Geekscape Reviews The FragFX Shark!
The Videogame Peripheral: That’s a very telling expression, isn’t it? It says all you need to know. This item, be it a Power Glove, Super Scope or tennis racket attachment for your WiiMote, may cross paths with your console but doesn’t always go hand-in-hand. But what about a peripheral like the FragFX Shark, which brings to the PlayStation 3 all of the functionality that many PC gamers consider the ideal videogame controller: the gaming mouse? Is something so fundamentally useful really just “a peripheral?”
Well, yes… but it’s a really good peripheral.
The FragFX Shark, released this week from Split Fish, is a controller designed to bring all the ease of PC controls – particularly FPS controls – to the PlayStation 3. (No word on an Xbox 360 version yet, but our fingers are crossed.) The controller is dual-pronged, with a comfortable gaming mouse for the right hand and a curious cross between the left half of a PS3 controller and a Wii Nunchuk for the left. The mouse includes the necessary Square, Triangle, X and O buttons adjacent to the thumb for easy access, with the R1, R2 and R3 buttons mapped to the mouse buttons and scrolling mechanism underneath the index finger. The left hand has easy thumb access to an analogue stick, slightly less easy access to a directional pad above that, and the L1 and L2 buttons rest handily where they’re supposed to be, one above the other like Quigley Down Under’s trademark rifle.
Of course, custom button-mapping is an option, as well as features like Macros, Stick Swapping and Rapid Fire. The FragFx Shark also comes with a large mousepad which has been specifically designed to increase battery life (50+ hours play time, over 500 hours on standby), which is handy since for every person who thinks all mouse pads are equal there are plenty more of us who know better. SixAxis is also supported, if anyone really cares. (Do you?)
The FragFX Shark is a comfortable gaming mouse. Split Fish, working in conjunction with famed Modern Warfare master Dennis zDD Dozier have crafted a solid piece of equipment that’s large enough to feel substantial without ever feeling just plain bulky. If we’re nitpicking – and we are – it would have been nice if the thumb buttons on the mouse had elevated textures on their faces to differentiate between them by touch. It would save barely a fraction of second, but then that’s the whole advantage of a gaming mouse in the first place: When the bullets are flying, the fraction of a second you save by firing as you crouch means the difference between agonizing defeat and agonizing victory; the difference of course being who suffers from the agony, you or your opponent.
The real flaw with a mouse controller on a console has nothing to do with the mouse itself. The kind of precision a mouse controller allows is generally preferable to the otherwise lumbering standard controllers. But as people are beginning to discover with the Microsoft Kinect, not everyone’s console gaming environments are made equally. Some of us sit across the room from our monitors, after all, and the kind of sensitivity a mouse controller offers can be jarring at a great distance. Most PC gamers sit barely a foot from their computer screens (if that far), so the minute movements of a mouse controller accurately approximate those of a darting eye movement, making such motions instinctual. From across the room this kind of hypersensitive movement can be significantly more jarring, forcing some of us to turn our sensitivity way down to compensate… and at that point the difference between the two controller options is reduced significantly.
Let’s just answer the question: Is the FragFX Shark worth buying? Probably, yes. If you’re a PC (or Mac) gamer you’ll find the controller perfect for first-person gaming. We’ve been playing Amnesia: Dark Descent with the device and have nothing but compliments about the experience. Console gamers might need to weigh the pros and cons, however. If your gaming environment is suited to the device it’s absolutely worth owning, but if you’d rather lean backwards and lazily thumb-waggle your way through your favorite games it’s more of a mixed-bag, but mixed-positive. It took us a while to find “the sweet spot” in the new Medal of Honor, but by God we found it, and once we did we were able to determine beyond a shadow of a doubt that… Well, that Medal of Honor isn’t a very good game, but that’s not Split Fish’s fault.
The controller works just fine, but it’s considered a peripheral for a reason. It’s just not for everyone. But if you’re playing Call of Duty: Black Ops this week and find yourself repeatedly massacred by an unstoppable force of nature masquerading as a human being, there’s a really good chance it’s just some guy using the FragFX Shark.
