Wired 360 Controller for PC

 

The Xbox 360 controller is the best designed controller I have ever used. There, I said it. The Dual Shock design was perfect when I was 12, but as an adult it becomes literally painfully clear that when Sony added analogue sticks to the design in order to keep up with the N64, nobody with the hands of the average adult male ever tested the thing for any period of time*. Ergonomically, it's shite. The 360 controller by contrast was designed for people with hands rather than horrible shriveled vestigial claws... but then I like both the Dreamcast and the N64 controller, so what do I know. 

One design was good and lasted 1994-7, the other is a hateful turd that has haunted us since 1998.

I recently picked up the Wired 360 pad for my PC after the backlog of games I had that were shit on mouse and keyboard was getting ridiculous. As a gamer with a heavy PC bias (after my 360 e74'd on me, all my consoles are now old/retro) I've been resisting shelling out for a gamepad for a while, out of some misguided distrust of console controls. I mean, I even played (and loved) Darksiders using the keyboard and mouse, and that game was crying out for a controller. Still, now I have it, I'm massively impressed with it. The price can be a bit steep: £25 in all of the stores I went to, and around £18 online, but the official 360 controller is the way to go. The build quality and ergonomics are both top notch, especially with the wired pad, as the back doesn't have the battery pack restricting finger placement. 

PC gamers, including me, will often defend the relative expense and complexity of PC gaming on the basis that the PC is still the best tool for the job. Yet, many of us will use keyboard and mouse on games where a controller would be measurably superior. Genres like RTS and FPS will never be better with a controller, but as I learned, it's stupid to cheat yourself out of a superior experience out of sheer bloody mindedness. My own anecdote is that I was stuck on the last mission of Earth Defence Force, (which I had been playing with mouse and keyboard) yet I beat it on the first try after I bought the gamepad. Controllers have their place in PC gaming, and role will only increase as the PC becomes the secondary ported-to platform for titles from the big publishers and developers.

*I am aware of the Dual Analog controller that predated the Dual Shock and had arguably better ergonomics, but it wasn't produced for very long and isn't really all that relevant.