trackpad. The two that apply to RF:G are "Mouse-like Joystick" and a more straightforward joystick emulation. The first tries to make the controls like you're using a trackball, even while feeding the game joystick movement. You can flick the pad, and then virtual momentum will continue to spin the camera as if you were holding the stick to the edge, and you can put your thumb back down to stop the spin (or let "friction" slow you to a stop). This actually works pretty well for quick turns and large movements. Fine movement, especially aiming, takes more getting used to. And I'm not sure how much is RF:G, how much is a need to tweak controller settings, and how much is my own need to get used to things.

The more direct joystick emulation is pretty good. Having the haptic feedback instead of an actual joystick is taking some getting used to, but I do like the ability to control the dead zone and sensitivity as much as the software allows. It's possible to set the center to be less responsive than the rim, so that you can fine aim while near the center, with a heavy ramp up in sensitivity as you move outwards, so that you can spin fast near the outside, while still having tight controls near the center. The disadvantage is that moving from one side of the trackpad to the other is a larger movement than it takes to move all the way across an analog stick's range of motion. It's not too big to be covered, but it's different.

I'm not sure which of these two I'll end up using more for RFG.

Games I plan on playing in the near future to test out the controller:
- Portal 2
- Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons
- L4D2
- LEGO The Hobbit
- Scribblenauts Unlimited

Possibly:
- Torchlight 2
- Bastion
- Pixeljunk Shooter
- Psychonauts
- Some driving game to test the gyro as a wheel? (I have Burnout Paradise)


Any questions?

Seen some video with it; once you master it it really seems like a fairly good fit for games that normally require a mouse but don't necessarily require quick clicking. Crusader Kings, Total War, etc. Curious to see what'll come from it. I dunno, I'm a K+M person and can't cope with a controller... It looks more made for people who want a controller, with added options wit the trackball, than a way to make people like me move to the couch.

I'm curious how Scribblenauts would work with a controller. Wouldn't it need a keyboard, or at least be much better with a keyboard?

bhamv3 said:

I'm curious how Scribblenauts would work with a controller. Wouldn't it need a keyboard, or at least be much better with a keyboard?

Click to expand...

Scribblenauts is on consoles, so no, it doesn't need a keyboard. PS4 and Xbone have pads that come up where you can select the letters/numbers individually (same as with inputting passwords or naming characters/items, performing searches, etc.), while Wii U and 3DS have a mini-keyboard that utilizes the stylus.

But even with using the Steam controller, I would think the keyboard would still be available unless you're playing on the Steam console.

bhamv3 said:

I'm curious how Scribblenauts would work with a controller. Wouldn't it need a keyboard, or at least be much better with a keyboard?

Click to expand...

I play at my desk, I use a controller because I like it better for certain game types. Scribblenauts is at least part 2D platformer, so my inclination is to go to a gamepad to play it. I'll use my keyboard for typing in words, most likely. However, the on-screen keyboard for the Steam controller is pretty good.



Each half of the keyboard is assigned to a touchpad. Move over a letter, click to type, predictions at the top. It didn't take me very long to feel like it was a fast enough way to enter short words. I don't think I'd want to chat with friends using it, but it would do in a pinch to play Scribblenauts from my couch.

Spent some more time playing RF:G, I am definitely finding the touch pad to be at least the equal to a stick in this game. Probably better, at least I'm definitely improving my skill.

Also played some L4D2. A game having the ability to recognize the touchpad as mouse input makes a huge difference. The sensitivity of the touchpad is crazy. I was flailing wildly all over the place, though. So it would definitely take some getting used to, but you can definitely pull a 180 turn with ease, while still having fine precision. Getting that precision to hold steady while you're doing everything else.... it's going to take practice, if it comes at all. I'm looking forward to a play-through of Portal 2 to put this pad through it's paces.

In L4D2 the left touchpad is set to act as buttons. I'd show you what the screen overlay looks like... but I didn't realize that it wouldn't show in an in-game screenshot. Basically it's 3 rows of buttons; two on the top row as primary and secondary weapons (generic machine gun and pistol, they don't reflect your actual in-game weapons), three on the middle row as healthpack, pills, and vote yes. Then 2 on the final row: vote no, and a last unused button. You can change the arrangement of these if you want, and you can hit them blindly if you've got the muscle memory for it.

