Jiraiyathesannin
Jōnin Strategist 🧠
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2014
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Reposting with some edits to my ORIGINAL review
Hello everyone my name is [JUTSU]Derek1st[banned] [/JUTSU]*Jiraiyathesannin here to bring you my long overdo review of the steam controller. Its late because its ALSO a review of the steam link, which i had to wait to arrive.
Lets get right to it and start with the steam controller. For those of you who need to leave quickly, I'll sum it up for you.
BEST CONTROLLER I'VE EVER USED PERIOD.
Here's why:
The steam controller (which is 50 dollars and less than an xbox one controller) is made of a dark plastic thats matte in some parts, and glossy in others. Some aren't huge fans of the look, but to each their own. Some will say that it feels a bit light. I wouldn't say so, it just doesn't feel HEAVY. Its a known fact that sony and microsoft weight their controllers intentionally. Valve did the opposite, they didn't want to welcome controller fatigue, so they opted to go as light as they would. So it may not "feel" as "premium" as the xbox elite controller, but only if you're that guy from jurassic park "wow look at these" "are they heavy?" "Yeah!" "that means they're expensive put them down".
On the controller, you have your standard left analogue stick and face buttons. The face buttons are abxy like an xbox and nintendo, but some people are complaining that they're too small. (they are close together). At first, i found myself pressing B instead of Y, but thats only because i was use the 360 controller. Now that i'm using this, i do the same when i switch back. Its just getting use to, ones not superior to the other.
On top, you also have select, start, and the "steam" logo which brings up the wonderful steam interface. I swear, i like the steam big picture mode interface SO much more than the current gen consoles.
The bumpers are nothing special. They're a bit "stiff" but i prefer that to them being overly mushy. They're very clicky and work fine.
Here's where we get interesting. Instead of a dpad or right stick, you have 2 very VERY high precision haptic trackpads. Think those things on your laptop, but positioned well, very high fidelity, and arguably the best haptic technology you've ever felt. Inside, there's twin force actuators that rumble the trackpad wherever your fingers are and they let you know where your fingers are moving. Its almost like the wheel on the original ipods.
You can make right and left trackpads emulate anything you want. They can be a mouse (which is preferable as they're much more accurate than any analogue stick EVER), a joystick (which really isn't useful), a scroll wheel, a D-pad (which the left pad is set to by default). They are clickable and very responsive. There is a learning curve, but so damn worth it.
The triggers are different than usual as well. Instead of just pulling, you have "soft pull", which is like pulling half way or "not fully", and then there's "full pull" which ends in a click. You can bind them independently, so instead of "left is aim, right is shoot", you can have "soft pulling right aims, pulling the rest of the way shoots". Honestly, its so simple and genius i'm surprised they're the first to do it.
In addition to these, there's 2 "grip" buttons on the back. They do what they say, you can bind them however you like.
Lets get to the software to see what pulls these all together. While playing games in big picture mode, you can individually remap these for any game. Want y to act like a? Sure, want the back grip to be jump? go for it. But its so much more. You can change the sensitivity of the trackpads, make them emulate a trackball (when you slide along it, you feel with the haptics that its still spinning), you can set "phase shifting" where holding one button changes others. So it i want, i can make it so that while left trigger is pulled, the d-pad changes to a scroll wheel.
You can bind the entire controller like a standard xbox controller, or like a kb/m, or both. Be warned though, some games dont' support hybrid input (mouse and keyboard simultaneously with xinput controls). So for these, you have to change "mouse" to "mouse joystick". it feels like a joystick but tricks the game into thinking its just a right stick.
Every single thing is customizable from the rapid fire toggle on buttons, how far triggers need to be pulled etc.
It works for literally every game. i Can play dota 2 on this thing, and i can play arkham origins.
Have yet to honestly find a flaw. Software updates are frequent, so they're improving every week.
