A few gaming devices...

This blog muses a few gaming devices which are no longer available in the market OR are on their way out.. Check them before you loose sight of them!

Microsoft has tried innovating in most fields right from gaming to different hardware/softwares… This review is for some of the lesser known products from Microsoft it is famous for…

I do remember a specific mouse type device Microsoft had released a few years back specifically for gaming. It was called the Strategic Commander which was a left handed gaming device. (I gifted one to my nephew) This had hotkeys on the mouse and also a few programmable keys at the side. I think the number of shortcuts you could program was up to 168 commands! Now that’s outstanding. The strategic com device was meant for games like Age of Empires, Age of Mythology and similar strategy based games. With a profiler software, I could use it to play other strategy based games. With a little tweaking, most strategy games!

But it ended up being a bigger hit with handicapped people (single hand use) due to it’s ease!

One another outstanding gaming device from Microsoft – The Sidewinder game voice

It is a gaming headset and control unit enabling voice commands and voice chat over the Internet or LAN during game play but it can be used with any genre of game. It makes sense during team play. For ex., when attacking opponents, I can ask all others through voice commands to join me in attacking the enemy or to report a particular person hiding in a corner in Unreal Tournament, Halo or simply the Age of Empires game. Awesome! If I knew the location of the enemy, the game’s half won already!

To activate Game voice, a gamer needs only to press a button and then speak commands to respond swiftly and intuitively to any situation they might find themselves in during game play. However, note that the game voice connects to a remote server.. Some settings are required.

Sidewinder joysticks… Technically supposed to be the best designed joysticks for the Flight Sim and Mechwarrior series of games. And with Force feedback effects it is as realistic as it can get. But again you may want to think about going in for any of the above devices. The sidewinder series of joysticks earlier used to come with gameport connectivity, but is now USB too. Most newer ones Like Force Feedback Pro are USB only. The force feedback effects require the usage of an additional adapter.

Though Sidewinder joysticks are available, it is wiser to opt out of purchasing it. Because support has been withdrawn for most devices, except the Game Voice. And only the drivers are available for these devices.

Microsoft also introduced the concept of gaming profiles for their gaming hardware. (including the above) These profiles are used to map the controls to specific games. However as stated earlier you can tweak it to get the better of other games!

Cheerio! And thanks for reading!