Smartphone and tablet gaming has advanced considerably, but only to the point of being able to play some of the better games of previous console generations. You still need a physical controller to really enjoy those games despite their touch screen support, but the fact that you can run games like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Jet Set Radio on an Android device is still pretty great. The Moga Pocket Controller offers just what you need to play those games and a large handful of others. This $49.99 (list) gamepad has two analog sticks and several dozen good games available through its first-party app, but to really get the most out of it, you need a third-party driver that's surprisingly easy to set up. If it had a direction pad as well, it would be a thoroughly excellent gamepad.

Small Controller

The Moga Pocket Controller is fairly small for a gamepad, measuring about 5 inches wide by 3 inches tall. It's mostly flat, with only a slight curve on the underside to give it an Xbox 360 controller-like grip and provide slots on either end of the gamepad to hold the two AAA batteries that power it. A large plastic arm that cuts through the middle of the controller hides the power switch and flips up to hold a smartphone in its foam-padded, telescoping grip. It can hold large smartphones including the Samsung Galaxy Note, but it isn't quite big enough to hold 7-inch tablets like the Google Nexus 7SEE IT or Kindle Fire HDSee it at Amazon UK.

The controls are simple, comfortable, and slightly lacking. The Pocket Controller sports two analog sticks in an Xbox 360 controller configuration (the left analog stick on the same level as the face buttons, the right analog stick below the face buttons), plus four face buttons labeled A, B, X, and Y, two shoulder buttons, Start and Select buttons, and a logo/Home button that lights up to indicate when the controller is pairing or connected. The sticks are very similar to the analog pad found on the Nintendo 3DS; they slide around a small area, but don't tilt like full-sized controller analog sticks. They still feel comfortable, though, and allow for precise input. The one thing it's missing is arguably the most important for anyone who wants to play classic games: a direction pad. There's no digital direction pad like the one found on nearly every game controller since the Nintendo Entertainment System, and that's a big omission. The larger Moga Pro Controller, incidentally, includes a direction pad and has full analog sticks. The more expensive SteelSeries Free Wireless Mobile Controller features dual analog sticks and a direction pad, but it suffers from lackluster support, both first- and third-party, compared with the Moga controller.