Uncategorized

The other day I talked a little bit about my eternal struggling with trying to find a comfortable controller. I have large hands and this is a problem in a world that seems to love making tiny controllers. For reference the above photo is me and a knock off Xbox One controller that I happened to have laying around the house. The problem that I encounter is that most controllers are workable but grossly uncomfortable for long play sessions, and either end up causing me to contort my shoulders or hands into weird positions in order to use them. I mentioned the other day that I should really do a post on my favorite “big hand” controllers, and apparently that day is today. This is by no means a complete list, but since I have a large amount of controllers laying around the house in my eternal struggle for the perfect one… I have some examples that work pretty well.

Power A Fusion Pro 1.0

This is what I would consider to be my “daily driver” PC Gaming controller when a controller is needed. It stays hooked up to my gaming rig 24/7 and most recently I have been spending a lot of time with it while playing Jedi Fallen Order. I am not entirely certain how I came across this controller originally, other than maybe it had something to do with the 4 buttons on the backside of the controller that give you Scuf-like functionality of rebinding face button keys to be pressed with your fingers gripping the underside. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it keeps the general shape of an Xbox One controller and at the same time extends it to be a bigger and more chonky device.

Some positives are that it has really high quality buttons and the finish of the controller is matte and hugs your hand without rubbing oddly against it like a rubberized texture might. The share and menu buttons are placed unobtrusively, and the dpad is extremely nice and feels completely reasonable to do “fireball” motions with. It is wired which is either a positive or a negative depending on your religion about such things… but lacks any sort of a break away cable making it a tripping hazard. It runs on XInput like all Microsoft controllers and as a result it just works flawlessly with Windows 10, but required a bit of plugging it in and out to get it to recognize with Windows 8/8.1. The thumb sticks are nice but have a rough ring that is a little heavier “grit” than the stock controller so if you have very sensitive skin this might be an issue.

The biggest negative I have about the controller is that is is no longer being made. I specifically called this out as the 1.0 controller and that is because there are two other versions in the wild and for some reason Power A decided to change the shape each time. I’ve gotten hands on the other two models and they are nowhere near as comfortable as this one. As a result I have taken to ebay in order to get a spare. I paid somewhere in the vicinity of $20 for each of mine, but this morning I looked around ebay and they seem to have gone up in price finding this one for $34. You may be able to find these still in the wild but it largely depends on how fast the stock changes out in whatever store you happen to be shopping.

Hori Pad FPS Plus

This WAS my daily driver Playstation 4 controller for a good long while and I own two of them. I am not a big fan of the stick placement of Playstation controllers and greatly preferred the Xbox style staggered stick design. As such I am always looking for good options that allow me to keep playing with a layout I am more comfortable with on my console platform of choice. I was initially tipped off to this controller by my friend Pam who does an excellent video review of it. It has a lot of positives going for it but also some pretty severe negatives. The layout feels good and the shape of the controller is comfortable in the hand. Unfortunately the angle on the backside lead me to grip it too tightly at times and have the tips of my fingers go numb while playing it. The finish also makes the controller feel slick and hard in the hand and very much like you are holding a chunk of cheap plastic.

The triggers themselves are also odd in that they are basically buttons, which leads to some weirdness anytime you are in a situation where you need the analog functionality like throttling up. However for shooters this works pretty freaking well due to the extremely quick throw time on each and mimics a lot of the functionality that a Scuf or similar “pro” controller would do with adjustable stops. The biggest problem I had with the controller are the thumb sticks are similarly cheap feeling and through excessive play of Destiny, I completely wore out the right stick. Since they are non-standard it isn’t like you can get replacement rubber caps for them. I ultimately modded my controller to replace it with a set of after market xbox pro controller magnetic thumbsticks, which work fine but sorta throw off the balance.

The controller has no rumble support, which is either a positive or a negative depending on your point of view. It ends up making the overall feel in the hand be super light, especially if you have large hands. The other challenge is that the touch pad isn’t a touch pad. It is effectively a button, so you can get any functionality that relied on you clicking it, but nothing that relies on you actually using it as a tactile surface. When I first got mine it required me to import it from Play Asia, but in the meantime it has now been released for the North American market and is readily available on Amazon. Weirdly enough Play Asia appears to be the cheapest source going for $44 and the three color variants on Amazon ranging from $48 to $56 each.

