Image: Evil Controllers
The production of themed gaming peripherals has become a huge industry. Xbox s one gaming platform that has seen a huge growth in one particular gaming peripheral: the themed controller. Evil Controllers has taken the lead in controller design with their line of themed controllers. One big reason for this is the Evil D-pad.
Evil Controllers launched the Evil D-pad in 2010. The Evil exclusive D-pad was featured in an article in Inc. magazine. This unique feature of the D-pad separates the directional inputs into 4 separate buttons. Evil controllers believes that “the common mistakes that occur while using a standard controller will be dissolved immediately because the Evil D-Pad has removed the bridge that connects all the directional buttons together”. The company maintains that removing the axis or disc-based D-pad will allow more fluid freedom of movement, faster D-pad action, and ultimately, better in-game performance.
I tested the Red Skullz Gears of War-themed controller while playing what else — Gears of War 3. The D-pad was certainly more accessible because of the separated directional buttons, and my left thumb was able to jump quickly from one button to the next when the actions in-game required it. To match the color of Locust blood, Evil Controllers had adopted the use of RED LEDs on the home button. The look is cool, creepy — reptilian.
Evil made one thematic change, replacing the A,X,Y,B buttons with bullet shells. The look is frakkin’ awesome. For those poor souls who are controller-challenged, this change could be impractical, as they would not have the reference of the familiar Xbox green, blue, yellow and red button layout to rely on.
One beef that I have with the controller is that the standard Xbox chat pad does not fit well. The chat pad fit much too snugly, as I ended up having to force it on to the controller in order to attach it.
Check out the entire line of Evil controllers.
