Steam Controller trailer, $50

Have there been any extensive write-ups from these people getting them early? Seems like all I see are twitter blurbs so far, your think there would be more interest in analyzing it.

It's not out for Pre-orders until next month?
 
So... can anyone who has used both extensively comment on how the Steam trackpads compare to the Wii remote's IR camera in terms of speed and precision? I've searched the thread and can't find any detailed looks at how the two match up.

Obviously, there are some big differences in the way the two are implemented on the game side of things. Wii remote games tend to separate camera and cursor control entirely (like RE4/Twilight Princess), and when they do combine both they offer very detailed settings to customize camera and cursor movement independently so that you can still retain control of the cursor speed while also controlling the camera. Steam controller is emulating a kb+mouse, which rarely separates camera and cursor.

I imagine they'll still be very comparable since the remote was hailed as a step towards kb+mouse precision long before the Steam controller was even an idea. They're actually vaguely similar in terms of what they achieve- a relatively conventional controller feel with more precision than dual analog- especially now that the Steam controller has an analog stick for character movement.
 
So... can anyone who has used both extensively comment on how the Steam trackpads compare to the Wii remote's IR camera in terms of speed and precision? I've searched the thread and can't find any detailed looks at how the two match up.

Obviously, there are some big differences in the way the two are implemented on the game side of things. Wii remote games tend to separate camera and cursor control entirely (like RE4/Twilight Princess), and when they do combine both they offer very detailed settings to customize camera and cursor movement independently so that you can still retain control of the cursor speed while also controlling the camera. Steam controller is emulating a kb+mouse, which rarely separates camera and cursor.

I imagine they'll still be very comparable since the remote was hailed as a step towards kb+mouse precision long before the Steam controller was even an idea. They're actually vaguely similar in terms of what they achieve- a relatively conventional controller feel with more precision than dual analog- especially now that the Steam controller has an analog stick for character movement.

The big difference is the simple size of the surface area on the track pad, where you have just a few inches of thumb movement compared to using an IR pointer where you can set the sensitivity to whatever you want and use however much space you want. For this reason I think the trackpads will initially lend themselves to using higher sensitivities, so people don't have to 'reswipe' often. However the trackball-like inertia that they have integrated can help a lot with this, and allow people to use lower sensitivities for fine aiming but not be too cumbersome for general movement and 180s etc.
 
Have there been any extensive write-ups from these people getting them early? Seems like all I see are twitter blurbs so far, your think there would be more interest in analyzing it.

A lot of the controllers were sent to developers who are in the middle of projects, so they're a tad busy. I'm game to do a write, in fact I'll be doing one for my site as soon as mine get here.

Perhaps we should open the floor for those here who are getting a Steam controller early in October. You know, what do you want to know about, do you want videos of it in action, etc...
 
A lot of the controllers were sent to developers who are in the middle of projects, so they're a tad busy. I'm game to do a write, in fact I'll be doing one for my site as soon as mine get here.

Perhaps we should open the floor for those here who are getting a Steam controller early in October. You know, what do you want to know about, do you want videos of it in action, etc...

I'll be doing the OT, so hopefully lots of that stuff can be gathered in there from the early users. I expect their to be some teething issues particularly as it will take time for strong community bindings to build up, and the software driven nature of the thing may see it get a variety of updates and changes along the way.
 
You know, im still sad that when I was ready to preorder this and there was two left, got out my Mastercard and hit refresh and its freaking sold out. I keep checking back to see if I can order again.
 
I'll be one of those early users, but my library is pretty limited (no FPS aside from Alien Isolation). I'll probably be testing mostly third person shooters like Phantom Pain and various Resident Evils with it. I'm interested in how it works for sidescrollers with the virtual D-pad, so I'll be trying Cave Story and Axiom Verge too. Emulators are another area of interest... if I can get Majora's Mask playing with the trackpad in P64, the shooting gallery minigames should be a joke. I'm worried the legacy keyboard and mouse mode will restrict it to WASD input, though.
 
Perhaps we should open the floor for those here who are getting a Steam controller early in October. You know, what do you want to know about, do you want videos of it in action, etc...
I'm really interested in how effective that haptic feedback is. Like if it really is a good solution for feeling a virtual "button" on the pad or if it's more like glorified rumble.
 
I know that when I get mine, the first two games I'll be playing are Portal 2 and NBA 2K15

I have five games I'm going to throw at it on day one.

Crusader Kings II
Ori and the Blind Forest
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
Portal 2
Wargame: Red Dragon

The last one is pretty much just for laughs, as I know it won't work, haha.
 