Nacon Revolution Pro

This is my new daily driver Playstation 4 controller, and I have to say… once you get past the really screwed up dpad design… it is an amazingly comfortable controller. The biggest negative that we are going to get out of the way is the price tag. If you were to walk into a store and buy this outright you would be paying somewhere between $150 and $200 retail. I absolutely got mine as a gently used model on Ebay for around $50, and if you can do the same then I say the controller is one hell of a deal. This rode in on the wave of “pro” controllers that released after Microsoft started selling theirs. While the Microsoft Pro Controller has replaceable parts, this one is more or less configured into a static design that includes one scooped left thumb stick, one dome right thumb stick, and a weird “iron cross” for lack of a better thing to call it thumb stick. The face buttons also have some weirdness going on in that they are really big and the O sorta extends off the edge of the controller.

All of that said… playing with it just feels good. The dpad thing still weirds me out a bit, but it also more or less works fine for playing fighting games. Though if I am playing fighting games on my PS4 I am likely going to be hooking up my fight stick, or the Hori fight commander. For most PS4 games it feels great, and pretty much replicates all of the functionality of a stock controller. You have a working touch pad, rumble, and still has a headphone jack which is missing from a lot of third party controllers. I think this is a worthy competitor, but only if you can find it at a greatly reduced cost.

Nintendo Switch Pro Controller

Now we are starting into a section where I am going to hand out some honorable mentions. First off we have the Switch Pro Controller, which in itself is not that big of a controller but still manages to have an ergonomic shape that feels extremely comfortable to play with. I could have done with it being about 30% larger, but for what is there it feels pretty solid in the hand. Again it has the staggered thumb stick design that I like, but its biggest negative has to come in at the cost of being $70. If you can find one on sale, it does benefit from being pretty much a universal controller with the ability to use it wirelessly on any bluetooth platform and the XInput support means it natively supports Windows. I really like it, and this was my default method to play switch until I got the Split Pad Pro.

Xbox 360 Controller

This is effectively the default windows controller and still is a pretty strong contender for a no frills gaming experience. Everything about this controller essentially screams “its fine”, but there is something reliable about that. It feels fairly good in the hand and has “just worked” since Windows 7, and comes in a wide variety of colors. I still have several of these because you can get them dirt cheap and they are essentially bullet proof. If you want a reasonably comfortable controller for the bare minimum amount of money, get the USB connected 360 controller.

Steam Controller

I am not a huge fan of the steam controller. I feel like Valve did a massive disservice to this controller when they attempted to reinvent the wheel. That said… the ergonomics of the controller are amazing. It feels really great in the hand and works nicely for big hands like mine. The downside however is that it has a really jacked up control scheme that you will have to wade through in order to make it work with the games you want to play. It spent too much time trying to be both controller and mouse replacement when had it simply just been a good controller I think I would have had a new favorite. If you can find it… it was going for $5 over Black Friday, but I believe those have all sold out.

What am I missing?

Are you a big handed gamer too? Is there a controller that is just amazing that I am missing? Drop me a line in the comments, because I am always looking for the next slightly more perfect controller experience.

For several months now I have been using the Hori Split Pad Pro product for the Nintendo Switch. When I first got it I was asked by some of my friends to write up a review and it has taken me several months to actually get around to doing that. Since September I have exclusively used these “joycon replacements” with my switch and as a result I have some things to say. This is not a paid product review as I shelled out the same $50 for these that anyone else would have to, and in truth I had to wait a freaking long time for them to finally get back into stock. My pair is an import from Japan and they released in early October here in North America.

My Eternal Problem

I have stupidly huge hands and that fact makes most controllers fairly uncomfortable for extended play sessions. The above image is something that I took this morning and is me gripping a knock off Xbox One controller that I had handy. This has been a subplot in my life for years, trying to find something big enough to be reasonably comfortable and I think in part why I shun controllers so often over keyboard and mouse. One day I will write a post about my favorite big hands controllers, but for now you have to realize that my hand absolutely engulfs the joycon and there is no way in hell that is actually ever going to be comfortable. For awhile I used the Satisfye grip, which does a good job of making the joycons work well enough, but it also makes the entire package extremely heavy and not exactly ideal for playing for example while laying in bed.

