With new systems come new drivers.
First we were surprised by the presentation of the Wiimote by Nintendo. Surprised by Sony’s Eyetoy and played some very competitive matches in Kinect sports. Though what mainstream gamers want is just your standard controller. We don’t need motion controls to play; we demand that we have something in hand with levers and triggers. There are no Major League Gaming tournaments for wii sportsstraight?
Now that I’m at E3, I had to get a controller for the next generation of consoles. The first one I was able to play with is the Xbox One. Microsoft hasn’t had a perfect track record with controllers. Anyone remember the Duke controller from the original Xbox? Fortunately, this controller is more Xbox 360 than Duke. The first thing you’ll notice is that it looks slightly larger than a 360 controller. It’s just an illusion; if anything, it felt more comfortable and comfortable in my hands than the previous one.
In my opinion, the most important thing that absolutely needed to be improved was the D-Pad. The Xbox 360’s directional pad was unresponsive, clumsy, and a mess. In the Xbox One version, it’s sleek (in a good way), fast, and makes a delicious click when you apply pressure to the pad. I’m curious to see how well a fighting game will run with this new controller.
obligations Y aura are the most popular Xbox games; they are both shooters and you constantly have to use both analog sticks. So was there a way to improve the 360’s already excellent analog sticks? It sure feels like they do. The analog sticks felt light but sturdy and appeared to be quite accurate. Dare I say that console games are getting closer to the precise feel of a mouse on a computer?
Another problem I had with the Xbox 360 gamepad is the Xbox Guide button. It is located in the upper middle part of the controller and you can accidentally hit it. Microsoft decided to make it flat (and therefore harder to accidentally push) and put it on top of the controller. This was a clever placement for the button and I don’t see many people pressing it in the middle of the game.
Along with the various other updates made since the Xbox 360 controller, the triggers also got some TLC, with a noise added to each one. This sounds absurd, but once you try it for yourself, you’ll start to wonder why we didn’t have this sooner. when i was playing force 5I was sliding hard into a tight corner and you could feel the screech of the tires on the pavement through the trigger pull noises. It was subtle and added to the feeling of immersion.
There are only a couple of things I complained about, most notably the left and right bumpers. They seem to have made them a bit bigger and as they play crimson dragon they didn’t feel too good when I tried to roll out of the way of the projectiles. This could also be an issue with the game, but the buttons themselves were fine. This is not a major issue and I’m sure it will just take some getting used to.
Overall, I’m very impressed with how Microsoft upgraded the Xbox 360 controller to this new sexier model for Xbox One. I really liked the Xbox 360 gamepad and was really nervous that they change it. Microsoft allayed my fears and I’m happy to say that this is one of the best feeling drivers of all time.