The game has haptic feedback when you fire guns. Not sure if anything else triggers bits of rumble, but it's definitely possible for the controller to give both haptic feedback for the trackpad, and for it to react to in-game events. I'm not sure why RF:G and LEGO Marvel Heroes don't cause the controller to vibrate at all. Hopefully this will be fixed in the future.

One small thing I've forgotten to mention. When you power up/down the controller, it plays a few chirpy notes (I think it uses the haptic feedback motors to produce the sound, but I'm not sure). This can be customized; right now you have to choose from a predefined list, but who knows what Valve will allow in the future. My controller plays the notes of "this was a triumph" as it powers down.

Also, you can register the controller to your Steam account, give it name, and if you use it on another computer it will bring your controller configurations with you.

Started getting frustrated with trying to find the sweet spot for all the various settings for the "mouse like" stick, and discovered that it is possible to set RF:G to accept mouse input for camera, with joystick for everything else. Only caveat, it's kind of stupid about this, and as soon as you switch to the custom control scheme, it switches all the menus over to mouse and keyboard commands, and no longer responds to joystick or buttons. So, vastly better aiming via the touchpad, but the map, accepting missions, buying upgrades, etc. all have to be done via mouse-clicks and keyboard input. I haven't figured out how to change the menu control options without setting it to a default 360 controller setup.

Thanks for the in-depth reporting on this Pez, I have a steam controller on my wishlist for some platformy feeling games, this is really helpful info.

Gared said:

Thanks for the in-depth reporting on this Pez, I have a steam controller on my wishlist for some platformy feeling games, this is really helpful info.

Click to expand...

I've used a steam controller, and I don't know if I'd use it for a platformer. For games designed to be played with a controller, a regular controller is still best. That's not what the steam controller sets out to do. It's purpose is to be a controller for games not designed to be played with a controller, or don't even have controller support.

Gared said:

Thanks for the in-depth reporting on this Pez, I have a steam controller on my wishlist for some platformy feeling games, this is really helpful info.

Click to expand...

You're welcome. I figured as long as I got this nearly for free, I might as well share my thoughts with people who might consider spending actual money on it.

figmentPez said:

Started getting frustrated with trying to find the sweet spot for all the various settings for the "mouse like" stick, and discovered that it is possible to set RF:G to accept mouse input for camera, with joystick for everything else. Only caveat, it's kind of stupid about this, and as soon as you switch to the custom control scheme, it switches all the menus over to mouse and keyboard commands, and no longer responds to joystick or buttons. So, vastly better aiming via the touchpad, but the map, accepting missions, buying upgrades, etc. all have to be done via mouse-clicks and keyboard input. I haven't figured out how to change the menu control options without setting it to a default 360 controller setup.

Click to expand...

WTF? If you start with gamepad controls, and remap the camera movement to mouse, then you have no camera control when you're driving.

So, I started from Mouse & Keyboard bindings, and started resetting buttons from there. Combat, and driving now work. Menus are iffy, especially the map. BUT I can set the triggers' full depress buttons to be mouse clicks. This allows me to manually click on options, and to use the second mouse button to put waypoints on the map. Can't zoom-in and out on the map though.... That's okay, I'll just change the "d-pad" to a scroll wheel. Works on the map, but not the mini-map. You can't set the minimap to mousewheel, for no apparent reason.

Okay, the left and right on the D-pad aren't used, so I'll just remap the whole thing. Up and down get set to MwheelUp and MwheelDn for zoom in the main map, left and right are PgUp and PgDn for the mini-map zoom. Upgrades and weapon cabinets are still a pain, but I can't see an obvious way to bind them better without using mode shifting, and I'm sitting at my desk anyway, so it's not that bad. Then I run into the problem that getting directions to certain missions of opportunity requires pressing G, with no way to rebind. So, right on the D-pad gets changed to send a G, and mini-map zoom also gets set to G.

It works. It's rough around the edges, and wouldn't have to be this awful if the game designers had actually done their jobs when it came to control bindings, but everything in combat and driving is quickly accessible, and having the touchpad actually sending mouse input, rather than emulating a joystick, is a huge plus. I may have to upload this to community controller configurations.

figmentPez said:

if the game designers had actually done their jobs when it came to control bindings

Click to expand...

What else is new? Games with no or limited rebinding of keys need to die in a burning pit.

Bubble181 said:

What else is new? Games with no or limited rebinding of keys need to die in a burning pit.

Click to expand...