Weird Controller to the Rescue

The setup itself looks nonsensical as compared to the original joycons, but in practice it feels pretty good. Imagine if someone took a pro controller and chopped it in half and then put one half of it on either side of the switch’s “tablet” screen. What I did not expect however is how much lighter it makes the overall unit. The joycons themselves have quite a bit of weight to them, and the Split Pad Pro is pretty much just a plastic shell with the necessary PCB and buttons and has removed the rumble motors (which is a positive to me, I hate rumble) and also lacks the ability to use Amiibos (which I only really use when playing Breath of the Wild for free stuff). It also trades the four individual directional buttons for a proper d-pad that while a little squishy feels perfectly fine for fighting games on the go.

The first oddity you encounter however is that the controllers themselves are roughly twice the height of the tablet screen, leaving you with an awkward lip as they opted for the tablet to sit flush against the back of the controllers for better ergonomics than flush with the face. It looks a little odd but once I got used to it never really bothered me. One of the problems I have had with the base joycons is that the clips that attach them to the rails on the side of the tablet portion have never felt amazingly solid. This might just be a side effect of the weird manner in which I have to grip them in order to play, due to the aforementioned stupidly large hands. However it always feels like if I gripped too tightly at the wrong moment that I could snap them off.

The Split Pad Pro connects way more tightly to the sides of the unit and has these little blocks that extend out over the tablet and then out from the back allowing you to set the unit down without placing stress on the joint. The overlap however also has the side effect of making the entire connection feel much stronger than it does on the traditional joycon setup. When holding the unit with a single hand it feels like it is a single fused piece and doesn’t have any of the natural sway that the joycons tend to have when doing the same thing. There are mappable buttons on the backside of the controller, but as there is no wireless connection between the two you are limited to only mapping functions that exist on a single side, making the paddle on the left side a little useless.

The unit still docks perfectly fine with the Split Pad Pro attached, allowing you to flip between playing on screen and in handheld mode easily. The funny thing is that while I have owned these joycon replacements I have spent way more time playing in handheld than I have docked. Previously I had almost exclusively played the Switch through dock with a Pro Controller I would say 99.9% of the time. It is funny how having a comfortable grip that does not add significant weight to the unit has changed the way I actually use it. Whereas I used to use my Tablet exclusive for a little gaming before falling asleep, I am now also using my switch and have taken to charging the unit in the bedroom as opposed to the dock. I really should get one of the Best Buy docks for the bedroom, since they are much cheaper and appear to have solved the issue that bricked so many units previously.

The Negatives

Now that I have gushed about how much I love this controller at length, I guess it is time to talk about the negatives. First off while I personally call these a JoyCon replacement, they are not really that at all because they are not wireless. You cannot use them independent of the tablet unit and in order to keep the price and weight down they sacrifice all of the internals that allow for RFID, Rumble and Gyroscope functionality. This means that in Breath of the Wild for example you will be unable to complete any of the puzzles that focus on rotation things with your JoyCons. Additionally any sort of aim through moving the controller functionality is likely not going to work if they rely on the JoyCon gyro instead of the one build into the tablet (which most games seem to).

The only thing that really bugs me at any point is the fact that because they are not wireless they also do not support the ability to wake the console with a key press. This is a dual edged sword because on the positive this means you won’t be accidentally waking the device up while carrying it around in a bag you will however be required to press the recessed power button any time you want to turn it on. You can also tap the screen, but I seem to never actually do this because I more or less forget that the Switch is touch compatible. Another negative is that they have used cheap rubber buttons for +, -, Home and Capture and they feel awful to push. They function fine but they just dont have a satisfying click to them. Similarly most of the buttons feel a little mushy and are not as satisfying as I would like them to feel, but personally this has not bothered me too much because I got used to the Hori FPS Plus controller on the Playstation 4 which has very similar buttons.

