Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2017
[Summary]: The Steam Controller provides a unique and advanced way to play nearly any game. The level of customization offered easily beats other controllers while coming close to the expensive, dedicated controllers for a genre of games, such as a racing wheel and joystick. Though it won't outright beat the best tools, it can get very close in functionality, all for the price of $50.
This ultimately allows two distinct advantages for two playstyles; Play nearly any game, any way you want, for the most comfortability, or play nearly any game with a controller that allows you to gain maximum performance. (or any combination thereof)
[Intro Description]: This controller is not perfect. As valve's first consumer iteration, it has flaws, most are smaller, some may be more significant depending on preference. If you want something different or have found the conventional keyboard + mouse/standard controller to be lacking at times, the Steam Controller may be able to satisfy your needs.
: My cons are subjective, some may not care about what I find to be a con, others may say it makes the controller unusable. I suggest you imagine what it is like to play in your style with the cons. Additionally, due to the level of customization, you may be able to get around the cons more easily than with a standard controller.
-(Analog stick), I find the analog stick's convex (curves down and away from thumb) tip to be a slight annoyance. In more intense situations I find it is easier to slowly slide off of the stick, requiring more re-centers, a minor issue to me. The analog stick is also harder to click than regular controllers, again, a slight annoyance.
-(L/R Bumpers), The biggest con for me are the bumpers. I find the bumpers to be too awkward to use in most situations. Despite their large size, they have nearly imperceptible travel distance before clicking. To make it worse they are also very stiff. This contrasts with most of how the controller feels, with everything giving a sense its state (you can tell how far you need to push, or how much you have pushed), the bumpers are the only exception. It gives no hint of when it is about to be clicked, potentially causing a lack of confidence to use.
-(Plastic), Some people complain about the plastic used on the outside of the controller. At first, it appeared cheap and almost rough. I have found it to feel quite durable, despite its appearance. I do have to note that the controller looks significantly worse in Amazon's pictures, it looks much better in person.
-(Noise), Aside from the bumpers, this may be the biggest con to some people. Unlike every controller I have used, the Steam Controller makes a great deal of noise with its buttons. The bumpers make a sound very similar to a mouse click, but louder. The grip buttons make a more hollow-sounding click, which is also loud. The track pad click sound similar to the grip buttons. If you want absolute silence when you play, this controller may cause issues. If you play with a fair amount of sound, or especially with headphones, you may not notice it at all.
: Again, due to the amount of customization, people may find different pros for different reasons.
-(Configurability), By far this is the biggest pro. The track pads, gyro, triggers, everything, would all be useless without the ability to fine-tune the controller to your specific needs. It allows you to play any game and any playstyle with the same controller.
-(Track pads), The second biggest pro. This is what makes the Steam Controller distinct from other controllers. With the track pads, you can emulate a joystick, a D-pad, a mouse, a single button, and even a "touch menu", allowing the pad to use up to 16 buttons in a grid pattern, or a radial menu as a ring, similar to weapon selection wheels in some games. To keep the controls from getting confusing, the touch menu/radial menu appears as an overlay when you put your finger on the touch pad, allowing you to see what you are going to select.
-(Haptics): The haptic feedback is invaluable to me. It is used to get an enhanced degree of control over the controller. With track pads, one can feel exactly how far their finger is in relation to the border, it allows you to feel as if you are clicking buttons when you are swiping the touch pad. It can be used to also enhance the clicks of the triggers, giving definition to the custom range that you set.
-(Grip buttons), Most controllers don't have grip buttons, this allows for even more adjustments according to preference. A distinct advantage is it allows you to keep your fingers on the triggers, your thumbs on joystick/track pads, and still press 2 more buttons to reload or jump.
-(Triggers), Aside from acting as standard controller triggers, when fully pressed in, the triggers will physically click, adding yet another button that can even be independently used from the trigger (thanks to the configuration software).
-(Gyro), This takes some practice and much tweaking to fluidly use, it also has many uses. The gyro can act as a mouse or joystick, allowing some interesting uses. In shooter games, you can tune the gyro to make fine aiming adjustments while keeping a touch pad to make wide sweeps. In racing games you could use the gyro to steer, if you don't like the analog stick. In flying games, you could use the gyro to pitch and roll, yaw, or something more interesting, like to use mouse-headlook.
:
-(Software/How to set up the controller), With all of the configurability, the big question is, "how can I play 'any game' with the controller?" The controller can be used as soon as you connect it to the computer, either via micro-usb or wireless receiver (which is provided with the controller, and 2x AA batteries). In this state, the controller is limited to emulating a mouse with the right track pad, mouse scrolling with the left, and arrow keys with the analog stick, along with left and right click with the triggers.
In order to unlock the full potential of this controller, you will need Steam. When the controller is connected to the computer and steam is running, all of your personal settings and mappings will be in effect. Steam also stores your game configurations, so you can plug in the controller on a friend's computer, log into steam, and you'll have your settings saved.
Steam also encourages using "big picture mode"(BPM), a more controller-friendly user interface. Though you don't need to run in BPM to play or even configure a game for the controller, to change the controller's more advanced settings, you WILL need to run in BPM to change them (but you can exit after, with your settings still in effect). Using BPM you can change the desktop configuration (when steam is on but not in-game), special commands (such as turning the controller off) used when holding the steam button and another button, and the big picture controls.
"HOW TO PLAY A GAME?": With the controller on, simply run a game through steam, then press the steam button on the controller and select "configure controller" to make a custom configuration for the game. You can also save the configuration as a local file, upload on the steam cloud, upload to the steam community (for others to download), or download a community configuration yourself. This saves much time in configuring because you can download a community file and customize as you see fit.
"WHAT IF MY GAME ISN'T ON STEAM?": To run a game not supported by steam, there are 2 ways. The first is to add a non-steam game to steam, where it will launch the executable of the game, as well as inject the steam overlay, which allows you to configure the controller.
The second way is a workaround if the first option does not work. You can make a new "action set" (think of it as a seperate profile for the same game, so you could have a specific action set for driving, and one for flying in the same game) in the "desktop configuration" (when you aren't playing a steam game), then make the profile for the non-steam game, then simply switch to the action set while you play the non-steam game.
This has downsides, however. The overlay won't work, and you won't be able to use the touch menu, which allows 17 individual buttons on a touch pad. Thankfully, I have been able to add a non-steam game and play it without problems, I suggest running steam in administrator mode and making sure you aren't running any injectors, such as "sweet fx".
: With all of the advanced options, it will take some time and a lot of tweaking to find what you like. No single configuration is best except your own. With the ability to assign "shift buttons", you can have as many buttons as you need, this is also excluding separate action sets. If you don't mind configuring a game and tinkering with options, the limiting factor is much time you want to spend to get familiar with the controller.