I will try first:

- Resident Evil 4: I've played this game with a controller because I thought it was much better in everything except the actual shooting, so I hope this game will solve the only issue I have with its controls, mixing everything that is good with mouse and gamepad.

- Fallout 1, Pillars of Eternity and Planescape Torment: I'll finally be able to play them in my 47" TV. I have a comfy chair so is easy to get closer or farther from the TV as much as I need which means that UI size is not an issue.

- Final Fantasy VII: I'll be able to walk or run using the analog stick instead of holding a button!

- The Witcher 3: Crossbow use will never be the same.
 
I'm going to bite the bullet and see if if I can play Witcher 1 on my TV. My GOG Galaxy is actually full of stuff that I've never tried on my TV so I'll see what it's like.
 
Since I can't even pre order the damn thing, there'll be plenty of custom profiles online by the time I get my hands on it.
 
For the first day, I'll probably be trying out

Deus Ex (OG) / HL1
Ikaruga
FEAR
Mega Man
Sunless Sea
Mafia / Mafia 2
MGS 1 / MGS V
Planescape Torment
Descent
 
suggestions for games worth trying with the steam controller:

-World in Conflict: It's an action-RTS thats pretty fun to play with mouse and keyboard but no fun with a gamepad and gamepad mapper. The steam controller is the first time you can really play this game from your couch without a keyboard in your lap.

-Wii Emulation: Wii emulation is already pretty terrific these days. You can run games in higher resolution, add texture fixes, even do things like use VR headsets. Obviously you can play with a real wiimote, but using a steam controller transforms a lot of wii experiences into something that feels more traditional. The right touchpad controls the wii pointer in games and can be mapped to control waggle too. Playing Mario Galaxy with a steam controller is nuts, especially when you map the button under the right touchpad to jump. Feels like a weird hybrid between Wii and gamecube controller in that instance.

-System Shock 2: This game utilizes a mix of a point and click adventure interface and FPS controls. Much of the time, you are maneuvering a cursor around the screen to do inventory management. This is another type of game that has never really been possible to play with a gamepad from your couch. The original SS2 has a special mode, btw, which enlarges the fonts that allows it to be a really good TV experience.

-ScummVM: Old lucas arts point and click games like the indiana jones or sam and max games are awesome with the steam controller for obvious reasons.

-Arcade trackball games with MAME: Much in the same way that Wii emulation is really awesome with the steam controller, finally you can play trackball games in MAME with perfect accuracy. Anybody who has fiddled around with trying to map a trackball to an analog stick in games like SegaSonic Arcade or Marble Madness knows how poorly the analog stick works in those situations. The steam controller finally lets you play those games the correct way. Recommended trackball games to try:
-SegaSonic Arcade
-Missile Command
-Marble Madness
-Any lightgun game (because you can map the lightgun input to mouse mode)

-MDK: MDK is a blast to play with the steam controller because of its unorthodox control methods. This was released back when PC fps controls were still sort of transitioning to WASD so it doesn't control quite the same way. Instead, you wind up with a wierd half-mouse set up where you can move like a normal TSP using WADS, and aim left and right with the right pad, but up and down on the right pad makes you walk forward or backwards by the amount you "click" the wheel. This feels really strange and surprisingly enjoyable. I'm certain there are other games you can play like this, but this is one off the top of my head to recommend.

-Internet Streaming Sites (Hulu, Netflix, youtube, etc): I see people complain about Steam not having a native netflix app, or hulu app, or whatever. What people don't realize is that you can add these types of shortcuts to steam by creating a simple batch file to launch your webbrowser of choice to a URL. As an example, with windows 10, if you want to open ESPN3 with the Edge browser, you'd simply make a batch file with the command: "start microsoft-edge:http://espn.go.com/watchespn/" and save it as something like ESPN3.bat.

Then, using a site like online bat to exe (http://www.f2ko.de/en/ob2e.php) to turn your batch file into an executable, and then add it to steam itself:

g9IYMO6.jpg


And while those types of services need apps on other systems to control well with their controllers, the steam controller is perfectly suited to using their native web interfaces. Anything mouse driven - any sort of website, is great with the steam controller. You can use this method to add all sorts of streaming video options to steam. I hope that, in the future, steam has built in batch support without needing to turn your batch into an executable.

Ok, I'm dumb, why this controller would change that?