The Rundown

If you have large hands and struggle with the size of the switch Joycons… then I would highly suggest you check this controller out. If not this then at least check out the Satisfye grip, which will give you some of the same benefits but also make the unit significantly heavier. If your preferred method of play is to detach the joycons and set the tablet somewhere, then this is squarely not a product for you. If you prefer the Playstation style controller pattern of having the thumb sticks in line with each other, then it is also probably not a product for you as this is the Xbox style staggered stick design. If you are on the fence, this makes it feel like you have an actual controller attached to your switch, and with that the sticks give you a much better range of movement making almost all games i have played with it more comfortable to control. Skyrim for example felt awful to play with the limited range of movement that the default joycon thumb sticks have, but is rather enjoyable with the Split Pad Pro.

I would love to see Hori release a version of this product will full joycon replacement support, adding in all of the missing features. However I think I would probably still be using the ones I have currently as the reduced weight of the total unit makes a big deal to me since I am playing it while laying on my side in bed so often. Holding the default configuration in that manner always ends up with one of my hands getting tired, and with the Split Pad Pros I don’t even notice the weight of the unit. I am super happy this product exists, and after roughly 3 months of play I am not sure I could go back to the default joycons at this point.

This is Allie. She has been my baby girl since shortly after we got her. I can’t tell you exactly how long we have had her because it legitimately seems like forever and wildly predates the time when I was keeping track of things through the blog. Best as we can tell she was somewhere between 13 and 16 years old because as a feral rescue, we have no real clue how old she was when we adopted her. She had a bit of a rocky start in our lives because we thought she was fighting some sort of kennel cough. The entire time we had her she would go into these sneezing fits, which we eventually came to realize were just brought on by allergies.

However this meant that we kept her isolated up in my wife’s office for a good chunk of time after we first got her. During this time I spent an awful lot of my free time hanging out in the office and just spending time with her so she wouldn’t be lonely. As a result we developed a pretty strong bond that continued on throughout her entire life. She had been sick for the last few years, realizing she had a thyroid condition too late to really be able to do much to fix it other than offer palliative care. Even when I knew she was not feeling amazing, she never stopped wanting to be on top of whatever I happened to be doing.

Long ago I had to learn how to play on my laptop while she was draped across me like a seat belt. We were legitimately surprised she made it through last winter, so as we entered this winter we were on constant watch. There were so many times she would be sleeping somewhere curled up and I would have to check on her to make sure she was okay. She remained “my” sweet and loving Allie right up until the end. Roughly and hour before recording the podcast last week, she had a massive seizure and within the span of ten minutes she was gone. My wife held her wrapped up in a towel as she passed.

I’ve not really been able to talk about this, because I am still processing. I knew it was coming which has helped, and Allie was a shadow of her former active self which has also helped me to realize it needed to happen. However no matter how much rationalize it… she was still my baby girl and one of the most loving cats that I have ever known. Talking about this sort of thing tends to spawn a deluge of support, and I am not sure if that helps. I mean I know you all at this point and I know you have my back, but I think this is just the sort of wound that needs to scab over a bit before I can move on with my life. The two remaining girls are adjusting and it has sort of reset the balance within the house causing a momentary truce which has helped.

It is also within this raw state that I am trying to process the news about the death of Brad McQuaid. I don’t have any personal stories about him, because I was just another player in a sea of players. However Everquest was a very important and foundational game for me, and with it came the legend of Brad McQuaid and the Vision. I also played quite a bit of Vanguard and was ultimately going to play some Pantheon. On some level I think Brad had this idea in his head that he never could quite reach and each time he set out with a game he failed somehow to render it quite the way he could see it in his minds eye. On many levels Vanguard felt like a higher fidelity version of Everquest and similarly so Pantheon was shaping to be the same higher fidelity version of Vanguard.

I am not sure if my life supports the style of play that these games were trying to present. However I still have a good respect for the ideas behind it. Brad was one of those folks that I looked up to and wanted to be when I was still entertaining the concept of making a break from corporate development and going into games. I am not even sure if he was a personal hero of mine, but he was definitely someone I kept tabs on each time he did anything. The world is going to feel smaller without him out there somewhere chipping away at trying to finally render this vision he had, in the same clarity he seemingly saw it in his minds eye.

