Thrustmaster GPX LightBack Xbox 360 Controller Review

Now that I have them both out of their boxes, you can see that each comes kitted out with the standard Xbox 360 controller layout, dual high quality analogue sticks, the Xbox home button and the brightly coloured ABXY compliment the controller nicely, but its stand out features have to be the inclusion of some slick LED lighting (more on that in a moment) and a really good quality D-Pad, I’ve never liked the standard Xbox 360 D-Pad on account of it being useless, but this Thrustmaster one feels closer to the original Nintendo D-Pad, which is a big win in my opinion.

Around the back of the controller, you can see the black controller is finished in a hard plastic, which I have to say feels a little cheap, it has the feel of a cheap TV remote, but it’s all sturdy enough and fits well in the hand, so I’m not going to mark it down for it as it is a bit cheaper than the official controller too. The Ferrari edition on the other hand comes with a smooth gloss finish that feels premium all over, along with a soft touch grip finish to the back that makes it really comfortable to hold. Other than that both controllers are fairly featureless on the underside.

Around the back of the controllers you will find two switches, LFB and LSG, these are simple enough to operate and each controls a set of lights in the controller, one for the top row of lights and the other for the analogue stick lights. Aside from that each controller features the familiar LB / RB shoulder buttons and a pair of analogue spring triggers.