You can mimic analog controls by setting two stages of button press with the analog stick. So if you press it only a little bit, it just sends the normal keyboard direction input. But if you press it all the way, you can have it send the normal keyboard input + the button that makes you run. This will let you basically fake analog control. You can do this with FPS games too - have only a little tilt send wasd where full tilt sends shift+wasd or whatever key you assign run to. Or the opposite - little tilt sends ctrl+wasd (or whatever you have walk mapped to) and full tilt sends wasd.

EDIT: And yes, the game I'm most excited to play with the steam controller is MGSV. I can't play using my prototypes because you can't map those within steam anymore, so I'd have to remap the keys in-game if I wanted to use it.
 
As a gamepad-only PC gamer, I'm looking forward to finally playing Condemned with a gamepad. One of the main reasons I preordered Steam Controller.
 
You guys think Pillars of Eternity is playable with this?

Oh yeah, isometric old school western RPGs like that are great with the steam controller. Balder's Gate, Diablo, KoToR, and Dragon's Age Origin are all really awesome with this controller. Basically any place a mouse does really well, the steam controller shines.

You can also play stuff like World of Warcraft really easily with a steam controller.
 
Oh yeah, isometric old school western RPGs like that are great with the steam controller. Balder's Gate, Diablo, KoToR, and Dragon's Age Origin are all really awesome with this controller. Basically any place a mouse does really well, the steam controller shines.

You can also play stuff like World of Warcraft really easily with a steam controller.

Almost forgot that I am saving my rerun of Kotor and first run of kotor2 with restored content mod for the Steam Controller. First time replaying them since I first played the games when they released on the OG Xbox. Really looking forward to that
 
Oh yeah, isometric old school western RPGs like that are great with the steam controller. Balder's Gate, Diablo, KoToR, and Dragon's Age Origin are all really awesome with this controller. Basically any place a mouse does really well, the steam controller shines.

You can also play stuff like World of Warcraft really easily with a steam controller.

How easy is it to do the very small positional movements in something like Pillars?

Also, how do you have the controller set for Diablo? I'm thinking about that right now... Right pad for movement/aim, RT for standing still, left pad split four ways for abilities, LB/RB for the two buffs, and LT for town portal. Damn, still more than a month to go.
 
How easy is it to do the very small positional movements in something like Pillars?

Just the same as it is with a mouse. The resolution on the steam controller touchpads is great, and like always, you can fiddle with the sensitivity. I have no problems doing pixel-accurate pointing with my steam controllers. It is every bit as good as any mouse.

Also, how do you have the controller set for Diablo? I'm thinking about that right now... Right pad for movement/aim, RT for standing still, left pad split four ways for abilities, LB/RB for the two buffs, and LT for town portal. Damn, still more than a month to go.

I used something like that. The old controllers have lost their ability to remap keys within steam with steam updates, so all it can do now is work in a default legacy mode that maps all the inputs to things like 1-9 and wasd and mouse input. I could go the other way around - and remap diablo's controls using those keys rather than trying to remap the steam controller to use diablo's default layout, but why bother. The retail version will release next month.
 
I'll be one of those early users, but my library is pretty limited (no FPS aside from Alien Isolation). I'll probably be testing mostly third person shooters like Phantom Pain and various Resident Evils with it. I'm interested in how it works for sidescrollers with the virtual D-pad, so I'll be trying Cave Story and Axiom Verge too. Emulators are another area of interest... if I can get Majora's Mask playing with the trackpad in P64, the shooting gallery minigames should be a joke. I'm worried the legacy keyboard and mouse mode will restrict it to WASD input, though.

You're not thinking this through. Majora's Mask has a speed cap on how fast you can move the camera and it won't map in a way that feels natural at all. It will be like moving turrets in console ports with your mouse, if you've ever had the displeasure of trying that. I think this issue will be a factor for many games that on first thought seem to work great on a Steam Controller. Will be interesting to see how people tackle it.
 
I can't wait for the first units to arrive in people's hands in october so people can chime in on what they think about them. I suspect there will be some purists who won't be able to change - I myself have to use inverted controls because I got used to goldeneye and could never break the habit, so it happens - but I suspect a large number of people will immediately grasp just how superior the right pad is to an analog stick. It's such a huge game changer. This controller makes so many third and first person shooters way better, provided the game supports true mouse control.

The closer this gets to launch, the better I think putting that analog stick is. So many people will never get used to using the left pad as a replacement for a d-pad, and the analog stick is a crutch that still keeps the pad usable for them.
 
suggestions for games worth trying with the steam controller:

-World in Conflict: It's an action-RTS thats pretty fun to play with mouse and keyboard but no fun with a gamepad and gamepad mapper. The steam controller is the first time you can really play this game from your couch without a keyboard in your lap.

