It's still a gamepad with all the problems that come with it

Jun 11, 2015 12:03 GMT  ·  By

Valve announced last week the first Steam Machines and a date for their launch, in November, but the company also released a few details about Steam Link and the Steam Controller. This last item should be a revolution in the gaming world, but it's unlikely that it will happen.

One of the issues with gaming consoles is the weird and clumsy control scheme, at least for some games. The gamepads have changed little in the past decade, even if they have become more robust. They mostly followed the same design for years, and they've hit a wall. Any gamer will tell you that a gamepad will only work flawlessly with certain genres. If you want to play a fighting game or FIFA, a gamepad is a must, but if you want to play anything that requires aiming, quick movements, or speed, then the gamepad is not what you would want.

This is one of the reasons why a mouse and keyboard will always be superior to a gamepad, and there's little point in denying that. Sure, there will be some guys who say that they play FIFA best with a keyboard (yes, these people exist and are real), or some console players will say that they don't mind using a gamepad in shooters, and they are just as good as anyone with a mouse and keyboard.

With enough experience, you can become proficient with something, even if that control scheme is not the best. You can play Killzone or Halo superbly with a gamepad, but even after 20 years of using a gamepad, you would get squashed in a crossplatform match. The same can be said about PC players. This is where Valve comes in with its Steam Controller, which aims to bring the best of both worlds. From what we have seen until now, that's not going to happen.

The Steam Controller is still a gamepad

One of the gaming genres that you don't see on consoles is real time strategies. The way the controller is designed to work is not compatible with the way RTS games can be played, and that was always a problem. Valve aims to correct this with their new controller, and we can easily see that it's a better experience, but it's still not near about what the keyboard and mouse offers.

Valve also posted a video with their Steam Controller in action and we can clearly see that it's an improvement, but it will require both types of gamers to make some adjustments, even if it looks similar to the current implementation. From what we have seen right now, the Steam Controller is a step in the right direction, but it won't offer users an experience similar with the keyboard and mouse.

The good news is that it's likely we'll see quite a few RTS games played with this new controller, although to be fair, the Steam Controller will be working with PCs, and SteamOS and those platforms already support mouse and keyboard.

I'll let you judge by yourself if the Steam Controller makes any difference.