Hip Gear Xbox Compact Controller

Added May 3rd, 2005 by Caspel

When it comes to Xbox controllers, I love for them to fit comfortably in my hands. Five factors usually come to mind when I’m choosing an Xbox controller at a LAN party. It needs to look decent enough to impress my friends; the comfort of the controller needs to be outstanding as it will have to withstand several hours of gameplay; the layout of the buttons needs to be comparable to what I am used to; it needs to have responsive controls; and last but not least, has to have fluid movement on the thumbsticks. It came as no surprise when I received my Hip Gear Compact Controller that it was going to be an easy review.

The Hip Gear Compact Controller comes in four different colors. The colors are easy to tell apart as the only thing that is standard on the controllers is the rubber grips and the silver plate for the Hip Gear logo. For the colors to choose from there’s black, green, orange and blue. I personally have the blue controller and it stands out from all the controllers I currently have. So far so good, right? Well, I wish the Hip Gear face plates weren’t attached to the controller or at least weren’t that big. Besides that, the looks are fantastic.

With the looks out of the way, next up is the feel and comfort of the controller. It settles right into your hands and is smaller than the Xbox S controller. It has a unique feel and has a more rounded shape. For those who still can’t stand the official controllers (the “Duke” and the S controller), then maybe you should try this controller to see if it fits your hands better. With its definite smaller stature, the Hip Gear controller is among my favorite smaller controllers in terms of comfort.

The layout of the buttons is a tad bit different. With the addition of the Program and Turbo buttons, the Start and Back buttons have been moved. They are now located on the left side of the controller similar to where the white and black buttons are on the right side of the controller. The Program and Turbo buttons are now in the middle. This causes some complications when you are used to quickly pressing start to quit in the middle of a battle to use an item, thus causing you to die soon after due to the confusion. Luckily though, this may only happen a few times until you have learned the hard way. The moving of the Start and Back button doesn’t prevent you from playing your games the correct way at all, so no harm done really.

The last two things (the controls and the thumbsticks) I would usually review separately, but I am going to gather these together. The thumbsticks are smaller in order to fit the controller better, but with smaller thumbsticks comes a lot of complications. There is nothing wrong with the movement of the thumbsticks, but it comes to the fact that when you tap them in, it’s a drag to execute properly all the time. At times you will find that it will throw you off from playing the game correctly.

Now for the actual testing of the controller, I chose five different games from separate genres to test if the controller’s layout works out with the default controller settings for the games. For the test, I chose NBA Live 2005, Halo 2, Jade Empire, Ninja Gaiden and American McGee’s Scrapland. Below are my results with each game.

NBA Live 2005:
I ran into problems playing NBA Live 2005 with the controller. It may be easy to play as a casual player, but with myself playing on the highest difficulty levels I need to call my plays on the fly. With the D-pad seemingly harder to reach, it became a nuisance trying to call my plays and score. If I were to play on the lower end of the difficulty levels, it would be quite easier. So, with my stand point that it should appeal to more casual gamers, the controller isn’t one that you will have to pass on when choosing your controller.

Halo 2:
This one is a biggie for anyone playing Xbox and smooth game play is a requirement. Halo 2 sadly isn’t a game that you will be playing without frustration. The controller has smaller thumbsticks like previously mentioned and tapping them in to zoom is extremely difficult. Often times I found that when I was trying to snipe opponents on the run, I was unable to tap in due to the rough thumbstick springs. The results usually left me dying and with them running away laughing and in possession of my sniper rifle. I’d suggest you pick up a different controller if you are a Halo junkie.

Jade Empire:
With such a new and current game, it was a must to try out the controller on such a beautiful game. The martial arts and fast action gameplay would allow me to see how the controller matches up with the action. With the thumbsticks being able to move in rotation quite nicely, I found no problems with the Hip Gear Compact Controller while playing Jade Empire.

Ninja Gaiden:
The controller withstood Jade Empire’s action, now could it go through the astounding fast and quick play of Ninja Gaiden? I must say I am impressed that I could keep up with Ninja Gaiden’s gameplay with this smaller controller. But knowing that it’s a smaller controller and they are almost always built for faster games, it turns out to be perfect for such a game.

American McGee Presents Scrapland:
Only thing that could be found with Scrapland was that the start button is hard to reach to look through your missions and see your upcoming quests. Otherwise, no problems found.

The last thing I want to cover is that the cord for the Hip Gear Compact Controller is at least two feet shorter than the official Xbox controllers. Besides that, the cords also are missing the quick inline release for safety precautions, so that is disappointing. With that put aside though, I’d recommend this controller if you aren’t a Halo junkie or if you have no problem with the imposed safety problems, especially considering it comes with a MSRP of only $14.99 USD.