-Wii Emulation: Wii emulation is already pretty terrific these days. You can run games in higher resolution, add texture fixes, even do things like use VR headsets. Obviously you can play with a real wiimote, but using a steam controller transforms a lot of wii experiences into something that feels more traditional. The right touchpad controls the wii pointer in games and can be mapped to control waggle too. Playing Mario Galaxy with a steam controller is nuts, especially when you map the button under the right touchpad to jump. Feels like a weird hybrid between Wii and gamecube controller in that instance.

-System Shock 2: This game utilizes a mix of a point and click adventure interface and FPS controls. Much of the time, you are maneuvering a cursor around the screen to do inventory management. This is another type of game that has never really been possible to play with a gamepad from your couch. The original SS2 has a special mode, btw, which enlarges the fonts that allows it to be a really good TV experience.

-ScummVM: Old lucas arts point and click games like the indiana jones or sam and max games are awesome with the steam controller for obvious reasons.

-Arcade trackball games with MAME: Much in the same way that Wii emulation is really awesome with the steam controller, finally you can play trackball games in MAME with perfect accuracy. Anybody who has fiddled around with trying to map a trackball to an analog stick in games like SegaSonic Arcade or Marble Madness knows how poorly the analog stick works in those situations. The steam controller finally lets you play those games the correct way. Recommended trackball games to try:
-SegaSonic Arcade
-Missile Command
-Marble Madness
-Any lightgun game (because you can map the lightgun input to mouse mode)

-MDK: MDK is a blast to play with the steam controller because of its unorthodox control methods. This was released back when PC fps controls were still sort of transitioning to WASD so it doesn't control quite the same way. Instead, you wind up with a wierd half-mouse set up where you can move like a normal TSP using WADS, and aim left and right with the right pad, but up and down on the right pad makes you walk forward or backwards by the amount you "click" the wheel. This feels really strange and surprisingly enjoyable. I'm certain there are other games you can play like this, but this is one off the top of my head to recommend.

-Internet Streaming Sites (Hulu, Netflix, youtube, etc): I see people complain about Steam not having a native netflix app, or hulu app, or whatever. What people don't realize is that you can add these types of shortcuts to steam by creating a simple batch file to launch your webbrowser of choice to a URL. As an example, with windows 10, if you want to open ESPN3 with the Edge browser, you'd simply make a batch file with the command: "start microsoft-edge:http://espn.go.com/watchespn/" and save it as something like ESPN3.bat.

Then, using a site like online bat to exe (http://www.f2ko.de/en/ob2e.php) to turn your batch file into an executable, and then add it to steam itself:

g9IYMO6.jpg


And while those types of services need apps on other systems to control well with their controllers, the steam controller is perfectly suited to using their native web interfaces. Anything mouse driven - any sort of website, is great with the steam controller. You can use this method to add all sorts of streaming video options to steam. I hope that, in the future, steam has built in batch support without needing to turn your batch into an executable.



You can mimic analog controls by setting two stages of button press with the analog stick. So if you press it only a little bit, it just sends the normal keyboard direction input. But if you press it all the way, you can have it send the normal keyboard input + the button that makes you run. This will let you basically fake analog control. You can do this with FPS games too - have only a little tilt send wasd where full tilt sends shift+wasd or whatever key you assign run to. Or the opposite - little tilt sends ctrl+wasd (or whatever you have walk mapped to) and full tilt sends wasd.

EDIT: And yes, the game I'm most excited to play with the steam controller is MGSV. I can't play using my prototypes because you can't map those within steam anymore, so I'd have to remap the keys in-game if I wanted to use it.
Awesome post, man. I'm as excited for the media possibilities as I am for gaming. I have a strict "controller control only" approach with my HTPC, a scheme cobbled together with Xpadder, Win8 tiles, Chrome kiosk mode, and of course Kodi & SteamBP. It works, but mouse control with an analogue stick sucks. The Steam controller is going to be my silver bullet.
 
Oh wow, it's coming next month for me, totally forgot how close it was.

Current Steam Controller playlist:

Ghost Song Beta
LUFTRAUSERS
Mark of the Ninja

all games I had a bit of a tough time with using M+KB. I'll also play a bit of CS:GO with it, I think. :lol
 
I'm going to install csgo and tf2 for the fourth or fifth time I want to see how I hold up against the mouse ninjas probably suck just the same lol. Who knows maybe I will be better I was using a DS3
 
I am VERY skeptical of this thing. I'm hoping for the best though, it sure would do wonders for MAME and possibly MInecraft if it comes with a profiler.
 