I was about to say that a burning pit was too much... Then I tried to complete a tank mission. For no reason I can fathom, when using a custom control scheme, the tank's primary fire won't work. It doesn't seem to be bound to anything. The secondary fire works just fine. Moving and aiming are just fine. But you can't fire the main gun.

I could just complete this mission with mouse and keyboard, and then go back to the controller, but my stubborn side wants to try to get this to work.

In the continuing adventures of Alec Mason: Worst Driver on Mars.... I've given up and gone back to mouse and keyboard. Why? Because the key remapping in this game makes no damn sense. In an attempt to get tank fire controls to work, I started afresh with rebinding. And it worked! The tank would fire via a mouse click command sent by the controller. But it broke something else. The Y button no longer works to exit a vehicle. You can enter a vehicle, and it generally functions as a Use key, but once you get into a vehicle, it stops working. It used to work, but it doesn't now, and I have no idea why.

This is a good game, I'm enjoying my second playthrough, but the control remapping is such bullshit.

Welcome to the world of anyone using a different keyboard lay out, though it's usually only this bad in console ports. I guess this is the same issue in reverse, sort of.

figmentPez said:

In the continuing adventures of Alec Mason: Worst Driver on Mars.... I've given up and gone back to mouse and keyboard. Why? Because the key remapping in this game makes no damn sense. In an attempt to get tank fire controls to work, I started afresh with rebinding. And it worked! The tank would fire via a mouse click command sent by the controller. But it broke something else. The Y button no longer works to exit a vehicle. You can enter a vehicle, and it generally functions as a Use key, but once you get into a vehicle, it stops working. It used to work, but it doesn't now, and I have no idea why.

This is a good game, I'm enjoying my second playthrough, but the control remapping is such bullshit.

Click to expand...

Have you checked the steam workshop to see if anyone has created a functioning keybind?

Bubble181 said:

Welcome to the world of anyone using a different keyboard lay out, though it's usually only this bad in console ports. I guess this is the same issue in reverse, sort of.

Click to expand...

This is a console port, I'm pretty sure.

Ravenpoe said:

Have you checked the steam workshop to see if anyone has created a functioning keybind?

Click to expand...

The most used community configuration maps the joystick to WASD with "analog emulation" (where it pulses the key press signal at various levels), and doesn't use the triggers for acceleration and braking when driving. It's basically just a configuration that's mean to pair with the default keyboard & mouse settings.

Since I think I've learned all I can from RF:G, I've moved on to Portal 2. Which means I should bring up a subject I haven't yet: Gyro aiming. I think this is one of the reasons I was flailing about so much in L4D2, because I didn't realize it was on.

Here's how it works. The controller has some sort of motion sensors, which you can set to mouse input (among other things). When this is done at relatively low sensitivity, it allows you to use the touchpad to do large movements, and then fine aim with the gyro sensors. It's taking a while to wrap my head around, because I keep falling out of the habit of using it. However, when I'm intentional about it, I have moments where it clicks and feels right. Hopefully enough in-game time will eventually result it being as second nature as mouse and keyboard have become.

Finished playing Portal 2, and I officially love this controller. By the end of the game I wasn't even thinking about how to use both the gyro and the trackpad to aim, it had become habit. Considering that's only about six hours using the setup, I'm impressed with how easy it was to pick up for me. I'm having more trouble getting used to having 3 trigger buttons. (Actually I'm still having trouble with anything more than two, and that's after years of using a 360 controller.) I'm going to give L4D2 another shot now that I'm more accustomed to aiming.

Today "experimental rumble emulation" was added to the Steam Controller. I messed around in LEGO The Hobbit a bit, and it seems to work reasonably well.

Still haven't gone back to L4D2, been too distracted by other things (like Puzzle Quest 2 on my phone). Also, loaded up Scribblenauts: Unlimited, realized it doesn't have any sort of controller support at all on PC, and just decided to not come up with keybindings. Good game, probably could be played with the Steam controller, but I wouldn't bother if you're not on a couch.

Games I did play with the Steam controller:

LEGO The Hobbit - It's a LEGO game and I played it mainly with the analog stick and the buttons. Yeah.

