Review of Xbox One's Elite Controller

The controller is one of the gamer's most important tools that aids their performance in competitive and gaming for leisure. Like the keyboard to a PC gamer's controller, Xbox One's Elite controller that was revealed at E3 this week provides the most customization on a controller that modern day consoles have ever received. The controller offers complete customization, not only from button mapping but physically changing parts of the controller to better optimize performance for the player holding the controller.

The Elite Controller comes with additional parts to offer the most customization and flexibilty for any play style that a videogame deems. The parts include six interchangeable thumbsticks that can be mixed or matched: Two shorter thumbsticks, Two regular thumb sticks and Two taller thumbsticks. The thumbsticks are accompanied with two different directional pads: a standard Xbox One directional pad and a dish shaped directional pad that offers different ranges of directions and ease of use when compared to the standard directional pad. The dish directional pad was said to be very useful for many games, such as fighting games, stated a representative at E3 of the Xbox One Elite controller. Lastly the Elite controller introduces paddle buttons that are attached to the bottom of the controller, which can be mapped to do a various amount of things and are easily accessible by the fingers. The paddles included are two longer paddles, which sit lower on the controller, and the shorter paddles, that sit higher on the bottom of the controller. These paddles do not have to be attached to the controller in order to be played.

The Elite controller can save two presets to play styles, let's say a preset for a shooter game when playing with a Sniper load out and another preset for an Assault load out. Customization does not stop there, the amount of pressure and sensitivity a trigger needs to be activated can also be customized as the standard full press trigger or a short press for rapid firing. Lastly, the brightness of the guide button and amount of vibration that the controller emits is also customizable.

The Elite Controller was aesthetics are beautifully created as a high quality controller that is identical to the Xbox One standard controller but higher quality in paint, parts and of course customization. The new standard Xbox One controllers also feature a 3.5mm port to plug in headphones. A new feature to this controller is the grip system that wraps under-around the controller for more comfortability and to better hold the controller when playing. The texture of the grip is best described as the texture grip around the thumbsticks of any Xbox One controller. When purchased, the controller will come with a protective pouch to store all the parts and to keep the controller from deteriorating when it is not being used.

When we got a hands on preview with the controller, we played Gears of War: Ultimate Edition for an extended amount of time to see how all the features of the controller worked. The controller works like any other Xbox One controller except it provides so much more freedom and accessibility to buttons and alleviates any stress that certain games would have. An example of stress in gameplay would be in Gears of War when sprinting by holding the A button but would not be as easy to maneuver around certain areas because one hand is solely focuses on that button. Mapping one of the paddles to the running button alleviates that stress when playing Gears of War because one or two fingers is focusing on that paddle and allows much more freedom and ease to play the game during that situation. Another example of this is in Gears of War is shortening the trigger to a hair tripper to shoot much faster with a semi automatic weapon as the pistol. Having these additional features definitely offers the player much more tactical advantage and comfort of playing a game when compared to the Standard Xbox One controller. It is definitely worth checking out!

Get your Xbox One Elite Controller for $150.

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