Xbox One Controller In Review - GameStop Expo 2013

The Xbox One controller is a mixed bag for me.  Honestly, they didn't have to change much and they would have been fine, and really they didn't.   Some changes I'm not sure I understand, while others are nice little touch ups.  While I won't have as glowing as a review for this as I did the Dualshock 4, I will say that's more because the Dualshock had a lot more to make up for and improve on.

The face buttons really didn't feel too much different, but I like the new coloring to be honest.  It will help with all the special edition controllers to have them with the black backgrounds, and they just look cooler in my opinion.

The D-Pad is going to be a big thing for most people, and this is where a mixed feeling I have kicks in. The D-Pad itself is better.  Straight up, it is.  However, that was not quite the problem I don't think.  The problem for the D-Pad, and why the rotating ones really didn't fix much, is that it's in a bad spot.  It's a far reach for it, it felt out of place, and needed to be moved to the left a bit.  That being said, the way the helped fixed that problem with the Xbox One controller is the angle of the 'handles'.  The controller angles itself in a slightly more natural way to make your thumb meet that gap to the D-Pad much better.  The switch from the analog stick to the D-Pad feels much improved, and even makes using it nicer.  It's still not up to snuff for me, but it's honestly a nice improvement from before.

Microsoft kept the analog sticks having the concave design, and honestly this should be the only design I think.  The outer rings of the sticks have a better grip than the current ones, and the sticks feel just as good as they did on the 360.  For some reason though, and this is where I'm not sure I understand the 'why', they are noticeably smaller.  Maybe this is for more accuracy and less room for error on inputs; I'm not sure to be honest - but the feel is fine, the smaller sticks just stood out to me.

The shoulder buttons offer a slightly better click, but are basically the same.  The thing that bothered me a tad was that the gap between the triggers and the shoulder buttons seemed larger when I was messing with it.  Speaking of the triggers though, they got a slight redesign.  The triggers are no longer just the straight 'boots' of the 360 controller, but they have this nice curve that blends with the controller nicely. They feel very comfortable.  Of course, the new triggers also have the impulse feature that will have a dynamic rumble throughout the controller.  I've been known to be skeptical about this new idea, thinking it wouldn't add a whole lot more than basic rumble, but games like Forza show it off nicely.  You will get rumble only in the parts of the controller that you are using - basically, if you hit the breaks, the left trigger rumbles, and if you hit sand while breaking, it will rumble differently.  If you switch over to hit the gas to get out of said sand, you will feel it in that trigger instead.  While I still think this doesn't add a super ton to the experience, I see this as a start of something that could work well in other titles.  The guy at the booth was explaining to a gal the idea for a first person shooter.  Where it will vibrate in the right trigger only if there was an actual bullet shot, but have a slight faint rumble if you were still pulling the trigger with an empty chamber.  Think of it giving you some built up rumble for using a bow, where the longer you have been holding that bow string, the more it starts to build up the rumble and tension.  When you let the arrow fly with Right Trigger, then the rumble moves from left to right across the controller.  It could be a nice feature if used right.

I did get a chance to try out the snap feature on the Xbox One as well.  It was an accident, but when checking out the controller while playing Forza 5,  I hit the home button and the menu was actually there!  They didn't block it out of this kiosk.  While I sorta got told not to mess with it and the guy was giving me crap, I did it anyway.  I hit the button, loaded up internet explorer and played a bit with both on screen.  It works pretty fast and is just as easily removed if needed.  A nice feature - one I will probably utilize with maybe finding some sweet stuff in an RPG.  The guy also didn't seem to know that Forza was indeed the game with Driveatar - he was even certain of it.  Oh well, he was just a booth guy, but it was just a funny aside haha.

Basically, while the Dualshock 4 is much more of a change and surprise for me, the Xbox One controller didn't have to do much at all.  The 360 controller is still the big dog for a lot of people, and for good reason.  The Xbox One controller made some slight adjustments to that 360 controller and came out better for it.  It didn't change much, but it didn't really have to.

-Eddie