The STEAM link now is a lot more straight forward. Its a little box the size of your wallet. It plugs into either your tv, or your router. You use it pretty much as a stream box. Turn on steam on your pc, turn on the link, and turn on your tv. Unfortunately, it depends on the router strength and overall internet connection throughout your house so your mileage may vary, so i can only explain MY experience:
I have my monster pc on the third floor of my house. Its not near a router, its just using wifi with a usb wireless stick.
My router is on the first floor of my house. My 48 inch tv is on the same floor, about 10 feet away around a corner.
I plug the steam link into my tv with the included hdmi cable, and i use the included ethernet cable to connect the link to my router.
I then plug the power unit of the link in, and turn the channel of my tv. I then go upstairs, turn on steam, and plug in my steam controller to the usb port on the link. That simple
Now i can see my desktop downstairs on the tv, and i turn on steam big picture mode. BOOM, instant pc console experience.
There was ZERo latency on my setup. Press jump you jump instantly. However, there was the occasional hiccup. Almost like when you're watching youtube and even though its buffered, there's a hangup for a split second. On one occasion however it lasted a couple seconds, which i'm guessing is due to people in my house using the wifi a bunch then.
Playing gta v however gave me a good bit of artifacting (the pixled look you get sometimes again on youtube even if you're watching on hd. I discovered though its because i had the link set to "fast" instead of "quality". I'll experiment with these settings tormorrow.
Anyway, if i had to give a rating, it would be a 9.8 on the steam controller because there is the occasional bug but there's patches fixing it so frequently i'm sure it will be fixed in time.
The steam link... on one hand, i have a bit of performance trouble, but i have a pretty weak connection and my pc is 2 damn floors away. But considering what i was EXPECTING... i honestly have to give it a perfect 10. 5 dollars and my entire steam catalogue is on my tv downstairs. Wonderful. Fúcking wonderful. Valve even included a bunch of power adapters in case i needed them.
Let me know what you think in the comment section below. Smash that like button if you liked it, and dislike if you disliked it. Hit subscribe to see more videos like this from my channel, and as always, thanks for watching
Hello everyone my name is [JUTSU]Derek1st[banned] [/JUTSU]*Jiraiyathesannin here to bring you my long overdo review of the steam controller. Its late because its ALSO a review of the steam link, which i had to wait to arrive.
Lets get right to it and start with the steam controller. For those of you who need to leave quickly, I'll sum it up for you.
BEST CONTROLLER I'VE EVER USED PERIOD.
Here's why:
The steam controller (which is 50 dollars and less than an xbox one controller) is made of a dark plastic thats matte in some parts, and glossy in others. Some aren't huge fans of the look, but to each their own. Some will say that it feels a bit light. I wouldn't say so, it just doesn't feel HEAVY. Its a known fact that sony and microsoft weight their controllers intentionally. Valve did the opposite, they didn't want to welcome controller fatigue, so they opted to go as light as they would. So it may not "feel" as "premium" as the xbox elite controller, but only if you're that guy from jurassic park "wow look at these" "are they heavy?" "Yeah!" "that means they're expensive put them down".
On the controller, you have your standard left analogue stick and face buttons. The face buttons are abxy like an xbox and nintendo, but some people are complaining that they're too small. (they are close together). At first, i found myself pressing B instead of Y, but thats only because i was use the 360 controller. Now that i'm using this, i do the same when i switch back. Its just getting use to, ones not superior to the other.
On top, you also have select, start, and the "steam" logo which brings up the wonderful steam interface. I swear, i like the steam big picture mode interface SO much more than the current gen consoles.
The bumpers are nothing special. They're a bit "stiff" but i prefer that to them being overly mushy. They're very clicky and work fine.
Here's where we get interesting. Instead of a dpad or right stick, you have 2 very VERY high precision haptic trackpads. Think those things on your laptop, but positioned well, very high fidelity, and arguably the best haptic technology you've ever felt. Inside, there's twin force actuators that rumble the trackpad wherever your fingers are and they let you know where your fingers are moving. Its almost like the wheel on the original ipods.