Okay, actual notes:
- The pointy spots on the rough texture of the analog stick have worn down, so it doesn't feel sharp anymore, just grippy. It's a damn good analog stick.
- I still like the buttons, small though they may be.
- I think I like controlling the camera with the track pad better than I like using an analog stick.
- I tried using the left track pad for movement, instead of the analog stick, and it felt weird. I might have been able to get used to it, but I didn't bother.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons - for those that don't know, this is an indie game where you control two characters at the same time. The older brother is controlled with the left stick and trigger, while the younger brother is controlled with the right stick and trigger, while the bumpers are used to rotate the camera

I set this one up to use both track pads, rather than the analog stick and a pad, because I wanted symmetry. It worked out great. Control felt natural and I never wished for having sticks rather than the pads.

One thing I did discover in the control settings. Among the settings you can choose for a pad are "joystick move" and "joystick camera" and initially I assumed that these were basically left and right, but that's not the case. They're different styles of input with different haptic feedback. I'm not sure how to describe the differences I noticed, and I'm sure there are subtleties that I haven't explored yet, but it's another facet of just how much configuration is possible with this controller. Something I may have to go into more detail on later.

Speaking of haptic feedback, the rumble emulation was added just before I started playing Brothers, and I'm sure glad it was. I know some people don't care for rumble, but I love it, and I think this experimental emulation worked pretty damn good for Brothers. I left it on the default setting the whole time. I found, in my experimentation with LtH, that I was just fine with a middle of the road rumble frequency (it can be set from a very slow rumble that's not even fast enough to trigger on short bursts, all the way up to an "8-bit" that's so high the haptics start to sound like a tuning fork.) I'm wondering if any future games will have native haptic feedback, because this has the potential to do a lot more than rumble. This haptic is more powerful than my old iFeel Mouseman, and even that could do some very impressive things. *sigh* Dear Valve, Please release a "Steam mouse" with haptic feedback.

I'm running into trouble getting the Steam controller to work with non-Steam games. I really want to use it with Re-Volt, but the controller just reverts back to "lizard mode" when in any non-Steam game. I tried with Giants: Citizen Kabuto as well, and that didn't work, so I thought it might be some conflict with GOG Galaxy, so I tried Minecraft, and that doesn't work either. I don't know what the problem is, since other people report getting it to work just fine.

Holy shit, Re-volt, there's a blast from the past. I used to love that game on dreamcast.

Sorry, though, I have no idea about how to get it to work with them... just a wild stab in the dark, though, did you try adding them to steam, so that steam can launch them with its overlay? I don't know if that would make a difference, honestly.

GasBandit said:

Holy shit, Re-volt, there's a blast from the past. I used to love that game on dreamcast.

Sorry, though, I have no idea about how to get it to work with them... just a wild stab in the dark, though, did you try adding them to steam, so that steam can launch them with its overlay? I don't know if that would make a difference, honestly.

Click to expand...

One of the downsides to the Steam Controller is that you have to run in Big Picture Mode to get most of the functionality (why Valve went that way, I don't know). Configuring the controller has to be done in BPM, and though Steam games seem to remember at least some of the setup done in BPM if you're back in normal mode, any time you're completely outside of Steam the controller reverts back to a sort of kebyoard/mouse emulation that allows for basic navigation of an OS.

I'm not sure why, but the Steam overlay doesn't work right with Re-Volt or Giants. I'm going to try using the stand-alone installer, rather than GOG Galaxy, to see if that fixes anything. Right now if I'm playing one and go into the Steam overlay, it doesn't switch back like it should.

Minecraft works with the Steam overlay, but something goes all wonky when it's BPM. I suspect my system may be the problem. BPM is a bit demanding, and my system can't even run it at 1920x1080 without lagging. Not only is my hardware old, but I'm long overdue for a clean re-install of Windows.

I'm getting ads on Steam now saying that the controller and link are available on Amazon.ca. I think, hey cool, I want those. Sign into Amazon.ca aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand nope. Both sold out and they say that the bundle with both items may never be available again. How many did you get in stock Amazon? 12?

I'm continuing to love this controller. Having played a lot of Saints Row 3 Co-op, I can say that this is my ideal controller for the series. Unlike RedFaction Guerilla, Saints Row has no major issues using the right track pad as a mouse input. This combined with gyro controls for fine aim give fantastic control for shooting, just a little shy of actual mouse-aim in my book, while still giving the fantastic driving control that analog inputs allow. I hate driving with mouse & keyboard, and while I've never felt that the Saints Row games particularly lacked in the shooting department when playing with analog sticks, now I feel like I'm even closer to the precision of a mouse.

Also, I haven't done any thorough battery testing, but a set of basic Eneloop rechargeables (6 years old, regularly used) got me through well over 40 hours of Darksiders 2 and Saints Row 3, with rumble emulation, before I got a low battery indicator, and I still probably could have gone a while after that. So I'm definitely fine with performance in that respect.

