Valve Shows How Steam Controller Works In Real Life

sfcrazy writes "Valve Software have demonstrated how the controller works in the real world with popular games like Portal 2, Civilization V, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Valve has posted a video on their YouTube channel to give users a glimpse of the Steam Controller experience."

Comments

Real Life?

[dunng808]

A new MMORPG?

Re:Real Life?

[Anonymous Coward]

I got in the beta and right now it's not worth playing. The classes are so unbalanced it isn't even funny and skills take ages to level up. Although there are a large number of quests, it gets very repetitive and makes "bring me ten rat tails" sound like fun. That reminds me: anyone knows where you're supposed to drop the rat tails? I've tried several vendors but they always say they'll call the guards if I don't get out, is this a bug?
On the bright side the graphics are pretty good, although not very realistic since there's hardly any brown. Hadn't they blown all the budget on graphics, heroin and advertising the game might've lived up to all the hype, but as it is I give it a 4/10. Back to WoW I guess.

This actually isn't half bad

[Khyber]

Might take just a tiny bit of getting used to, but this could actually work.

I'm actually impressed.

Re:This actually isn't half bad

[JMJimmy]

Your right thumb is going to get insanely sore doing that swiping motion to look around quickly. Button presses + motion will be hard/impossible, as will button combos and I guarantee the underside/LS/RS buttons will get clicked accidentally or you'll end up hurting your hands trying not to press them.

Re:This actually isn't half bad

[Brulath]

It's hackable, so you could probably implement the mouse like a trackball; a flicking action could simulate the ball rolling/moving the cursor and touching the pad again would stop the cursor.

There are a lot of possibilities for modifying the control scheme in each game to increase accuracy whilst reducing fatigue - there's no reason you must implement it as 1:1 movement for all games.

Re:This actually isn't half bad

[houstonbofh]

I think the entire point was to show how good it was with existing games not specifically written for it. (Since that will be the majority of the games out there on the release day.)

Re:This actually isn't half bad

[Smauler]

Looks good for the couch when you are playing a leisurely game.

This is damning with faint praise. This looks nowhere near as good as a mouse. An example : point click timed flash games. When someone gets even close to what an ok person can do with these with another interface, I'll talk.

Also, I would go insane playing Civilization with this... there were 3 movements to get the pointer from one side to the screen to the other. Admittedly, I have my mouse pretty sensitive (less than a centimetre, side to side), and some people who use mice have their setting so low that they have to pick their mice up to get from one side of the screen to another... however, trying to replace a pointer controller is difficult, when the mouse is so good.

Also, their Portal 2 demo was not impressive. I'm not good, but I'm much quicker looking and better than that demo (not boasting, at all - I'm only average).

All that being said - this is not a replacement for the keyboard/mouse. This is a replacement for analogue sticks, and it looks better.

I'm going to grab a steam box when it comes out, anyway, and I'm pretty excited about it. I just don't think controllers will replace the mouse. The keyboard is defunct as a gaming device, it's just a bunch of buttons, anything could accomplish that.

Re:This actually isn't half bad

[realityimpaired]

However, I'm kind of opposed to game controllers on principle. If I was a teenager, I might not have this issue, but I can't see owning a device just for controlling games, when I can have such fine control with a mouse and keyboard (which is already on my desk). I have no such compunction about buying a $250 video card that is only really necessary for the games I play, but I never said I was consistent.

It really depends on the game... some games are designed for a controller input, and the keyboard/mouse, while they exist, feel like a tack-on. I have a USB Xbox 360 controller: it works perfectly out of the box, even on Linux, and probably half of the games in my library work better with it than they do with keyboard/mouse. General rule of thumb: anything that's got arcade type action will work better with a controller. Some of the games in my library will actually allow multiplayer action on a single system by connecting a controller -- Trine 2, for example, will allow one player on keyboard/mouse, and another on a controller, both controlling characters on screen at the same time. I don't have a 3rd controller, so I can't test it, but in theory it supports 3-player at the same time.

I'm a bit surprised they'd use Civ5 as their demo game, though.... that game was never designed for controller input, and is *way* better with a keyboard.

CAD already posted a pretty accurate description

[Wrath0fb0b]

Borderline NSFW

Very nice!

[RyanFenton]

A very good video showing movement mapped to real gameplay.

The obvious: It's not QUITE as 1-1 as a mouse with 4 inches of control surface.

But I'd still rate it a bit higher than a trackball, which is high praise from me, since I really enjoy using trackball inputs when a mouse isn't convenient.

This is a real accomplishment in input innovation - even without considering the dynamic haptic feedback portion of the design.

