How do you find the Steam Controller? I am really keen to drop the $90AUD or so to get one off Amazon (since Valve don't ship to Aus yet), but I keep watching video reviews of it on Youtube and lose my nerve.
I like my Steam Controller quite a bit. To me, it's the perfect happy medium between the comfort of a controller, with the precision of a mouse.
Though it does have a few caveats you'll need to keep in mind before trying it out.
For one, there is a learning curve you will have to get over before you get comfortable with it, and it is pretty steep. When you first try it out, you'll want to use the right pad as an analog stick, which'll make you think it sucks, because movement will immediately feel way too stiff and limited. Then, you'll try it out like a mouse, where your thumb tracks movement 1:1. That'll feel way to loose and uncontrollable. It's about this point that people really start hating it.
What you do is think of it as a trackball. You don't drag it like a mouse, or press it like an analog stick, you "spin" it by flicking your thumb, and you're not bound from moving from the center outwards, you can drag from edge to edge to get the most arc. Once that clicks in your head, you'll start to like it. After a week or two, it'll begin feeling like second nature.
For two: the layout is weird, and because muscle memory is a *****, you'll inevitably run into situations where you aim your thumb for one button, but hit another one because you're not used to having everything shifted so far down and to the left.
For three: it's a pretty fat controller.
It's a great controller with a few great ideas, but it's so different you won't just pick it up and start playing with it. Just like when you first used analog sticks or a mouse, you'll have to learn it to get the most out of it.
edit: here's a video of me playing Dishonored with it. I was still getting used to it at the time, but you can see movement is much more quick, natural and mouse-like compared to a traditional gamepad.
