The Steam Controller is a fascinating and fantastic device: It's precise, comfortable, and in itself fun to use. It's not a compromise, it's a valid alternative and often an improvement to the traditional control options (x-post /r/truegaming).

Over the semester break, I chose to experiment a bit more with my Steam Controller. I bought it at release, played around with it a bit and after not having much fun or success, I decided to bench it "until the community finds out what to do with it". So I started out needing a second gamepad to play Overcooked with my sister, and I grabbed the SC so that she could have the easier to grasp Xbox 360 pad. From there, I started out testing the controller and its limits by playing different styles of games and trying unusual control schemes. In that process, I have made almost exclusively excellent experiences with the device, which I will share in the following hoping to inspire more people to give the Steam Controller a shot.

As mentioned, my first game with the Steam Controller was Overcooked, where I used only the Analog Stick and the Face Buttons. In other words, only the part of the controller that is very traditional and straight-forward. Despite the odd shape of the controller however, I had no qualms with it. The Analog Stick felt just as responsible as on the 360 pad, the Face Buttons are slightly smaller and further apart than on the XBox Controller and feel more comparable to the Wii U Pro Gamepad (which is why I had trouble in the beginning realising that "A" was the bottom button, not on the right as on the Wii U pad). All in all, no complaints, but no challenge either.

Then I tested AM2R, and that's where the fun began. AM2R comes with settings for the 360 pad, but playing a Metroid game with the Analog Stick felt wrong and imprecise, but the SC does not have a D-Pad, at least not in the usual sense. The original configuration required a very clumsy and difficult-to-use press on the left trackpad to work as a D-Pad. It wasn't fun, it wasn't comfortable, it felt like the Steam Controller simply wasn't made for a game like Metroid.

Until I started to play around with the options. Of the 8 hours I played AM2R, I have spent probably 2 fiddling with the control settings. But what sounds like an inconvenient hassle was a surprisingly fun process. I felt reminded of the times I played with Lego and worked for hours on the perfect building, just to throw it all out and make it better. That was fun, and customising the Steam Controller was fun in a very similar vein. Any slight tweak that I wished to make, I could make. One of my biggest gripes with any Metroid game is spamming your beam against smaller enemies, which can tire out your thumb. So, I set the X-Button on Turbo mode, and if I ever needed the Charge Beam, I could either press "Select" to change my configuration to disable the Turbo mode, or use the Y-Button with I set as X without Turbo.

This is just one example to show how easy it is to solve even the slightest problem. As long as you identify what it is that bothers you, there are nearly limitless ways to remedy that issue. Which brings me back to the D-Pad: After playing around with the deadzones, the haptics and the functionality of the touchpad itself, I was able to find a setting that was absolutely perfect. It was responsive, precise, and because you are gliding your thumb over a flat surface rather than pressing a button, longer play-sessions were more comfortable than on the GBA, for example. In Duck Game, which is much faster-paced than Metroid, using the D-Pad setting felt almost like a dance of your finger as it was frantically gliding over the pad. After I had set a paddle as an alternative input method for the Down-Button (aka ducking and sliding), one f the trickiest movements in that game became trivial.

I was amazed that after initial struggles -- especially against the mobile and unpredictable (mini-)bosses -- I was able to finish a Metroid game on my Steam Controller, and after I found my perfect settings I could not imagine going back to the 360 pad.

After AM2R, I tried a great many games with very different playstyles and realised how far this thing can take you. The most popular community setting for Mark of The Ninja makes great use of the dual-stage triggers and simplifies movement and tool usage considerably. Teleglitch and Nuclear Throne are similar games with highly different levels of pace and stress, and by tweaking the same setting (Mouse Region) to work with the pace of the game you can have a great time. I managed to loop on Nuclear Throne first try, which I still haven't done with a 360 pad.

Tinkering with Borderlands 2 showed me how easy it is to make the Face Buttons obsolete, and how good Gyro assisted aiming can be. With more experience, I can see myself being on a similar level in terms of precision and twitch reactions as with a mouse. It's really, really good, though it takes some getting use to. Having played Splatoon and Killzone Mercenary with Gyro Aiming means I am somewhat used to it already, and in those games I am very precise. Setting "Use" on a pedal makes looting very easy (even more so with Turbo on), and the Trackpads can easily handle double- or even triple-duty tasks, by mapping actions like reload, melee and something like Weapon Switch on the right trackpad. Haptic and Sound feedback makes adjusting the settings and adjusting to the changes very easy and palpable. I tried doing the same with MDK2, a game which never supported a controller, where you have to set the controls for three wildly different characters, and which is in third person. Thanks to Action Sets and multiple bindings on one button, it worked amazingly well.

Eldritch is a much slower FPS compared to Borderlands, but it has much more vertical movement, requiring you to jump and crouch often. Putting those actions on the pedals rather than the out-of-the-way face buttons means that you can move around while looking around and fighting enemies. Because of the slower pace, gyro aiming is not even needed, and works quite well in my opinion. I never felt stymied because of it, and it felt a lot better than aiming with a stick.

I've realised that at a certain point, I wasn't playing games from my Library anymore, but using them as a platform to play around with the controller. I looked for a game that looked like a challenge to configure, I took on that challenge and left the game not when I had beaten the last stage, but when I had the feeling that the controls were just perfect.

Bottom Line/TLDR: Overall, I was amazed at the fact that the Steam Controller never, ever felt like a compromise. In fact, I never felt like a 360 pad would work better, more often than not I even considered the Steam Controller to be an improvement to the established controllers, sometimes even better than Keyboard and Mouse. Additionally, and most surprisingly, making configurations was never a chore, but actually a fun activity in and of itself.

I can wholeheartedly recommend buying the Steam Controller, even if it is a scary prospect at first.