kontrolfreek - fps freek vortex

full disclosure - i was sent these gaming accessories for review, so this isn't just a random 'hey, look what i just picked up!' post, it's more of a 'someone sent my free stuff for a review!' post. i hear you have to be clear about such things these days.

so anyway, kontrolfreek make gaming accessories for consoles and specifically they make these little...er...really want to call them noggins...yes, these little noggins that you fix to the sticks on the controller so they make playing games easier. there's a whole video about how it's supposed to work right here...



now, i'm not a huge fps fan but i do and have played a lot of them. i tend to choose games based on the story rather than the type of game and sometimes the stories i want to experience happen to be in first-person shooters. the thing is, i'm not terribly good at them. would kontrolfreek be able to cure my inability to shoot any bad guys at all ever?

so i was sent the fps freek - vortex. it looks like this.

there's a tall 'noggin' for the right stick to improve aiming and a little concave 'noggin' for the left stick. they snap onto the sticks really easily, like this -

in real life, on my sofa, they look like this -

the two games i tested them on were bulletstorm and call of juarez. yes, they were random choices, and yes call of jaurez came out in like 2005 but they were the two first two fps games i had to hand. for the sake of being contemporary and relevant i also downloaded a demo of destiny and tried them out on that as well.

overall, i found they did actually help. i did feel a lot more in control with the aiming, and they did make the whole experience smoother (this was the same on all three games so it wasn't anything to do with the quality of the game). one thing that really stood out was that the left noggin is particularly good for walking. you know, when you're trying to walk slowly up to a precipice or something (this happens a lot in call of juarez) and nudge the stick that little too much by mistake and your character breaks into a run and throws her/himself over the edge. well, this fixes that. accuracy is much easier and you can make much more subtle movements. after using them for a few days i started to wonder why joypads aren't built like this already?

oh, that's why. because playing anything else with them (like when my housemate and i went back to fable 3 for the first time in like a year so neither of us knows what's going on), is a bit annoying. but it's okay, because kontrolfreek have a whole range of accessories for different types of games! look, you can check them out here.

overall, i wouldn't call kontrolfreek accessories essential but they defintely work and they're reasonably priced. last week they started selling them in game so you can pick them up in there or get them from their website.