I like it. But I'm aware that since I bought it I will naturally be biased toward it to justify my purchase of it. With that in mind here's what I currently think of the experience of using it.

The unboxing was nice and simple. The controller was sitting in a nice cradle and the usb dongle and batteries were right underneath it. Yes. Batteries. This controller takes two AA batteries. Not a big deal for us, we have a stock of rechargeables already, and getting a few more for a new device is fine. People that have gotten used to sitting a controller on a cradle for charging might be put off by this, but batteries are easy and you can swap for fresh as soon as you need it. No sense yet for how long batteries will last, I've only just gotten the controller yesterday/today.

After unboxing, the first thing I did was plugged in the batteries, then the dongle. I launched Steam and got a prompt to install a firmware update on the controller. I did that immediately with no problems. You are prompted to use Steam's BPM (Big Picture Mode) to get the most out of your controller. This is the first big problem/annoyance that I have. I have several games that I purchased through non-steam sources. You can't configure the controller for those games unless you launch them through Steam. I can do it, but I'm annoyed that I have to. Other controllers are just detected as controllers and have their own configuration tools when necessary. Then, it's bad enough that I have to use Steam, but I also have to use Big Picture Mode. It's great for the TV, but when I'm literally sitting at a distance that I'm comfortable using Steam proper, I don't like being forced to use the dumbed down cousin.

The Steam Controller is a controller, and after a little confusion I managed to use it to navigate BPM and launch the Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth. I didn't care for the default controls, so I found one of the first big selling points. Everything is configurable. In addition to the buttons being configurable themselves you can use a button to shift modes so that the other buttons do something different. Kind of like hold Shift or Ctrl to modify your keyboard presses. Someone did the math and figured out that it is possible to have 130 distinct inputs with this methodology. Not that I think anyone would, but it's possible. But more important than configurability is that you can share your configurations. Right now there are no ratings, but they are sorted by most used. I don't think that the best is on top, but if you are on top you are going to get more people trying yours first. If it's good enough it will keep its top spot even if it isn't the best it could be. After trying a couple I found one that I'm mostly happy with. It isn't perfect, but it was good enough for me to get a handle on using this controller with a game I'm already familiar with. So far it performs very well.

The touch controls are just the right kind of responsive, with two exceptions that I think I can fix with some personal tweaking. The first issue is that since there is no traditional D-Pad, moving on an exact diagonal is hard. This is a problem in Isaac, because that is the only way to avoid walking on some floor spikes. It occurs to me that it is a rare enough need to have to be that precise that I can mode-shift and have keys dedicated to moving on those diagonals. Problem solved. The other issue is that I have the buttons and the mouse-pad both bound to X Y A B, for shooting. Sometimes one is more comfortable than the other. In particular I'm more comfortable navigating menus with buttons and shooting with the touch pad. The problem with this set up is that B is the right-most button which is right next to the bottom portion of the pad, which is bound to A or shooting down. The pad is sensitive, so if I go to use B to back out of a menu, I sometimes hit A on the touchpad first which selects or enters a menu. Or if I had wanted to use the buttons for shooting, sometimes I'd try to shoot left, but instead would shoot down. For me the buttons and the pad are just a little too close. Nothing too horrible, but I may be able to tweak some sensitivity to have that not happen anymore. Overall I'm happy with it. It turns out I really like the "grip" or "paddle" controls on the back. I thought they would be more "niche" but I'm using them in place of the L and R buttons to place bombs and use pills/cards. It feels more natural and less confusing than using the L/R buttons and L/R triggers. Overall, it will take a bit to get used to, but with some personal configuration I'm convinced that the controller will be better for this than using my plugged in PS3 controller.

Next I tried something without any native controller support, Marvel Heroes. That was a shit-show. I really hate the community profiles for that game, so if I want to do anything I'll have to sit down and self-configure everything for my play style. One of the configurations had something useful I hadn't used with Isaac. Using the internal gyroscope to move the mouse. That worked very well. But the rest of the bindings were very confusing to me, so I'll continue using Mouse + Keyboard for now. I have hope that I'll be able to set up the controls to be good, but the quickbar is so essential to that game that until I figure out an intuitive way to use the abilities that I want to use is I need to, it will be hard to switch. There are rumors that Marvel Heroes 2016 will have native controller support. If that happens, then I'll be able to use a profile that makes sense at that time.