Now that I've played most of the way through Zelda: A Link to the Past Randomizer, I wanted to update this thread on how the controller works as a digital pad.

Holy shit it takes a lot of getting used to,but I did get used to it. Using the left touch pad as digital input was really freaking weird at first. Early on I turned off the need to press the button in order to register direction, which may not be the best option for everyone, but I found it worked much better for me. There's a small (adjustable, though I used default settings) dead-zone in the center where you can rest your thumb, but I found that I was just as comfortable hovering most of the time. Once I started developing the right muscle memory, it felt pretty good. Not quite as good as a nice physical d-pad, but probably better than mediocre d-pad on my old Mad Catz 360 pad. I think one of the big things that saves it is the haptic feedback. It doesn't make it feel the same as a d-pad, but there is enough tactile feedback to know when you've moved from one direction to another, or back into the dead-zone. I think I like it better than using the analog stick as a d-pad, but I'm not sure. Each has certain advantages.

Overall, it's not perfect, but it's definitely good. Or at least good enough that I don't feel like I'm being hampered in my ability to play Zelda. I can't speak for other genres yet, but I suspect it will work pretty well for those, too. I'll probably try it with AM2R soon-ish.

figmentPez said:

Overall, it's not perfect, but it's definitely good. Or at least good enough that I don't feel like I'm being hampered in my ability to play Zelda. I can't speak for other genres yet, but I suspect it will work pretty well for those, too. I'll probably try it with AM2R soon-ish.

Click to expand...

I've been playing AM2R and Guacamelee, and they're wildly different from ZaLttP. I have yet to get fully used to using the touchpad with them. I think I prefer Guacamelee with the analog stick, but AM2R I just can't get comfortable with either. Since I currently have no other gamepad to test with (my sister has my old wired MadCatz 360 controller, and the wireless adapter for my Microsoft 360 controller is dead), I can't say for sure if the Steam Controller is the weak link, or if I'm just sucking at AM2R, though I suspect it's a little of both.

Right now, I'd say that this is the weakest point I've found for the Steam Controller. It's far from ideal when it comes to retro-side-scrolling games.

I'm kinda tempted to get an 8Bitdo controller... Not sure which model I'd want most though.

The NES30 PRO has broader fuctionality, with analog sticks and secondary shoulder buttons.


But I like the colors of the SFC30, since I liked the SNES era better than the NES:


Eh, not sure I want to spend the money on either right now, but that'll be for another thread if I do.

Oh, those seem very reasonably priced. The NES pro wins just for having the twin sticks on it.

figmentPez said:

I've been playing AM2R and Guacamelee, and they're wildly different from ZaLttP. I have yet to get fully used to using the touchpad with them. I think I prefer Guacamelee with the analog stick, but AM2R I just can't get comfortable with either. Since I currently have no other gamepad to test with (my sister has my old wired MadCatz 360 controller, and the wireless adapter for my Microsoft 360 controller is dead), I can't say for sure if the Steam Controller is the weak link, or if I'm just sucking at AM2R, though I suspect it's a little of both.

Right now, I'd say that this is the weakest point I've found for the Steam Controller. It's far from ideal when it comes to retro-side-scrolling games.

I'm kinda tempted to get an 8Bitdo controller... Not sure which model I'd want most though.

The NES30 PRO has broader fuctionality, with analog sticks and secondary shoulder buttons.

But I like the colors of the SFC30, since I liked the SNES era better than the NES:

Eh, not sure I want to spend the money on either right now, but that'll be for another thread if I do.

Click to expand...

I no longer have it, but I once built a dedicated emulation machine out of an old PC, and converted real SNES controllers to plug into a parallel port. Worked pretty well. I had also picked up a few junker NES and SNES consoles from ebay for cheap to salvage parts from them so I could load actual cartridges into the thing.


I modified the controller before obtaining the old SNES units, but it's also possible to make a converter using the controller ports.

Ran into some problems getting my Steam Controller to work with Saints Row 4. It used to work, then it stopped, and it took me a while to figure it out. Turns out that when SR4 got upgraded to native support for the Steam Controller, they did a half-assed job! Whoever was in charge of this obviously never sat down and tried to play the game with the configuration they set up as default, and that's not even getting into how all previous configurations do absolutely nothing now, and give no indication of why they're not working.