Valve made their last announcement unveiling their new controller and finally! I’ve wanted a gamepad with trackpads for a long time – every since some hand injuries of mine cause me horrible pain when holding controllers too long or from pressing buttons. In cold weather, things just get worse and the simple action of pressing a button can be an agonising one. Thumbsticks aren’t any better, either and are more distressing for my thumbs from the position they’re in than with a standard d-pad.
Features:
- Dual, clickable trackpads
- Haptics that can function as speakers
- Clickable touch screen (that is overlayed on screen in-game)
- Shareable configurations
- Support for games lacking gamepad support
I love what they did with the clickable touchscreen. Being able to scroll through options and have to click in order to commit to anything saves from having to divert too much attention towards not making mistakes. The fact it’s also displayed as an overlay in-game means I won’t have to divert my attention.
The last thing I love is that they’ve designed it to work with their ENTIRE catalogue, so even those RTS games or older titles without gamepad support will now be playable with this alien looking thing. I’d love to see how Surgeon Simulator will go with that and that will be my first tested game when I get one of these.
And for the other important stuff:
- You don’t need a Steam machine running Steam OS to use
- You don’t have to use one if you do.
- It works with Steam on your gaming rig.
- The beta controllers won’t have the touch screen.
Mine-mine-mine-mine-mine-mine-mine-mine!
Squiddy Fun Times 