Gadgetory

Microsoft adding keyboard and mouse supports the Xbox one is a very cool and exciting idea and something that I really hope the other game companies start jumping on so we can start using whatever kind of controller we want to use on all the different main consoles but this isn't actually the first time that something like keyboard or mouse support has come to consoles there's been a lot of attempts of the past of adding smaller simpler or just basic ideas that add a mouse now we have seen some unofficial options and above smaller keypads from game sir and even whore has done designs like this before for the PlayStation before even that there is one very interesting and very weird controller that I'm very glad to be able to talk to you guys about finally and that's the tactical assault commander for ps4 this has only been released in Japan and yes it is just as awkward to use as it looks this is an officially licensed controller we're pretty clearly the main goal was to make something it would be more precise for FPS games as opposed to a more traditional controller but the way they go about doing that is by having 1/2 be a traditional Mouse and then to make up for the lack of a keyboard on a Playstation you instead have this half controller thing so let's take a look at each part by itself now the mouse itself is pretty straightforward it's a mouse moving it around acts like the right stick the mouse clicks work like l2 and r2 for aiming down sights and firing you actually have dpi adjustment right here and l1 r1 on the sides along with some sensitivity buttons we'll talk about a little later now it is a USB mouse but it's not plugged directly into your ps4 instead it actually plugs into the side of the controller which is by far the more compelling element of this combo now there are some elements of the controller that are very familiar in other elements that are more weird where it's more straightforward is all that we have on the front facing side the left side works a lot like a would on a normal controller you have a stick and a d-pad although they are switch 2 versus the normal PlayStation orientation touch pad in the center you can click in options button share buttons PlayStation Home button and then an assign button that can be used to change the inputs on all these shoulder buttons which is where things get a little more heavy-duty so because the mouse doesn't have enough buttons to support the traditional front-facing buttons they've instead all been shoved right on to this upper side here so the idea is that you can leave your index finger on it and just press down with either the front or back of it to hit the X square triangle and circle buttons which is a lot to have all in one place in addition there's also this FN button on the back which by default you use it in conjunction with other buttons to get different effects like is a roundabout way to get the r-1 button but really it's basically an additional button that you can program and then we have what is probably one of the weirdest parts of this controller the actual kind of grip sleeve right here so the whole point of this is because when you're using a controller like this one-handed it's not actually well first off its not very comfortable but it's also not something that you can conveniently hold it all the time if you're moving your thumb around to go between the stick and d-pad if you're moving your index finger a lot you're not necessarily was gonna have a super solid grip on it so to make sure that you're able to hold on to it for a long period of time you have to put your whole hand in the sleeve and then make sure that especially if your hand starts to cramp in any way because once again using just one hand like this for all these buttons at one time it wears thin pretty quickly so that's how all of this works in theory but let's actually try out using it so to test it out I've loaded up destiny to have just started a new file I just want to mess around very beginning to kind of get a feel for how all this works and to be honest I'm not a big fan of the mouse right away I'm gonna adjust the acceleration on it because it's not really being as reactive as I'd like go to do that I just switch over the adjust up here on the switch and then use the d-pad to change those settings we're gonna turn it up a bit and that's a lot better I actually have it maxed out but that's a lot better yeah I can look around pretty easily it doesn't feel completely fluid but it's not bad and then the mouse does give you a couple other ways to adjust the sensitivity if you want for instance on the fly there's these two buttons on the side which say Q and s so the Q is for quick and while you're holding that down everything's gonna be maxed so you can just look around really quickly whereas with s if you're holding that down that's night mode and that's just gonna make it so it's super low when you need to really fine-tune your aim on something I will say the grip on it isn't as uncomfortable as I imagined it would be it was really bad at first when I was trying to use both fingers up top here which gave me more access to all the buttons simultaneously if and it hit things at the same time but the rip isn't really designed to support just having two fingers below and because you don't believe the balance of two hands on a controller it just you start to feel cramps right away so you really need stick with just having one finger up above it's taking a little bit for me to still get the rhythm down of which buttons which on here I'm remembering that by function like if I need to jump I know it's this button if I need to reload I know it's this button but as soon as the game is like hey you should press square to do a thing right now I'm like wait which one is okay it's this one I should really kill these guys and stop talking uh like this is functional it's working right now I just don't think this is an optimal choice especially cuz you're restricting your options up here well I am able to use each of these buttons individually pretty fine and if I need to like mash them I can just don't even try to reach anything in the middle here you basically they need to take your hand off the mouse and reach over to press something like if I wanted to pause right now that's what I have to do you can maybe reach the share button with your thumb but it's not the most comfortable decision and is gonna throw you off a lot if you want to take a screenshot or something really quick also the way this controller is weighted isn't super great for how it's designed I mean it's very light but you definitely feel a little off and you're trying to have it up here it's almost more natural if I'm just leaving it slacked on the desk right here yeah I can't help but feel like this idea would work better if instead of trying to emulate a normal traditional controller design where you have the whole middle section if they just recreated the whole thing to be more like a joi con on the switch or if it was more like even like how the wiimotes were designed something is a little more all-encompassing and designed to actually be used one-handed instead of just mimicking half a controller with this sup you are getting the benefits of a mouse still which is nice it's not quite as natural feeling as I think it should be I mean even adjusting the settings it's gotten better but it doesn't feel like the PlayStation really knows you're using a mouse but it is an improvement all the problems really stem from this guy this is one of those ideas where I think during the design stages in like early concept art it was a very compelling idea you're like oh yeah this is this could be something really cool and different and then the moment you actually try a physical prototype just doesn't really work out at all and in fact Horry even themselves are very aware of this fact because after they released of this they then released the tactical assault commander Pro which is the same basic idea with a mouse but then it just has a smaller keyboard because that's ultimately really the better way to go you know kind of one of those problems where if it's not broke just don't fix it now this isn't to say that I think that this is an impossible terrible controller to use I mean after playing for a little while I do think it's something that's viable like you could get pretty good with this I'm just not sure why you would versus a lot of the other options that are out there at the end of the day I think this was a cool idea and something that maybe Sony Hori in general just revisit bringing more options like this to the PlayStation just like how Microsoft is adopting full-blown keyboards