Gadgetory

- When it comes to the gaming experience there are two very important accessories. One, the controller, which we've talked about a lot of options out there, and two, headsets. Now when it comes to headsets, a lot of times the major comparisons come down to fairly traditional basic ideas. Clarity of the sound, how loud it can be, how well it does bass, highs and lows, positional tracking, all that kinda good stuff. But there hasn't been a ton recently in terms of major innovations. But recently there's a new headset from Razer that has a very interesting new feature, and that's the Nari Ultimate Headset. It rumbles. - Rumble! (audience cheering) - The Ultimate is the newest edition in Razer's new line of Nari headsets where the main selling point of them as a group is that they are wireless PC headsets that can work on systems as well and offer THX spatial audio. Basically, it gives you sense of things that are not only in front, behind, left, or right of you, but also a sense of above and below. The idea behind this is really interesting, because if you think about traditional rumble motors like in game controllers, oftentimes it just has one setting. Some pro controllers give the option to modify and change the intensity, but with a standard controller, it usually just rumbles like a madman anytime something happens on the screen. Well the haptic ones in these actually have a range of motion depending on sounds that are being played through it and is tied directly to the sounds. So if certain things are just a little louder than normal, you'll get a very light shake, or if really loud explosions are happening nearby, it can rumble really heavily. You can adjust the overall intensity as well using different settings on PC. What's amazing about this though is that it's not really tied to any kind of software update. It's not like you have to play specific games that support this feature. You don't have to make sure that your console's patched a certain way or it's only on certain platforms. It's all tied to just the sound coming through the headset. So you can use it on your PC, your Xbox, your Playstation, your Switch. You can even just listen to music on it and those haptic engines are gonna do stuff when the right sounds come through. And the idea behind this is upping the immersion factor of audio in gameplay where, yeah, you might have gotten a slight rumble or sense of rumble in the past when there were certain bass heavy notes being played, but now with this, if there's something happening like an explosion to your left during an FPS or something flying overhead above you, you're gonna get a rumble tied into those sounds that just really pulls you into the whole experience. I've been trying this headset out across a couple of different devices and I think one game that's an interesting way of showcasing what it does is Red Dead Redemption. It also gives me an excuse to just Red Dead more, which is always good. So while playing Red Dead though, you get the usual vibrations from sounds like explosions or if there's gun shots firing at me, but one place it also comes up a lot is where you're riding your horse. So I have the intensity set to max on these right now. I've also got the volume up 'cause that also contributes to whether or not the vibration goes off, and yeah, while you're riding your horse, I mean, you feel every single time, every gallop, you know, just every contact, that just constant thumping, you're feeling it in the headset, which is simultaneously a little weird, but really cool at the same time. Something else that this game showcases too that is interesting, and might be one of the slightly more issues is because it is all sound based, depending on how the game audio is mixed, sometimes you get vibrations for unrelated stuff to gameplay. For instance, during combat in Red Dead, sometimes you get really heavy bass from some of the instruments and that sets it off too. Sometimes louder than actual gun shots, stuff going on. So once again, the direct tied audio makes it really immersive, but could interfere with some of the more actual game play benefits, which if you're playing something multiplayer, is normally not as big of an issue. In a single player experience like this though, it will cause it to vibrate a lot more often. More in this setup too, something worth mentioning is that while this is really cool and I love the haptics and everything, using them definitely hurts the battery life on these. It's still gonna be good enough to last for most major gaming sessions, but you wanna make sure you have it fully charged up before you use because if you're using the HyperSense and the haptics and everything all at once, it only lasts for about eight hours. It'll last a lot longer if you turn them off, but then where's the fun? There is one very important question to consider about all of this, though, and that's the fact that is this something that's actually really cool and you wanna use all the time or is this just kind of a fun little idea that you try out for a week and get tired of very quickly? Well I've been using it for the past week, I've been trying it on different systems, on different games, having it at different intensities, and honestly, I really like it. This is something that I wanna see happen in a lot more headsets and I think it's a really nifty feature. Now with that being said, I will give a warning that when I first tried it out, I may have set the intensity to max just to really see what it can do, and not the best idea. (scary music) Not that it's something that was painful or weird or was too much. It was just a little distracting over time. It was something that when you really got that rumble going on all the time, especially with certain games like Red Dead, it just started to wear a little too thin too quickly. But once I took a step back though, and set it back to its original initial settings of the 50% mark, like the medium intensity, it's really nice. It's subtle compared to the maximum. It's not something that's gonna be going off all the time, but instead, you're really gonna feel that motor kick in the few times where it really matters, like if there's an explosion or a gun shot really nearby. You're really gonna feel the times that it deserves it for loud noises, and that's where I think it really shines. It's honestly kinda hard to describe how much it changes the immersion factor of a game because it really does pull you in just a little more. It gives that sense of positional sound an extra layer of realness that isn't normally there because yeah, you might have gotten a tinge of rumble from just the bass being really deep for an explosion or something, but now the headset itself is actually going with that and resonating, just shaking a little bit extra, it's so cool. I truly think this is a feature that more headsets need to have. It's obviously not something that's gonna be in every single headset on the market. It's a little more expensive and it's gonna be in more kinda higher end pro options, but it really does up that immersion factor, whether you're playing a single player game, something online that's multiplayer, or I think especially for VR situations, getting that extra little sense of interactivity is just amazing.