You can make right and left trackpads emulate anything you want. They can be a mouse (which is preferable as they're much more accurate than any analogue stick EVER), a joystick (which really isn't useful), a scroll wheel, a D-pad (which the left pad is set to by default). They are clickable and very responsive. There is a learning curve, but so damn worth it.
The triggers are different than usual as well. Instead of just pulling, you have "soft pull", which is like pulling half way or "not fully", and then there's "full pull" which ends in a click. You can bind them independently, so instead of "left is aim, right is shoot", you can have "soft pulling right aims, pulling the rest of the way shoots". Honestly, its so simple and genius i'm surprised they're the first to do it.
In addition to these, there's 2 "grip" buttons on the back. They do what they say, you can bind them however you like.
Lets get to the software to see what pulls these all together. While playing games in big picture mode, you can individually remap these for any game. Want y to act like a? Sure, want the back grip to be jump? go for it. But its so much more. You can change the sensitivity of the trackpads, make them emulate a trackball (when you slide along it, you feel with the haptics that its still spinning), you can set "phase shifting" where holding one button changes others. So it i want, i can make it so that while left trigger is pulled, the d-pad changes to a scroll wheel.
You can bind the entire controller like a standard xbox controller, or like a kb/m, or both. Be warned though, some games dont' support hybrid input (mouse and keyboard simultaneously with xinput controls). So for these, you have to change "mouse" to "mouse joystick". it feels like a joystick but tricks the game into thinking its just a right stick.
Every single thing is customizable from the rapid fire toggle on buttons, how far triggers need to be pulled etc.
It works for literally every game. i Can play dota 2 on this thing, and i can play arkham origins.
Have yet to honestly find a flaw. Software updates are frequent, so they're improving every week.
The STEAM link now is a lot more straight forward. Its a little box the size of your wallet. It plugs into either your tv, or your router. You use it pretty much as a stream box. Turn on steam on your pc, turn on the link, and turn on your tv. Unfortunately, it depends on the router strength and overall internet connection throughout your house so your mileage may vary, so i can only explain MY experience:
I have my monster pc on the third floor of my house. Its not near a router, its just using wifi with a usb wireless stick.
My router is on the first floor of my house. My 48 inch tv is on the same floor, about 10 feet away around a corner.
I plug the steam link into my tv with the included hdmi cable, and i use the included ethernet cable to connect the link to my router.
I then plug the power unit of the link in, and turn the channel of my tv. I then go upstairs, turn on steam, and plug in my steam controller to the usb port on the link. That simple
Now i can see my desktop downstairs on the tv, and i turn on steam big picture mode. BOOM, instant pc console experience.
There was ZERo latency on my setup. Press jump you jump instantly. However, there was the occasional hiccup. Almost like when you're watching youtube and even though its buffered, there's a hangup for a split second. On one occasion however it lasted a couple seconds, which i'm guessing is due to people in my house using the wifi a bunch then.
Playing gta v however gave me a good bit of artifacting (the pixled look you get sometimes again on youtube even if you're watching on hd. I discovered though its because i had the link set to "fast" instead of "quality". I'll experiment with these settings tormorrow.
Anyway, if i had to give a rating, it would be a 9.8 on the steam controller because there is the occasional bug but there's patches fixing it so frequently i'm sure it will be fixed in time.
The steam link... on one hand, i have a bit of performance trouble, but i have a pretty weak connection and my pc is 2 damn floors away. But considering what i was EXPECTING... i honestly have to give it a perfect 10. 5 dollars and my entire steam catalogue is on my tv downstairs. Wonderful. Fúcking wonderful. Valve even included a bunch of power adapters in case i needed them.
Let me know what you think in the comment section below. Smash that like button if you liked it, and dislike if you disliked it. Hit subscribe to see more videos like this from my channel, and as always, thanks for watching
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Please stop bumping your threads!
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