The Xbox 360 controller has always been one of the best and most comfortable controllers I have ever used. It's a sharp contrast to their first attempt on the original Xbox, but one of the main complaints has been the almost worthless D-Pad.

So Microsoft went back and designed a whole new D-Pad for this controller. The D-Pad works in two ways, in its original position it functions the same as the D-Pad on the old controllers, but turn it clockwise and you'll have a D-Pad that is similar to the classic Nintendo's. The idea being that in this second mode, that the D-Pad is more precise with movements instead of the sloppily way it handled it before.

But does it work?

Yes it does, to an extent. It certainly does make D-Pad moves more accurate, but it's still not nearly as good as Nintendo or Sony's D-Pad. It's still basically a disc in the open position, as you can see in the image above, albeit a sturdier one. But it is leaps and bounds better than the old crappy D-Pad.

The other things they changed are the colors of the buttons and the thumb sticks. Both of these changes are borderline retarded, however can easily be fixed. The more obvious of the two is the fact they used a monochrome scheme for the buttons.

Why?

This just seems like a pointless change, and may hamper the gameplay if you can't remember off the top of your head which color belongs with which button as many games feature prompts that just show you the color, not the letter of the button. Although for the most part, you usually don't need to look at the controller anyways to know which color is which, but this should have just been left the same.

The thumb sticks are basically the same; however they took away the 4 little nobs that are on each side of the thumb sticks. I find this makes the thumb sticks a tad slipper than their predecessors but not enough for your fingers to slip off the sticks during those intense moments of gameplay. However, I have noticed that sometimes the left thumb stick will get stuck a tiny bit off center, so will still be sending input to the game when I'm not even touching it. I haven't had this problem with any of my other controllers and I have had about 6 of them.

The only other change I can mention is that the paint of the controller feels far superior. It has a more rough grain feel to it which means it it's less likely to fall out of your hands.

In the end, the controller easily stands out among my other controllers. It just looks way better, and less cheap and plastic-y than the rest. It comes with a play and charge kit and runs the same price as any of the other controllers. All and all, it's a great update to the old controller with a few design questions, but if you have to choose between this new one and the old ones, then I would definitely recommend you go with the new one - and swap out the fucking buttons.