Review: By Red

As many of you have known me over the years as a PC gamer, my venture into console gaming has been fine although rocky with regards FPS gaming. Every other gaming genre on the PS3 has been absolutely fine. I must point out that I have in fact mastered the Playstation 3 control pad and indeed perform exceptionally well on certain games such as Battlefield: Bad Company and Killzone 2 which I'm sure many of you will agree (or face a ban :D), although I continue to struggle with certain FPS games such as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Following a conversation with the "rather expensive to talk to" Mr Stunley informing me he had purchased one, I thought I'd give it a try myself. Normally I wouldn't bother although I'm particularly interested in playing Modern Warfare 2 competitively, and given my past COD 4 controller experience this seemed to be the best, and only option.

The FragFX v.2 is not only a mouse, it comes with a "nunchuck" similar to Nintendo's Wii incarnation although christened the "Fragchuck" by other sites. The fragchuck and mouse are effectively mirrored hardware of the standard PS3 controller, for example, the fragchuck offers all the functionality and buttons of the LEFT hand side of a standard controller and the mouse the RIGHT hand side of the standard controller, albeit both the mouse and nunchuck have a few other buttons for extended use, which I'll outline later. You can purchase the FragFX as a wired, or the more expensive wireless setup (I've found around 10 or 20 £/$ more expensive for the wireless setup). I purchased the wired version. It must also be noted that the FragFX ONLY comes with a right hand setup. If your looking for a left handed mouse and fragchuck, your shit out of luck....

Build Quality

As with any hardware, the first impression is with the build quality. The FragFX v.2 does not offer you the build quality of say, the high end Logitech gaming mice us PC gamers are used to, although I would say the FragFX certainly feels of better build than many other console related accessories on the market.

I suppose my only concern regarding the build of the FragFX would be certain buttons didn't feel "tight" enough, most notably the buttons located on the side of the mouse and the shoulder buttons located on the rear of the fragchuck. Although these buttons are perfectly fine in functionality and use over extended periods of gaming, the mere fact they offer a slightly "loose" feel embeds that ominous concern regarding build quality.

The mouse itself is of generous size and would say it's a shade thinner that my PC's Razer Deathadder (see image). The left and right mouse buttons are satisfyingly smooth in use although lack a prominent "click" when depressed, although I would put this down to personal preference or simply my familiarity with Razer mice. The FragFX's supplied mouse mat is of decent surface quality, build, size and shape. I had intended on getting my Razor mouse mat when the FragFX arrived although I found the supplied mat perfectly suited to the mouse, offering a very smooth and accurate gaming experience on it's velvet like texture. It must be noted that within the manual it states the FragFX mouse works particularly well on denim, e.g. your lap. This of course made me lol. Overall the mouse and mat compliment each other very well.

The "fragchuck" is light in weight. This concerned me at first, although a few hours gaming later and you soon realise anything heavier may hurt your wrist given prolonged gaming sessions with a controller and stick operating in one hand. Taking into consideration the aforementioned shoulder buttons, the build quality is good and offers an ergonomic shape to fit nicely in your left hand.

Extra functionality

The FragFX mouse sensitivity can be adjusted on-the-fly with the sensitivity wheel located on the fragchuck. This proves invaluable when you hop from one game to another as you will be required to adjust both the FragFX's sensitivity and in-game sensitivity accordingly to get that optimum setup. A handy feature with the FragFX is the "frag button". Depression of this button during gaming adjusts the sensitivity very low so you can fine tune those distance shots or sniper kills. A handy feature that I have yet to use, although there if needs be.

The most interesting part of FragFX is the ability to upgrade via firmware and tweak the button assignments via a PC tweaking utility application. This utility allows you to check and update your FragFX's firmware to the latest version, which of course helps with regards the hardwares performance on certain gaming titles. The tweak utility allows you to adjust the pressure sensitive settings of the FragFX's buttons and indeed the buttons assignments themselves, e.g. remap R3 to the right hand mouse button etc. This of course provides an excellent platform from which to set up an ideal configuration for your primary game.

Performance

Given the accomplishment of emulating mouse control through a platform traditionally accomodated by control pads alone, the FragFX performs exceptionally well. You will find the hardware compliments the vast majority of titles, although a few titles I'm sure are simply best kept to control pad such as Killzone 2, given it's "heavy weight" control method aimed at realism. Other games it performs flawlessly, such as Call of Duty 4 and I'm hoping, the upcoming Modern Warfare 2.

As mentioned earlier, the on-the-fly sensitivity change is invaluable as you will need to adjust this, and the in-game sensitivity to your own preference from one game to another.

Overall

The FragFX is perfect for those PC gamers wishing to enter the console gaming arena who feel uncomfortable using a control pad for FPS gaming. It's not perfect when you draw comparisons between other PC mice etc, although again, given what it accomplishes with regards the PS3 platform and the fact the majority of the games software aren't designed to support mouse input, it works perfectly.

The future?

Ideally, I would like to see the next version of FragFX to include the ability to create digital profiles for each/any game the user plays. These digital profiles could be created individually by the user and installed on the FragFX via the existing PC tweak utility, thus allowing players to switch from one button configuration/sensitivity settings (profile) to another, on-the-fly.