Valve's new controller has been the subject of as much mystery and intrigue as the company's Linux based console itself, right up there with the farsighted dwarf and inappropriately dressed sheep on the grassy knoll that fateful day. Well, maybe not that much, but I think you get the idea.
That's why Valve decided to lift the veil on the controller for its new console. The company has released a short demo, showing the controller in action, "the same version that we'll be shipping to 300 Steam users later this year."
Perhaps most notable is how the controller's right "pad," in the place of where buttons are traditionally located on most controllers, really has players thumbs acting as a sort of mouse, dragging them across the surface area, as opposed to the usual analog stick controls, now found on both Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox controllers. Looks like it could take a bit of getting used to, but it's a nice blend of styles, and could be an interesting transition for players more accustomed to a basic PC control scheme.
"Since the two track pads can be configured independently, we use the right hand pad here to do a 1-to-1 U-control mode. It's important to distinguish between a joystick, which does relative, or velocity based movement, and this 1-to-1 mode where you can directly move your thumb a fixed amount of distance on the pad, and the view will correspond to the fixed amount of distance. At the same time, the left pad is configured like a D-pad, where it's divided up into pie shaped segments, where up and down is the 'W' and 'S' keys, and left and right are the 'A' and 'D' keys, so, you can walk around like you would with a joystick," the narrator explained while playing Portal 2. Confused? Watch the demo below, and you'll get the idea.
A wide variety of games showing different genres are shown, including Civilization 5, CounterStrike: Global Offensive, and Papers, Please.
Super Meat Boy creator Tommy Refenes recently got his hands on the controller and took it for a spin:
"If you were to ask me if I would play games with the Steam Controller...I would say yes. If you were to ask me to choose between Steam Controller and a 360 controller, I would choose 360. Don't take that as slight to the controller though because it's more about the comfort of familiarity over functionality. I would choose a 360 controller because I have several thousand hours experience using it, however if tomorrow all game controllers were wiped off the earth and the only option was the Steam Controller, I don't think this would be a bad thing. In fact, I don't think gaming would miss a beat.
More gameplay demos are planned to show how the controller works.
