Two weeks ago, Valve announced its Steam Controller, a new type of gamepad that ditches the normal joysticks in favor of haptic-based trackpads. Today, the company showed off how the prototype Steam Controller is used to play several games in a new YouTube video.
The clip first showed how the Steam Controller could be used to play Valve"s puzzle shooter "Portal 2" on the PC, without any special set-ups. The left trackpad is configured like a typical D-pad for player movement, while the right takes care of the functions that are normally handled by the mouse. Later on in the video, the Steam Controller is shown playing another game from Valve, "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive," and it"s noted that players don"t need auto-aim help with the use of this new gamepad.
The clip also shows a game that is almost never played on a console-like gamepad, Firaxis" "Civilization V." In the case of the Steam Controller, the turn-based strategy game uses the left trackpad for camera movement and the right for one-to-one mouse control. Finally, the clip shows an indie game called "Papers, Please," where the player must determine if a person can enter a fictional country just by looking at their official papers. The game is meant to be played mostly by moving a mouse around, and the Steam Controller has been set up so that both trackpads act to move the cursor on the screen more quickly than with a typical mouse.
The Steam Controller prototypes have four buttons in the center that will later be replaced by a touchscreen when the final version is released. 300 people will get a chance to check out the prototype when Valve sends out the first versions of their Steam Machines for beta testing later this year.
Source: Valve on YouTube