I know that older games can be a pain to get working right sometimes with controllers. Is there much tinkering required to get it to behave or is it pretty much out-of-the-box?

my 360 controller worked right out of the box. it's is a wired usb version though. not sure about the standard wireless one. buttons were all recognized by the in game configuration but the steering defaults to the analog stick and not to the d-pad (which i would have preferred, since as far i can tell there is no actual analogue steering ingame so...). there doesn't seem to be an option to remap the steering controls either. maybe through some config file in the game directory itself idk. alternatively there are programs that map your controller inputs to keyboard keys. that might be a viable solution as well.

I have a bluetooth Xbox One controller, and it works flawlessly. Definitely a step up from the ol' arrow keys lol.