My day one playlist:

Noitu Love 2: I'm really hoping that using the right track pad will work well for this game.

Hotline Miami: same reasoning as Noitu Love 2.

Cloudbuilt: the game feels great with mouse and keyboard but the gamepad controls don't fair so well. That was until, hopefully, the steam controller.

Dark Souls 2: the mouse and keyboard controls are actually more streamlined than the console controls. I'm hoping they'll translate to the steam controller well.

Dive Kick: I just wanna split the whole controller into dive and kick.

Nights: maybe it'll feel closer to what Yuji Naka wanted the game to feel like in the first place?

Jet Set Radio: I would love to have the familiarity of a controller and mouse look available... Oh look! Steam controller!

Too bad I missed the window to get one in October.
 
I went from a total steam controller believer to a xbox one elite controller fan. Now that people are planning their games I'm going towards the steam controller again...

decisions decisions!
 
I'd rather have two sticks than two flat circles....but that's just me. Lol imagine flying a plane in real life with a circle just drawn on the desk in front of you. The precision!!

Lol imagine flying a plane in real life with two tiny analogue sticks and a few buttons in front of you. The precision!
 
Hmm sadly I get it in November but I will test some stuff I have installed right now. Might & Magic X, Risen 2/Gothic 1-3, Wasteland 2 and mabye other PC games.
 
I'm getting unsure about keeping my preorder for the link+controller. Firstly I'm hoping MS brings PC-Xbox streaming in which case I could use my Xbox to play PC games in the living room with the Xbox controller. Secondly I really don't mind using an analog stick for mouselook - I'm old and stuck in my ways.

But I guess I shouldn't cancel, right? If I do get cold feet I can always pass it on to a gaffer instead so they can get it early? I have it preordered from GAME in the UK.
 
I'm really interested to see people playing games that usually benefit much from the precision of a mouse. I would like to see people playing games like Starcraft 2 or other RTSs, where a misclick can send your army to death, or a precision focused shooter like CS:GO and see if the surface area of the trackpads allow for good accuracy but also a fast enough turn speed for being surprised etc.

I'm less interested in stuff like third person action adventure games, which already have decent inputs made for them. Ideally the Steam controller would bridge the gap and be a good middle ground for a lot of the genres that are popular on PC, even if it isn't totally ideal for them.

I'm curious to see how people deal with making configurations though, especially with how some games have their controls setup for gamepads and kb/m that might not translate well to the Steampad form factor. As an example, if you play MGSV with a kb/m, the 'next/prev tab' bindings for menus are 1 and 3. However, those buttons are also your weapon and item selection buttons, and if you wanted to keep them in the same cross configuration by assigning them to one of the trackpad's directions so that they match up on their on screen UI, you would then have it so you are pressing UP to tab left. Little issues like that are going to be a thorn in the side of user-made configurations, and I want to see if games end up changing to facilitate things like that or users just grow used to niggling issues.
 
Hmm sadly I get it in November but I will test some stuff I have installed right now. Might & Magic X, Risen 2/Gothic 1-3, Wasteland 2 and mabye other PC games.

I'm of the opinion that you will have a better experience in November than the guys in October. I'm guessing it will take some time for solid bindings get going on certain titles, but I'd also expect a bunch of updates and fixes since the thing is so software driven and Valve typically need to do that stuff over time.

I'm getting unsure about keeping my preorder for the link+controller. Firstly I'm hoping MS brings PC-Xbox streaming in which case I could use my Xbox to play PC games in the living room with the Xbox controller. Secondly I really don't mind using an analog stick for mouselook - I'm old and stuck in my ways.

But I guess I shouldn't cancel, right? If I do get cold feet I can always pass it on to a gaffer instead so they can get it early? I have it preordered from GAME in the UK.

I'm not sure why your bothering. If you only play controller based games, are happy with analogue sticks for mouse look with auto aim assistance, browsing, messaging etc, are happy to use a keyboard and mouse when that is all that will work even in a lounge setting and have no interest in playing mouse + keyboard oriented PC games that won't work with a controller, there is little benefit to get from the Steam Controller. Otherwise it is a solution to a long standing issue. Whether it is good enougg or not is anyone's guess

As for Link, that is only useful if you don't have a separate machine for streaming or if you want something super portable to place as a streaming device. The Xbox One will inevitably do PC game streaming, if it will be any good or not will only be known whenever people get it.
 
I haven't even thought about which games I'll try out on the controller. I guess I could try Cities: Skylines, a shooter and maybe FF XIV.
 
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