I tried to play a controller only experience next, with Valkyria Chronicles. It was very intuitive with default settings. I did have a complaint that the Analog stick was too sensitive during the aiming phases of the game. But in game using the d-pad was a quick fix for sensitive adjustments. I'll want to browse some community profiles, but I completed a mission with an A ranking on my first try with this controller, so it wasn't holding me back at all. Using the track-pad as a right analog stick worked fine, and I may or may not tweak it's settings. I think it may be a touch too sensitive for me, but I'll give it some more game time to settle.

I tried to play Towerfall with the controller, but I'm not familiar enough with the game to know if the controller is holding me back or if I'm just bad at the game. On the one hand, I got a really fast time in the time trial with this controller. On the other hand, there are things that I expect to be able to do, like move while having an arrow out, ready to fire. And I'm not sure if the control support is bugged so you can't move with an arrow out, or if that is part of the game. Obviously it works, I got my fastest time trial time so far.

I like the controller. It wasn't perfect on anything that I tried, but in many ways the experience has been superior to a traditional controller. Add in the fact that I'm not used to the technology and that I can tweak the things I was having a problem with, I'm convinced that I'll be very happy with these controllers. If you can use one before buying it, that would be a good idea. It won't be for everyone. There was an article that described this controller as Dvorak to the traditional QWERTY with keyboards. I agree. It will take getting used to. It will take a different kind of muscle memory to get the most out of the switch. But in the end, it will be a better experience.

I've been trying some games from recent Humble Bundles.

Let's start with Hack n Slash. It's an interesting title that starts you off as an elf with a sword that can literally hack the computer world. Hit an enemy and maybe you change Aggressive to False. Or make it do zero damage. Or change it from Bad to Good so that it attacks your enemies. Door locked? No problem. Just hack it and change the locked value from True to False.

I've enjoyed the game for the most part. It's fun to solve the programming puzzles or to break things so that you can gain a ridiculous amount of health. You don't have to know anything about programming to play, but without a small amount of background I feel that players would be completely lost without some sort of guide. As such it's a niche title that could have been great with some sort of tutorial and polish. It gets a "do not buy" from me unless the "hack the planet" mindset sounds irresistable. I like it, but I'm a particular sort of nerd that does programming puzzles on Project Euler for fun.

Next up is Massive Chalice. It's a turn based tactics game that spans 300 years of time in your kingdom. The gimmick is that you need to keep the kingdom from being overrun by baddies, but only your "Heroes" can survive a single attack from them. The Chalice will save the kingdom, but it needs 300 years to charge up. This creates a situation where you have to breed bloodlines and have multi-generational dynasties of heroes. Some heroes are infertile, some are exceptionally fertile. But maybe an arranged marriage doesn't work out to get children because they are passionless. No children means no new generation of heroes to defend the kingdom.

Also, when you set up your heroes to start popping out babies they don't adventure anymore. So you have to manage your roster and get heroes a bunch of experience while they are young, then set them up to try and get as many babies as possible that will carry forward some of that experience and maybe take a bloodline weapon as well.

I like it and can recommend it for anyone that likes turn-based tactics games with permadeath. Hero genetics are random, so there is a ton of replayability.

Last up this week is Lumino City. This is a point and click puzzle game. You like games like Myst? This might be for you. You are a girl trying to find her Grandpa who was kidnapped in the opening scene. The gimmick/hook here is the graphics. Lumino City was hand made and stop-motion photographed to make up the graphics of the game. Check out http://luminocitygame.com/ to see what I mean. The puzzles so far haven't been too hard, but if they are there is manual left by your grandpa. The table of contents will say that the useful page is (9* the number of bushes on the clifftop + 21), so looking for hints is a small puzzle all on its own. For me this is a definite buy. It's available on iOS, Mac and Windows. I haven't gotten too far yet, but I only stopped because the game had crashed. Something odd happened with Adobe AIR.

