While getting to hear cofounder Gabe Newell talk about a bunch of PC cases for ten minutes or so was nice, the most appealing part of tonight's rare Valve press event for me was the opportunity to actually get my hands on the mysterious Steam Controllers that Valve unveiled in late September. After spending 20 minutes or so of testing a prototype controller (still missing the central touchscreen) on four games (Portal, Trine 2, Metro: Last Light, and Starbound), I find myself almost split down the middle, hating one half of the controller while loving the other half. Which is odd, because those halves are kind of identical on the surface.

I'm talking primarily here about the Steam Controller's two circular, concave thumbpads, which are by far the most striking differences between the Steam Controller and existing handheld controllers. When used as a kind of virtual trackball, as most games did with the right pad, it was a revelation. When used as a virtual d-pad, as it was on the left pad, it was an exercise in frustration.

Thumbs up to the right thumbpad

Let's focus on the right pad first. There's definitely a learning curve to using this side of the pad properly; years of muscle memory had me trying to use it like an analog stick (minus the stick) at first. It only really began to click when I started swiping my thumb over the pad, as I've seen in previous videos (there was no one on hand to really explain the controller to me, so I was left figuring it out on my own, just like a new Steam Machine owner).

When I say it "started to click," I mean that literally. The subtle clicking in your hands as you swipe along the pad is an incredible tactile experience, as if there was an actual weighted ball inside the controller that's rolling in the direction you swipe. And like a trackball slowly losing its inertia, the clicking slows its pace after you lift your thumb off the pad, giving important contextual information for the momentum imparted by your swipe.

That momentum is key to what makes using the right thumbpad feel so different. A quick, short swipe on the pad can execute a 180-degree turn in a first-person shooter just as quickly as a mouse can, or it can move a pointer from one corner of the screen to another almost instantly in a game like Trine. This is a big step up for anyone who's grown accustomed to the slow on-screen traversals imparted by an analog stick. What's more, after a quick swipe, you can tap back down anywhere on the pad to stop that continuing momentum on a dime.

The process didn't feel as precise as a mouse, where you have an entire palm maintaining consistent contact with the device (and no after-action momentum throwing things off). Then again I've had decades of experience with a mouse and only a few minutes with this new thumbpad. With a bit of practice, I can see thumbpad pointing and turning being just as quick and precise.

Thumbs down to the left thumbpad

The left thumbpad, on the other hand, seems completely unsuited to handle directional movement. As has been described previously, most existing games convert your position on one of the thumbpad's eight quadrants into digital input using the WASD control scheme. The problem with this is that there's no real tactile feedback for the margins between one quadrant and another. The circular ridges on the controller indicate how far you are from the center, but not from the four cardinal directions (or eight directions, including diagonals) that form the basis of most in-game movement.

The thumbpad doesn't offer the tactile pressure of a d-pad or the springy resistance and physical barrier of an analog stick, both of which give a strong, innate idea of the thumb's relative position. Instead, the thumb rests lightly on the surface of a mostly featureless void, forcing a fumbling mess of motion to figure out where "up-right" is. It just feels very imprecise and not well suited to quick action and changes in direction.

This is the kind of problem that can be fixed on games designed specifically for the Steam controller, where the left pad's analog surface can be used for truly analog movement, rather than to emulate digital key presses (games designed to take full advantage of an existing analog stick might also be easy to jury-rig in this way). In the games I played, though, the legacy support for keyboard movement had me longing for a plain old digital pad under my thumb.

Buttons, buttons everywhere

Outside of the thumbpads, the controller's vast array of buttons are also a mixed bag. I especially liked the two buttons on the backside of the controller, which give easy access to additional control options without needing to lift your fingers off the touchpads. In Portal, for instance, I used these buttons to jump and crouch, moves that generally require lifting fingers off the right analog stick (or, in keyboard-and-mouse world, sometimes moving off the WASD home keys).

The four buttons on the front of the device were a little more awkward to use, placed as they are so close to the edges of the two thumbpads. They were fine for entering and navigating menus (or performing a task like quick-saving) but it felt awkward reaching for them to do practically anything where timing and precision are key. Moreover, these buttons are placed far enough apart to make it nearly impossible to push two with a single thumb, which is practically a requirement for many action games (though more often in console games than PC games, to be fair).

It's possible that this awkwardness was just due to unfamiliarity and that the Steam Controller's face-button placement will eventually feel as natural as the four face-button positions I've grown used to on practically every controller since the SNES. More likely, though, I'll have to get used to relying on using those shoulder and back buttons for most crucial action-game tasks.

The long button on the bottom of the prototype's face brings up the SteamOS interface, allowing for quick configuration or saving. Another button brings up a chat window with a version of SteamOS' flower-shaped text entry interface, which was pretty cumbersome to use with the thumbpads. For what it's worth, the prototype felt very comfortable in my hands, with nicely rounded feet that didn't poke into my palms at all.

A full evaluation of the Steam Controller will obviously take much more than the few minutes I had with it tonight. Tonight's first impression, though, left me extremely conflicted, with each potential step forward in design matched by a seemingly equal step back.