On that note I am going to wrap up the post. I am knocked off balance right now between the sequence of events. I am sure I will be back to my normal self over the coming weeks, but for now I am just processing everything.

Yesterday I said there are times when I am an old man yelling at the clouds and to be warned this is going to be one of those times. Yesterday Stadia “launched” and by launched I mean a handful of people who pre-ordered on day one managed to get equipment shipped to them in time. I remember getting caught up in the whirl of the Stadia announcements and wound up putting in a preorder because I was curious exactly what this new era would bring. However as more details leaked out about the experience and how it would function I suddenly became significantly less interested and put in a cancellation of my day one preorder.

How Stadia works currently is that you need to have ordered the $130 hardware bundle that includes a special chromecast and a special controller. This gives you access to Stadia as a platform and gives you Destiny 2 bundled in as software. After that you end up purchasing the games on the Google Stadia storefront like you would purchase any other game. Above is a list of the games available at launch and the prices associated with them screen captured from an Android Police article. The prices are not horrible but they also are not exactly amazing given that most of the games on that list are pretty old at this point.

The last point becomes important when you consider how this has been marketed. This is being directed at those who already consider themselves mainstream or early adopter gamers. These are the same people who probably already have a handful of consoles capable of running all of these games save Gylt the sole platform exclusive, and in many cases also have a gaming PC that can similarly run the majority of these games. So again I find myself just not getting this. Stadia feels like a gimmick more than a legitimate way of providing access to something you didn’t already have access to. Stadia being a storefront and not a subscription service granting you access to all of these games makes even less sense.

The nail in the coffin for me however was when I realized that Stadia was being treated as a 4th platform and not simply co-opting the audience of an existing one. The game that comes free with the bundle is Destiny 2 and it requires access to a bunch of other players to be able to play it effectively. Sure Cross Save seemingly works perfectly fine on the Stadia platform, but you are limited to queuing with other Stadia users, which is a pretty tiny pool of players at the moment. If you wanted to play with your friends, you would in theory then need to somehow convince all of them to swap away from whatever their current platform of choice is over to Stadia. A lot of players just uprooted themselves from the consoles to the superior PC experience, and I can’t see anyone that did that willing to downgrade their experience to a streaming one.

The best article that I have read so far is one put out by the Verge. However pretty much every article or video that I have consumed over the last day and some change comes up with the same conclusion. Stadia works but there are compromises made to play a game on the platform. These compromises include a tangible amount of input lag and degraded image quality while playing the game. The Verge article that I linked has a good image slider showing the same scene on Xbox One X and Stadia in EDZ area of Destiny 2. Is it good enough to get in some gaming on the go? Absolutely. Is it going to feel like a console or PC gaming replacement? Probably not.

I think the biggest confusion for me is that being a 4th platform makes no sense for the long term longevity of the platform. Additionally it makes no sense to market this platform towards already indoctrinated gamers. I have said this before, Stadia absolutely makes sense in its free version that won’t launch until 2020, where you can simply buy a game and play it on either a mobile device or through a Chromecast without the need to buy any additional hardware. That lets people who might want to dabble in serious gaming do so without the initial upfront costs. What doesn’t make sense is selling this as “gaming without the console” when the only way to get access to it currently is to essentially buy a “console” in the form of a dedicated version of the Chromecast and a dedicated controller.

The other aspect that I don’t want to get into fully is the fact that Stadia has already missed the market. XCloud is currently in preview mode and offers support for playing around 50 games on mobile devices as part of the Xbox Game Pass service. It really is the “Netflix for games” and there has been a renewed push of trying to improve the Playstation Now platform as well. These are both platforms that have dedicated player bases and won’t essentially be isolating you into a multiplayer wasteland. Steam similarly is ramping up to make its own push into cloud gaming and there are already great PC based services like Parsec. My fear with this platform is it is going to go the way of Google Glass or god forbid Reader and be yet another product that Google has abandoned.