RandyDSok
Well-Known Member
After a lot of consideration... most of it back and forth... I finally settled on getting a Steelseries Stratus Duo game controller. The Stratus Duo feels very well built, the joysticks are as smooth as butter and buttons aren't too loud and clicky but do provide some tactile feedback. I can easily recommend it as long as it's a type and style that also fits your own needs.
I started my quest by first pestering everyone that would listen, what controller they preferred to use themselves. The majority said what I saw repeated by most reviewers... the MS XBox One was hard to beat without going into the high end like the XBox Elite as one such example. There were only three options that kept me from selecting one... the joystick and dpad were reversed on the XBox series from what seemed natural to me and the Stratus Duo also came with a built in rechargeable battery and a 2.4Ghz wireless dongle for my PC. The MS options also had one that included a bluetooth dongle that's also available seperately, but I find the connection with 2.4Ghz typically is more reliable and has a faster response. Oh, it also didn't hurt that the Stratus Duo was on sale on Amazon and at Target for $35.99 vs the XBox starting at around $45 and up ( without the bluetooth dongle ).
After topping off the battery, I first loaded up Doom I ( 1993 ) and started playing around with different controller settings. Doom I didn't have much if any controls assigned to the game controller which was fine since I probably wasn't setting what would be considered convention settings anyway from what I can tell.
Some examples of what I'm talking about... In the other games I've got that are FPS ( first person shooter ) types... They seem to set the left joystick up as forward/back and left/right. After flying RC for years, I felt those controls should be on the right joystick and not the left one. On the right one, most set camera angle controls up... again, that just seems backwards somehow.
I then proceeded through the jump, crouch, shoot, activate ( also called action sometimes ) and other optional settings. I also found I needed to turn down the sensitivity on most of the joystick controls to avoid over stearing.
On several of the other games, all but one seemed to lack setting up custom controls for a game controller ( usually the kb and mouse are fully assignable )... at least that I've found in the menus. I may have over looked them or perhaps they require that I set them up in a INI settings file or something... I'll want to at least look into what options I have or I may end using KB and mouse on these if nothing else is allowed.
Since I assume most of this is very subjective... I'd love to hear what everyone else sets their controllers up as... or if they just use the defaults and learn them over time.
I started my quest by first pestering everyone that would listen, what controller they preferred to use themselves. The majority said what I saw repeated by most reviewers... the MS XBox One was hard to beat without going into the high end like the XBox Elite as one such example. There were only three options that kept me from selecting one... the joystick and dpad were reversed on the XBox series from what seemed natural to me and the Stratus Duo also came with a built in rechargeable battery and a 2.4Ghz wireless dongle for my PC. The MS options also had one that included a bluetooth dongle that's also available seperately, but I find the connection with 2.4Ghz typically is more reliable and has a faster response. Oh, it also didn't hurt that the Stratus Duo was on sale on Amazon and at Target for $35.99 vs the XBox starting at around $45 and up ( without the bluetooth dongle ).
After topping off the battery, I first loaded up Doom I ( 1993 ) and started playing around with different controller settings. Doom I didn't have much if any controls assigned to the game controller which was fine since I probably wasn't setting what would be considered convention settings anyway from what I can tell.
Some examples of what I'm talking about... In the other games I've got that are FPS ( first person shooter ) types... They seem to set the left joystick up as forward/back and left/right. After flying RC for years, I felt those controls should be on the right joystick and not the left one. On the right one, most set camera angle controls up... again, that just seems backwards somehow.
I then proceeded through the jump, crouch, shoot, activate ( also called action sometimes ) and other optional settings. I also found I needed to turn down the sensitivity on most of the joystick controls to avoid over stearing.
On several of the other games, all but one seemed to lack setting up custom controls for a game controller ( usually the kb and mouse are fully assignable )... at least that I've found in the menus. I may have over looked them or perhaps they require that I set them up in a INI settings file or something... I'll want to at least look into what options I have or I may end using KB and mouse on these if nothing else is allowed.
Since I assume most of this is very subjective... I'd love to hear what everyone else sets their controllers up as... or if they just use the defaults and learn them over time.