Still messing about. For this I used Krita and Deevad's brush pack. The scene is inspired by a particular Bob Ross painting. Enjoy.

Enjoy the flowery-ness of this mountain scape. Still not where I want to be with this, but these studies are fun at least.

I made a digital painting. One of the reasons for the new computer was that I wanted to work on my art. Our old computer just didn't have the oomph to keep up with my drawing tablet. This beast does just fine, so this is me messing around with MyPaint to see what kinds of things I can do.

GlaDOS, our new computer, is running smoothly. (The previous Desktop computer was named Wheatly.) No issues so far except for some excessive heat. I'll be fixing that on Monday with an after market cooler.

I initially ran some burn-in benchmarking tools to really ramp up the temps and make sure that all the cores on the CPU were working. I ran it and got no errors, which is good. But the temps got up to 87C, which is ... not bad, but not good either. This particular processor throttles near 100C, I think. So, I could leave the stock cooler in place and save some money, or I can buy an effective after market cooler for $30 and not have to worry about the heat ever again. So, upgrade it is.

I have to say, PC gaming is pretty. I mean, really, the graphics are gorgeous when you have the hardware to make it happen. I installed the Witcher 3 yesterday, I didn't have a chance to try it out until today, but it is amazing. Just riding your horse and watching the sunset is fun. I think that this really tells me that we won't be buying a console this generation. GlaDOS games better than the current gen consoles by a long way. And by the time that she is starting to feel long in the tooth, the next gen stuff should at least be on the horizon.

Right now the computer is hooked up to the TV, because I use it as a media PC as well as gaming. That means we can use it for couch co-op. We don't have controllers for that yet, but we pre-ordered the Steam controllers, so we'll get those in November. I'll try to get Tanya to play The Binding of Isaac with me. The Afterbirth expansion will be out at the end of this month, so the timing is good.

The big game we're playing right now is Marvel Heroes 2015, it's a free to play Action RPG where you can play as one of your favourite Marvel Heroes. I'm not as into it as Tanya, but she has her favourite (which should be obvious from her Journal) and I have mine. I've been playing as Doctor Strange, my secondary is Emma Frost. Both are fun to play. It's a light-hearted MMO, but I'm not huge into Action RPGs. The last one that I was really into was Diablo 2, and I haven't gotten into any since then. Once GlaDOS is given a clean bill of health I'm doing a minor upgrade on our old machine, then we'll be able to play together. Wheatley runs it okay on minimum settings, but that's it. After the upgrade (30% more powerful processor), it might work a bit better. I'm not concerned about the graphics for this, but anything that can reduce lag will be good.

I'm in the process of building a new computer. Surprisingly all the parts I ordered arrived on the same day, so I've spent a good chunk of the evening putting it together.

First off, the case is HUGE. It didn't occur to me just how big it was going to be when I ordered it. It could eat our previous computer. Being big is a help, though. It makes it easier to install things without have to do twister with my hands.

Everything boots up fine. I need to install drivers and stress test it to make sure that all the parts are performing as expected. So far, so good.

I have a feeling that I'll need to buy another stick of RAM, but this is already such a huge upgrade that I won't really notice the fact that I'm running a little light on RAM for a little while.

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So, the reason for building this is that for the past several years I've always been fighting against underpowered machines. Want to do big digital art? Computer can't handle it. Want to play some newer games? Computer can't handle it. Want to record some audio (or video)? Jump through hoops and get something okayish. I've been fed up for a while, but got a small windfall and decided to use part of that on a gaming PC. Not top of the line, but mid-highish. Once I get it all set up, I might try my hand at twitch streaming, or not. I might just enjoy not having to hack at .ini files to get things to run smoothly.

I've been on a Bob Ross kick for the past couple of weeks. He is tranquil and I was able to get several DVDs from the library and just watch him paint happy little trees and happy little clouds. Zen. Yes. I have no desire to invest in oil paints, and acrylics aren't suitable for his techniques. (At least not the ones I own.) So I've been trying to duplicate the technique with digital paint. That doesn't work very well, but art practice is satisfying in it's own way.