I'd be amazed, if this works as advertised, if Sony and Microsoft don't push for a copycat controller very rapidly - especially given the PC-like nature of their new consoles.

The remaining challenge: How would it fare against a 360/Dualshock controller in specialized console games. From what I've heard from developers so far:

Super Meat Boy dev trys out the Steam controller

It sounds like it's a good compromise overall - but it's still got some hurdles to clear to being "the best" - but man, it sounds promising so far!

Ryan Fenton

Die hard PC gamer.. very impressed

[Seranfall]

I haven't owned a console since the NES. I've always been a PC gamer. I rarely play games with a anything other than a keyboard and mouse. I'm honestly impressed at what they have come up with. I'll seriously consider buying a steam machine once they are readily available. I think Valve has done a great job so far. It will be very interesting to see if it is successful and see what the competition does in response.

Re:Wow.

[CastrTroy]

Granted, those who use a mouse still reach the edge of the mouse pad, and end up having to pick up the mouse and reposition it as well. Some mice are notoriously hard to actually pick up off the table, with slanted sides that don't let you get a good grip. Personally, I prefer using trackballs. They do have the inertial system by virtue of their design, and you never have to reposition them. Trackballs that let you use your fingers are the best, because you have multiple digits that control the same surface, so as one finger meets the edge, you can switch to another finger, and continue the motion.

Re:Wow.

[gumpish]

If they had some sort of inertia system...

Did you not see this exact mechanic in the Civ 5 demo?

Take another look at the "swipe" on the right thumbpad at 2:23 and again at 2:27. It seems to work like a smartphone. If you lift your thumb while it's moving then the cursor has inertia.

Don't compare it to gamepads.

[Jartan]

I've seen a lot of comments naming specific scenarios where a gamepad is better. That's completely pointless. If a gamepad is better in that scenario then you'll just use a gamepad.

The entire purpose of this thing is mouse/kb games.

Re:Don't compare it to gamepads.

[Undead Waffle]

Basically. The point is Valve came up with Steam Box but all of their own titles are designed for mouse and keyboard, so they needed an appropriate controller or there wouldn't be anything to play. I was wondering how they were going to solve this problem and this controller design was a brilliant solution.

Re:Don't compare it to gamepads.

[umafuckit]

Of course a gamepad can't beat a mouse in doing a mouse's job. Valve isn't stupid. The target market isn't PC gamers but console gamers, so Valve needs something like a gamepad.

The target market is people who want to play games in the living room. I'm a PC gamer at heart, but I often like being in the living room. I'd be interested in Valve's angle if it works well.

There is still the problem that on competitive multiplayer games the console gamers would be up against PC gamers. Unless Valve finds a way to segregate the servers that will be a very painful experience for the mouseless.

How is that that a problem? They're segregated now. If the console kids were mixed with PC gamers in a multiplayer FPS they would be anhialiated instantly. All you have to do is segregate according to input device (or allow the gamepad user a choice of whether they want to be). But let's see how it performs. If it's good enough there may be no need to segregate.

Re:Wow.

[gumpish]

Even if your sourceless assertion is accurate, there's nothing stopping Valve from implementing that functionality in the driver.

Re:Wow.

[Holi]

Which it obviously is as they specifically mentioned that the 1 to 1 control was one way you could configure the controller.

Re:Didn't seem to be a problem for Nintendo and So

[Patch86]

While you're right (and still right- the PS4 won't have any games until someone releases games for it), surely Valve's biggest selling point with Steam is that they already have 100's of much loved titles covering every genre ready to go. I don't know how many Steam titles there are for Linux already, but it's a non-trivial number and includes AAA titles from the last few years (not least their own titles).

Bearing in mind that they'll be a new kid on the block in the console market, it certainly helps if they have a much bigger and better games catalogue than any of their next-gen rivals.

Looks better than a console gamepad

[umafuckit]

I'm encouraged by what I'm seeing here. I just bought a PS3 now that they're nice and cheap and boy was I disappointed by how the controller functions in FPS games. Previously I've played shooters on a PC and a Wii with Wiimote as a pointer (Resident Evil). The PS3 controller is terrible in comparison in such games. It's fine for racers and platformers, though. Looking at videos on Youtube I've come to the conclusion that even with a lot of practice one would never be as fast on a PS3 controller as with a K&M.

The PS3 (or XBox) analog sticks define direction and speed of the camera in an FPS game. However, what you want is the absolute position of the camera (since you're aiming). A mouse gives you this, which is why it's such a great input method. A track-pad also does this pretty well, as the concept is the same. If they can sort out the details, such as speed and resolution of pointing, this could be a very nice controller indeed.