Xbox 360 Transforming Controller Review: I’ve Got Blisters on Me Fingers [Video]

The Xbox 360 controller’s biggest flaw is the craptastic directional pad plunked in the course of it. Five years later, Microsoft’s give you a smarter way: a transforming controller .

The Xbox 360 controller perhaps the proper button-and-stick-filled manipulator of this generation. It’s telling that Microsoft has deigned to fix its controller’s most dinged feature-the d-pad-whilst it’s launching Kinect, which does away with controllers entirely. Personal movement trackers often is the future of gaming, but it surely’s clear that that future is a bit of ways off. And within the present, we want a smarter controller.

The new controller is sort of exactly like the old controller, aside from the mighty morphing d-pad. Push down, twist the article counter-clockwise, and a standard four-way d-pad emerges, like a touch hot and shiny stripper from a cake. Spinning clockwise recombobulates it back into the puck that gamers love to hate.

The four-way d-pad is markedly better for fighting games, like adding a pair of brass knuckles for your dragon punch-every move is less complicated to drag off more consistently, from Fei Long’s flaming kick to Zangief’s piledrivers in Street Fighter IV. Old style-style sidescrollers feel more like they ought to in addition. But there is a worth for this power: After about 30 minutes of ass-kickery: The d-pad is countersunk into a pit, and, after two-hundred frantic fireballs, the sides of that pit will tear up your thumb. But old-fashioned gamers like that sort of pain.

Four-way directional pad is awesome for fighting and old-school games. Even in puck mode, it kind of feels to work slightly better. Morphing mechanism feels solid. The four ” home” dots were sanded off of the analog stick, leaving a unconditionally smooth surface on your thumbs to rest on. I missed them at the beginning, but after a couple hours of using the d-pad I appreciated the satin-y analog stick. Left and right triggers are slightly longer than the stock model in addition.

The undeniable fact that you can still only get this controller as a $65 play-and-charge bundle looks like extortion. Most Xbox 360 gamers-particularly the fanatics that may be psyched about this controller-probably already have a play-and-change kit or four. Why isn’t this available standalone, or better still, bundled with new consoles? Thumb callouses required to give protection to you from d-pad drubbing.

If you play a ton of fighting games or just loathe the Xbox 360 d-pad, you’re going to dig this controller. I just hope you don’t already have a gaggle of them.

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This post is tagged: brass knuckles, directional pad, fighting games, rechargeable batteries, Street Fighter