The Mog Blog

I love controllers, especially those that are designed to be rigid, solid, and molds perfectly for what you intend on using them for: Long ass hours of gaming. Meeting up with PowerA at E3, they were delighted to show me more about their FUS1ON Tournament Controller.

Yes, it looks just like an Xbox 360 controller. At this point, what do you really expect with Mad Catz’s MLG controller (which I will have a review up for soon) copying the same layout? As such, I was looking for build quality, I was looking to see if there’s any tension or stiffness problems with any of the buttons or analog components. Tactile is key, and I had my grubby hands all over it.

They had a demo setup with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. The controller works for an FPS environment, though I wish I had the chance to try it on Gears of War, a game that I think really shows how well a controller can perform. I did take the chance to try out the D-Pad with SoulCalibur V… against some Pro-MLG players.

… Yeah.

Despite all the dying and having to remember everything about SoulCalibur V again, the D-Pad is solid enough for me to depend on it in a fighting game, which says a lot considering the default Official Xbox 360 D-Pad is a horrible piece of mechanical crap.

The FUS1ON Tournament Controller also has a bunch of LED colored lights that you can cycle through. If you’re not a fan of the handles and the matte grips, you can sub them out for a different set of grips that is more rubberized.

There’s no fancy functions on this controller and it didn’t seem like the PlayStation 3 version of the controller offers any inverted triggers options which would allow you to sub in the L1/R1 buttons with L2/R2.

When asked about pricing, the controller may be a little bit more than your average official controller. You might be a little turned off by that fact alone. After all, it is just a plain controller with “better” parts. I’d like to see what other Pros think about this controller. I liked what I played, but I’m not too sure if it would straight up replace an official controller.