Gadgetory

- It's that time of year again where some of you are gonna be enjoying a fine meal shared with your significant other, and the rest of you can enjoy the satisfaction of having a whole pizza to yourself. That's right, it's Valentine's Day, and some gaming companies have found an interesting way to celebrate it, like Scuf. To celebrate Valentine's, Scuf is releasing different special colored controllers in chocolate, teal, or magenta, like this guy right here for their PS4 line. And you may be wondering, is it worth picking up one of these controllers for myself? Should I grab one for my partner? Let's dive in and see what you get out of the Scuf Impact Controller. (electronic beeps) Now we've covered Scuf controllers before on this channel, but back then, the only option they had available for PS4 was this guy right here, the Scuf Infinity, which is basically a heavily modified PS4 controller, and in the time since then, they've released a more updated option where you can still grab this, but instead, you can also opt for the Impact. The biggest change obviously is the shell design, this is still a modified PS4 controller, keep in mind, but they've actually added a new exterior shell, which changes the grip and shaping and also increases the number of back paddles from two to four. But otherwise, you're still getting a lot of the same core benefits that's offered by going with Scuf. If you're unfamiliar with the benefits of Scuf, there's actually quite a few, I mean the big point of the company is that you're able to sort of customize each controller, fit to order, so you can pick and choose which features you want. For instance, as far as sticks go, there are five different designs, one of which is just the standard PS4 controller, but then you can go for ones that have different stick heads, different stick lengths, and you even have the ability to easily swap them out using a tool that comes with every Scuf controller you pick up. Triggers have a very similar story going on, you can hit two different kind of trigger heads, either these ones, which are the more standard length, or a longer one. You can also change the sensitivity on the triggers, using a handy little tool, as well as changing how quickly they'll stop if you want just a nice, little quick pull feeling going on. The most significant thing though, that's offered by Scuf is what's going on on the back right here with these paddles. These four back paddles here act as programmable buttons that can copy any of the other buttons on the controller. Whether you wanna use the face buttons, the shoulder buttons, or even clicking in the sticks. The idea being, in some games, you might run into a situation where say, you wanna look around with the left stick, right stick, directions. Say you wanna look around with the right stick, but you also wanna jump at the same time, which isn't really feasible with only one thumb. So these back paddles are gonna give you a way to change that command to going there as well, so you just have to click back here, and you're still able to use your thumb where you need it. And what's a really neat feature too about the way Scuf handles this is that they actually have this little magnetic tool that attaches to the back of the controller, and that's how you activate reprogrammable mode. So as long as you don't have that tool anywhere near the controller, there's no chance you're gonna accidentally reprogram something in the middle of game play, and instead, you're just able to set it up before each game to make sure it's tailored just for that experience. So really easy to change out, but not something where you're gonna accidentally do it in the middle of a match. Aside from that, there are a few other customizable features you can get on this controller, for instance, you can see on the back here, there's this different grip, which offers less slippage, so if you're playing game a long time, and you're maybe prone to sweaty palms, this is gonna make sure that you don't slip while holding the controller, and something that we didn't get on this design is you can get a special circle pad that goes on top of the D pad, which aids in doing different certain circle motions and can be beneficial in situations like fighting games. So both controllers are gonna get you all these benefits, but I wanna go back to how the Impact is an improvement over the Infinity. I mean, the obvious thing is the fact that it has four paddles on the back, so you're getting twice as many customizable options, but I really don't wanna understate how important the change in shape is. I really think this redesigned grip, which let's be honest, is clearly inspired by an Xbox One controller, is a lot more comfortable, not just in terms of how it affects how you're holding the controller, but I think it also kind of just makes your fingers naturally gravitate closer to the back paddles, so it feels a lot less unnatural when you're hitting them, as opposed to with the Infinity, where you kinda have to reach over every now and then. I also think that just visually, it's a big upgrade too, because, especially when you have this redesigned grip going on on the back, on the Infinity, since it uses the PS4 design, it wraps around to the front, which creates this kinda odd look to me that I've just never been a fan of. With the Impact however, the entire front has its own shell design, which'll look great, and keeps the grip on the back. Now compared to other pro controllers that we've talked about on the PS4, one of the big benefits of Scuf is the sheer amount of physical modular options you have right on the controller, changing out the triggers, the sticks, having different D pad options, being able to remap these right here without having to use any kind of software, but on the other hand, compared to some options, you are losing out on things like software customization, like changing stick sensitivity, you're not gonna be able to have any onboard audio controls, but one huge upside to this is the fact that since this is basically just a heavily modified PS4 controller, you're still getting a lot of the benefits of an official PS4 controller, like having a built in headphone jack, and being able to play both wirelessly, and wired, as opposed to being stuck with just a wired setup where you're always afraid you're gonna rip the cable out mid game. So if you or your partner wanna celebrate with somethin' a little different from the standard roses and chocolates, this is a really cool way to go. Or honestly, if you just like magenta or teal, have at it.