I got mine as soon as they were being sold and was disappointed. It felt incredibly awkward to use in comparison to both a K&M and a traditional controller. I ended up selling it about 5 years ago and don’t miss it.
I have two original Steam controllers and I absolutely hated them. The track pads, whereas a cool innovative technology, weren’t good for 90% of my games. I needed that D-pad, or at least a joystick. I hardly used my controllers, and now I just hold onto them as a piece of Valve history.
Mine came with the physical Steam Link box. I bought two of those boxes, so I could use Steam from a couple different places in my home away from my gaming desk. Instead of the controller, I just plugged in a keyboard and mouse to the Steam Link box. They did away with the hardware though, and now it’s just an app on Smart TVs and app stores. So I can’t use my keyboard and mouse without some extra steps.
Still got mine and use it. I bought mine very early on, and ran into an issue I’ve long since forgotten. I let Valve know and they comped me their entire Valve library, and the issue got sorted later.
An incredibly cool controller, I love the hell out of it.
I’ve owned one since the beginning, and the only major downside to the controller is that it requires relearning. No d pad, touch pads, back buttons are something not found on other controllers, so there is no familiarity you can bring to the device. As a result, you need to rethink and relearn how to use a controller. If you do end up learning it, it can bring a lot to the table because there is nothing like it in terms of customisability.
Sadly i never put in the time and only played simple games on it. I still bust it out for mario kart.
The other minor downside is its not exactly comfortable to use. The handles are angled upwards instead of down which feels unnatural to me… again, probably because no other cobtroller does ot that way.
I keep saying to myself if I ever boot up cities skylines on the TV, I’m waking up the steam controller for it.
I loved it, but I rarely use it anymore these days. Often enough, trying to remap the inputs on it errors out in the Steam Input interface, and I’ve gotten tired of fighting with it. I also never used the left pad for anything and would have preferred an actual D-pad. The right trackpad, especially when paired with gyro controls, is so much better than a right stick for every function you could use a right stick for, and I’ve put it through its paces; but that only works when you can map an actual mouse. Often times, the game will explicitly switch between “controller mode” and “mouse and keyboard” mode, and I hate playing with a controller but seeing keyboard glyphs. Also, due to my preferences, and where the market has headed lately, there have been very few games coming out where I need to “aim”, which is where the Steam controller beat a traditional Xbox controller by the widest margin. So unfortunately, between the software being a pain and there not being a compelling reason to bother putting up with it, I haven’t been using my Steam controller lately.
I feel a right stick is more useful for games deliberately designed as twin stick shooters. Geometry Wars is a good example of this. Using a trackpad for aiming is fine, but that doesn’t really feel like an arcade experience.
I agree, WAY ahead of its time. I have two but unfortunately they’re both stuck at my parent’s house for when the nephews come over and new (even used) ones are practically “unobtanium”.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne