I’ve seen some interesting gear since taking over the hardware duties at 2D-X. Some have been excellent (Street Fighter X Tekken Fightstick Pro), some have been god awful (HKS controller). The $19.99 XJacker PS3 kit and the $29.99 Soniq Rush 2.0 (a headset adapter and amplifier, respectively) falls somewhere between. The the pair, in unison, lets gamers turn any headset into a PS3 headset with ear-wrecking volume, but clunky setup issues somewhat mar the experience.
It seems that no matter what third-party controller manufacturers do, they always overlook a particular element that makes a gamepad successful. Granted, that little something differs from controller to controller, but more often than not, there’s spice missing from the secret sauce. The new Thrustmaster F1 Wireless Gamepad Ferrari 150th Italia Alonso Edition isn’t perfect, but it’s leaps and bounds better than the other racing controllers we’ve seen (I’m looking at you HKS controller).
Memorex, owned by Imation, has come to CES 2012 with a nice-sized handful of gaming accessories mostly targetting Nintendo consoles. The more interesting 3DS product was the Universal Game Selector. It attaches directly to the 3DS and allows for instantaneous game switching via a slider on the rear. The entire unit is sits on the back and holds 3 games.
Samsung is ready to take the fight to the Razer Blade (aka, the “world’s first true gaming laptop”) with the upcoming Series 7 Gamer, a 17-inch laptop built specifically for gaming. Although we spotted the rig running Battlefield 3 on the CES 2012 showfloor Samsung had no official time period for the machine’s release as it’s holding off production until the next Intel processors roll out.
El Shaddai isn’t a bad game. I know it might sound like I’m hating on this game something fierce, but I’m not. What I’m hating on is being misled. I was expecting a more Devil May Cry-like actioner, but it’s a serious platformer with action elements. As of writing, El Shaddai: Accession of the Metatron is anywhere from $45 to $60, but not worth that much. Unless you’re a hardcore platformer, Gamefly it or wait until the price drops to at least $30.
Captain America: Super Soldier is a HYDRA-bashing good time, even if the game is way too easy.
Michael Bay is not to blame for the atrocity that is Transformers: Dark of the Moon for PS3. No, really.
This controller lags so hard that it makes playing games impossible. It takes roughly 3 or 4 button presses to get the controller to respond and do what you actually want it to do. And the analogs are just as bad. All of the input commands over shoot when you use the analog sticks. The only redeeming quality of the controller is the multimedia keys, as they don’t actually lag. Even the PS button lags when you go to turn on the system as you have to hold it down for a long time for the system to power on.
Like I’ve said, this whole controller is a gimmick. If you play racing games with a controller, you’ve either learned to use the trigger/shoulder buttons or, like me, still use the X and Square and can heel-toe with that very nicely. With its glitchy pausing/connectivity problems, this controller is lucky it didn’t get snapped in half over my knee. Eagle3 should take a stab at making a follow up to the HKS controller. It had such good intentions that were ruined by execution. That said, I didn’t pay for this controller and I still feel like I’m entitled to a refund.
