Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline Controller Review
Growing up, when a friend came over to play games, they would get the second controller, which typically was a death sentence. There was only really one brand that made secondary controllers: Mad Katz. When you got handed a Mad Katz controller, you knew you were going to have a bad time. They felt clunky, cheap, and just barely worked. So the thought of a secondary company making controllers has always had a sour taste to me. That is, until I started using the Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline controller. Nothing about it was the same as the days of yore, when you had a flimsy, oddly colored peripheral to play games with. The Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline controller is well-constructed and beautifully designed.
I am someone who loves a pastel color palette. When something has pop and vibrancy in its design, my eyes are drawn to it. The Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline controller hits the target exactly on the aesthetics I love to see. The pastel, sunset-colored pinks and cyan aesthetics of the design make the controller stand out among my other one-toned controllers for all of my systems. It makes it more of a piece to leave on my coffee table that looks nice, where my other controllers look more like color.
My favorite part of the Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline controller is the built-in RGB skyline. Across the center of the controller, there is a skyline that you can light up with a ton of color options that you can customize right through the controller. It looks like a coastal city skyline reminiscent of GTA: Vice City for me, so I cannot help but fall in love with it every time I pick it up to play. Being able to change the colors with ease using the controller was such a nice touch as well. It connects to an app, but you can do everything right through the controller, which makes it actually useful in my opinion. If I needed to pick up my phone to make changes, then the gimmick would be lost on me, but when I can do it on the fly to fit the mood, that’s a real chef’s kiss.
The design of the Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline controller itself is a basic Xbox controller but with 2 mappable quick action buttons on the back. Those buttons were a new sensation to me, especially when mapping them to something like a grenade in Call of Duty. It was really interesting to never have my trigger finger leave the R2 button and just be able to hit it with my middle finger to keep gameplay smooth. It’s an interesting addition that I have never used before, but I wish all my controllers had it now. It pairs well with the TMR thumbsticks that avoid drift so you can play without worry.
Coming from the days of the secondary controller market being a dumpster fire, this was such a nice departure from how I remember the experience. I would pick up the Turtle Beach Pacific Skyline controller over a regular Xbox controller every time. It has such vibrant features that make it my new go-to when I am playing Xbox. It can also connect via Bluetooth to a PC or other peripherals, which extends its use beyond just the Xbox. I would easily give the controller 5 stars for its coastal vibes.