Controller

I don't really care what a console looks like — I'd like it to be small and beautiful, but as I type this there's a large and hideous Xbox 360 prominently displayed on my TV stand next to its equally large, equally hideous power brick. My hardware requirements are "work properly," and everything else is gravy.

I do care about the controller, though, which is every bit as important to a console as the trackpad is to your laptop, or the steering wheel to your car — whether literally or figuratively, they drive the whole experience. It's also hard to build a good controller, so I'm inclined to give Ouya some credit — the console's Bluetooth controller isn't the best I've used, but it's not the worst either. Visually, it matches the console closely — it's mostly gray, with a black patch running up the middle and around the back. Its layout is only slightly tweaked from, say, an Xbox 360, with two analog sticks in easy reach for both your thumbs along with a d-pad, two bumpers, two triggers, and the diamond of buttons we've seen on every console for a thousand years. There's also a "U" button matching the one on the console, which takes you home when you tap it twice.

It has removable panels on either side, which hide the AA battery housing — when you open the box, the right panel is off and the whole thing looks broken, but that's just Ouya subtly letting you see the empty battery slot. (It actually needs two batteries, including one under the other panel — that took me longer to figure out.) The removable panels are a cool touch — maybe you can 3D-print those too — but they're not made very well. The right panel is slightly askew from the controller itself, so the analog stick catches in the lip at the top; it also takes some work to get the magnetic seals properly seated, which you have to do, because otherwise the four buttons get caught underneath. All the pieces don't fit together very tightly, either, which gives the whole controller a cheap, breakable feel.

The analog sticks are the hardest part to get right, and Ouya nailed it — they're not too stiff or too loose, and flow perfectly with your finger. The triggers are a little mushy, though, making me feel both like I had to mash them to get them to work and like they'd break every time I did so. The buttons made me angriest, though. Instead of labeling them A, B, X, and Y, like every other manufacturer ever, Ouya went with O, U, Y, and A. The A button is where B should be, and O is where A typically is — so every time the Ouya said "press A to go back" I pressed O and went forward. Every. Single. Time.

A, B, X, and Y are not to be trifled with

I often had a moment to rue my mistake before anything happened, too, because there's a fair amount of lag between the controller and the console. It wasn't always present, and seemed to have to rhyme or reason to it, but about half the time the game felt perfectly synced and the other half it felt a full beat behind what my thumb was doing.

Like the PlayStation 4, the Ouya's controller has a trackpad in the center. This is actually really useful on the device – it never really comes into play during a game (Update: the trackpad is used during Saturday Morning RPG, and I'm told others are coming), but it's handy for navigating menus and switching between text boxes. It's really just a Band-aid, though, vainly trying to cover up the mess that is the Ouya interface.