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I've been reading a ton. Most notably a series starting with Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber, (probably misspelled that somewhere.) I read the first three books before stalling on the fourth and giving up on it. It's an interesting Sci-Fi series, but it just got so slow in the fourth book. Not enjoyable anymore at that point, so I'm not bothering with the rest of the series. I've also read a variety of Urban Fantasy, but nothing really stand out unfortunately. Been reading comics, too. I read Silk and Spider Gwen which are both ~issue #4. I'm worried about their storylines when the Secret Wars story forces them to all be on Battle World. (I understand if that statement doesn't make sense. It's a Marvel thing.) Reading the Dresden Files comic as well. It feels a little slow, but it's about halfway in its current arc.

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Playing the Star Realms card game with Tanya. It's a 2-player deck building game. In space. As the game goes on, you build your deck, so every game is different. It's fun. A little luck reliant, but good.

Also playing Atelier Escha and Logy. Not my favorite Atelier game, but it's not bad. So far I'm not thrilled with the Dusk series of Atelier. But I was introduced to the Arland series and it plays differently, so that's probably where my problems are coming from. Well, that and the horrible translation/editing. They had no QC. The same word is translated differently on the battlefield than it is in a cut scene. A later cut scene has it correct. A quest asks for an item that literally doesn't exist in the game. The item that you need is called something else. Sometimes item effects are described as the opposite of what they actually do.

As you may know,invsagoth (wife), likes to read comics and has an obsession with Loki. Because of this I have been taking her to the comic book store weekly to make sure that she hasn't missed any titles. It started with one, and now she's up to four or five regular titles, so one or two a week. We have a pull-box set up, but they have missed titles on occasion, so we make a point to go in weekly anyway.

While I'm there I browse the titles, but I don't like jumping into stories midway. Most of the time I go and look at games or whatever until she's done browsing and we check out. This changed last month. Three comics came out that I really like. Silk, a new spidey character, Issue #1. Spider-Gwen, an alt-universe Gwen-Stacey that doesn't die, but instead is a Spider-person, Issue #1. And a new arc of The Dresden Files, titled Downtown, Issue #1. I read the novels as they come out, so the comic is a no brainer.

This week I picked up two titles, while the wife picked up one. And I grabbed the free comic newspaper, so I could find out releases for next month because I need to make sure that I don't miss cross-overs with my new favorite characters. It was at this point that I realized I have become a comic book geek. And I'm okay with that. But it's all her fault.

I know that it's a pain to remember oodles of passwords. But best practice is to have a different password for every site. And then you need to make it hard to guess, but easy to remember. There are several ways to do this. But the easiest for me is to not remember them. That's right. I don't even know my passwords. Or rather I know one really pain in the ass password and then an application that I have keeps track of the rest. It even generates them randomly for me, so I really don't have to remember them at all. It has an added bonus of reminding me to change them.

I'm using a password manager called keepass (I'm actually using keepassx, because the user interface works better on my netbook, but it's essentially the same.) On first run, you'll set up a new database. It gives you security options for it, I opted for a combination of keyfile and password. So if you know my uber password, but don't know the keyfile you still can't get at my other passwords. I backup my keyfile and the database to a secure online location manually, just in case my harddrive dies. I also keep a copy locally on another drive. It isn't 3,2,1 (3 backups in 2 locations with at least 1 offsite), but it's good enough for me. I should find another backup location online, but I'm not sure where. Everytime you sign up for a new site and it needs a password, use keepass to create an entry and generate a password. I set a timer for how long the password is good for, so that I can generate a new one in 6 months. I could do it weekly if I was truly paranoid.

Just copy and paste the password from the database to log in. It can even be masked the entire time, so you don't even know what the password consists of. It's beautiful.

I admit, it's a bit of a bear to get started, but it really helps to keep your online presence secure. It might seem like overkill, but if your twitter gets hacked is it the same password as your email? And what about your bank? Credit cards? Amazon? The Apple Store? In my opinion it's better to be safe.

As an exercise, just in case you still think it's overkill, keep track of how many different services you use during the next week and how many have the same password as a year ago. That's a long time. And how many use the same user name AND password?

Just be safe and save yourself from potential heartache.

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