Hi everyone, today we're taking a look at some Android game controllers. Now I just want to say thank you to the
to the MHL consortium for sending the
Green Throttle out to me.
I picked up the Mogo Pro on my own as it were at retail.
Now what I'm really fascinated by with Android at the moment is
its ability to not really just be about, you know
your smartphone or your tablet but about being your games device as well.
So do we really need an XBox 1 a Playstation 4
in the near future? The speed at which the silicon is developing on Android
devices the quality of the game controllers we're starting to see, I'm
beginning to think that this next generation of next generation games
consoles and
gaming in general it's not going to be quite as clear cut as people may have expected.
I think these second screen devices or you know from my perspective the first screen
device my smartphone is fast becoming
a good rival to even the next-generation consoles as they're currently specced.
So what do we have in these two game controllers? Well,
they're very similar in their approach they both quite XBox looking
obviously the green from the Green Throttle and the Moga Pro has
very much the sleek lines you would come to expect from the XBox.
You also have the slightly offset
dual analogue controller sticks as well, again very very XBoxy. In fact
I mean you might just as well have taken the XBox controller and stuck a new
badge on them.
But what's really interesting
is the way these work. They use Bluetooth
and they install a piece of software directly onto
the smartphone which you can download from the Play Store then that allows the game controller to
communicate with the smartphone or a tablet or
whatever Android device you happen to be using.
Now in the case of the Moga Pro you have this flip up stand
so that you can actually place your smartphone
directly onto the stand and it's kind of all integrated
which sort of works OK. For my mind though
in most situations I found I could really have done with the screen tilting back
a bit further.
It doesn't quite go far enough back for my liking. It maybe needs another 10 to 15
degrees and then it's kind of comfortable in all situations but
a lot of the time I found I was playing it like that so actually having to tip it down further
so my hands and wrists are rotating more so that my
eyeline was directly face on with the screen.
Bit of a weird one, why didn't they just put an extra notch on it and let it tilt
back a little bit further. For a £50 device,
it's a bit much considering it's not perfectly comfortable to use
when you're looking at it. Now where it does become a little bit more interesting
is in these rubber grips that they've added to it. The original Moga was
kinda more cut off around there and it reminded me more of a Game Cube
controller or
if you remember the Nintendo Wii kind of cube controller that
they did, I think it was called the analogue controller anyway.
And very very reminiscent of that. Now this new one is much closer to an XBox
controller
with you know these grips fitting quite snugly into the hand
and it's the same on the Green Throttle but you're missing the
extra rubber texture on the Green Throttle. Now what I found really interesting is
both of them are very very similar you know the kinda feel of the controller when you're using them
very similar. I found myself preferring the Green Throttle though
for the kind of in the hand feel over time
after say an hour's gaming I found that the Moga Pro was starting to weigh my hands down a
little bit more than I liked.
The Green Throttle however kind of just sat really nicely in my hands and
didn't cause me any kind of aches or pains or anything like that.
It's strange because essentially they are very very
very similar it's just the Green Throttle's
these handles are just slightly smaller I think
and that for me personally just creates a better grip
overall. The Green Throttle uses AA batteries
The Moga Pro is a rechargeable and
it recharges by a usb. The Green Throttle is
actually heavier it's got definitely more weight on it with the
included battery than
the Moga Pro so if you're looking for something where it's purely down to
weight distribution and so on
the Moga definitely has better weight distribution it's very very
very light. The Green Throttle does definitely feel weighed down
I would liken it very close to an X Box controller
with the AA battery compartment added on: so if you're familiar with that
particular
controller from Microsoft where you don't have the
battery pack as it were you have a couple of double A batteries
the weight distribution and so on is very very similar.
Now game support is probably the most important thing with these controllers and it has
to be out of the box
support not let's download a third party piece of software and attempt to get the game working
by using overlay hacks and anything like that.
Right now the Moga wins hands down they have tons of games available
and roughly speaking I'd say there's at least 40 to 50 games available now
with Moga support including the latest release Crazy Taxi which I was playing last night and
just works flawlessly
with the Moga Pro. Unfortunately the Green Throttle
is let down somewhat by an appalling selection of
games. The controller itself
I actually prefer to the Moga but
there's only about 10 games that support the Green Throttle which is a real shame
even though some of those games are quite fun.
A controller is going to live and die by its support on Android
and unfortunately there isn't the game support there from the developers right
now
which is a real pity. What I think we need to see happen from Google's
point of view
and actually from our point of view as gamers and consumers
we need a middleware layer provided by Google that allows
all of these controller companies to hook into it and developers to natively hook
into it because they're building their games anyway using the SDK from Google.
What we have at the moment is fragmentation so
really it depends on which side developers decide to go for. Will they include both games
controller companies tools
so the controller will work with the game? No
probably not. They'll pick one or the other and they'll probably pick the one
with the largest install base which co-incidentally probably has the largest
number of developers developing for it.
You can see how it becomes a catch-22 and a self fulfiling prophecy.
Moga right now is out ahead and they're probably going to stay there
unless something changes within the developer eco system
and for my mind that's got to be Google they are in a prime position right now
to say we are gonna take gaming seriously on Android and here's a kick ass
SDK
that allows all these game controllers by Hid or whatever
to interface natively with any game as long as it happens to be using the latest build of the
SDK from Google. I mean that's what we really need to see happen for
gaming on Android to kick off in a massive massive way because I'm telling you guys
once you pick up a controller and start playing something like Modern Combat 4:
start playing racing games start playing Bard's Tale
you suddenly understand that Android is not that far behind
when it comes to high quality gaming. Put it this way
it beats a Wii right now pretty much beats a Wiiu right now.
In this next generation where we're looking at the Qualcomm 800 chips when we look at
the Tegra 4 processors we see the quality of the graphics and the fill rate, the
frame rate and the texture handling and everything lighting as well
we aren't that far off the PlayStation 3 and the XBox.
So it's not good enough really for us to simply say oh well
we'll have to wait for developers to incorporate this stuff into their games
really it's now for Google to force the issue. We've had a long enough time now
with these controllers coming onto the market, the market has matured
the games are getting better the graphics and everything are getting better
one thing that we still don't have is a whole ecosystem
for running with the controllers and that fragmentation is going to hurt everyone
gamers especially. Right now if there is one
I would say to buy it would be the Moga Pro. At £50
you cannot go wrong it works beautifully
but it's not the best controller. The best controller
definitely goes to Green Throttle for me personally I find it a better more comfortable
controller to use for long periods of time
which is an interesting conundrum isn't it? So the better controller doesn't
have as good game support.
the not quite so good game controller has phenomenal game support.
Where have we heard this one before? It's like the console industry all over again
but my point is that gaming on Android as I'm going to show you in a moment
is phenomenal. OK, so what I'm going to show you now
is how easy it is to use Moga Pro
and with your Android device and let's play a game.
Simple as that so the first thing I need to do is I've got my Bluetooth turned on
I've got the Moga Pro turned on and I fire up the Mog rap
and we let it quickly have a search and it's found my Moga Pro. Now,
one thing I've noticed is the HTC One
locks on over Bluetooth substantially faster
than the Galaxy S4 which is a real slouch.
The Galaxy S4 will spend half a minute around 30 seconds
trying to find the Moga Pro. The HTC One just goes
found it, ready to game. It's quite a substantial difference and it makes me wonder quite
what Bluetooth chip Samsung have put in those devices, either that or
very very poor software implementation. Anyway
what we now have is the Moga app and within this application it will give us
various, oops, I don't want that one
it will give us the various games that I have installed
as well as games that I can download.
Great so we've got Crazy Taxi here and what I'm going to do is
drop that on to there
plug it in.
Now you'll see what I mean earlier about the screen angle not being perfect as it
were.
Realistically it needs to kind of be there but its natural feeling is to kind of sit there
like that
and this is actually quite accurate to how I've been using it
It always feels when I'm using it that I want to tip forward and just tip my wrists and so on so
that I can
kind of see the screen direct on like you would on a television set
or as best you can anyway and it doesn't quite work with this
particular stand they've put on there. It needs to just ratchet back a little bit more.
Now as you can see, I've got full control using
the joypad so I can play game, arcade
there are my arcade rules.
You can see there from the glare
that things are not quite as direct on as they would really like to be
but the important thing is check this out
Crazy Taxi with a controller
gaming on Android. Now if I wanted to I don't have to have this
plugged on to the dock on the top
what I could do is use an NHL cable put my phone
directly into a television set sit on the other side of the room with a controller
and game away quite happily literally using my Android device
like a glorified games console you know one that costs about the same as a games console
but has a lot more functionality
so you know there are so many great games that have already been released
pretty much every title by Gameloft quite a lot of Sega's titles
they all work with Moga Pro like I say not quite great support for Green Throttle
going on out there
but it's not too bad you know what I mean, you've got ten titles there
on your Green Throttle but
if I received one for Christmas or something I don't think I'd be too disappointed
the games support does seem to be coming along from the developers but it's just not quite
large catalogue that the Moga Pro has but my concerns as always are comfortability over time
and the Moga Pro isn't quite as comfortable a controller. Like I say it's
kind of
you've got two devices here both are really great products. I'm nit-picking really
between
two but it would be great if we had more unified support for the games
so that way this game will work on
the Green Throttle quite happily it will work on any other controller
that people happen to make for Android because well it's all running from the same
SDK provided by Google and then it really comes down to how much can they innovate
on their hardware design which is really where these game controller guys want to be. They don't
want to be faffing around trying to get developers to support their hardware. They'd
much rather just be able to say well there's a standard SDK
it works for any controller out there and now we can spend our time making kick ass
controllers
not worrying about trying to get developer support.
If you're in the market for one of these controllers right now
I would say the Moga Pro has it, It's got the better game support
the in the hand feel is excellent it also has a hid switch as well so it can switch over to
hardware device mode that allows you to use it with
traditional PCs and things like that. Personally though
if you're looking for the controller which has the best
feel and the best long-term feeling in the hand as you're gaming the
Green Throttle for for me is the better in the hand controller
it's the better physical controller but the Moga Pro has the games
support and ultimately as gamers we kind of have to say
we go where the games are don't we?