Razer Onza

I recently treated my self to a new pad, specifically a wired Razer Onza tournament edition.  I have had it about 2 weeks so I think I have had enough experience to talk about it.  What I think about it, the good and the bad points as I see it.  But first here is a quick run-down of the features, bear in mind that it has everything a normal MS pad has plus the following:

• Adjustable tension dual analogue sticks
• Remap-able buttons
• A 15 foot cable
• A new D-pad
• Non slip coating
• Lit, soft touch A, B, X & Y buttons
• Microswitches

Lets start with the good points.  The tension adjuster is a great idea, and the implementation is well thought out.  I am finding the sweet spot by starting at the loosest settings and tweaking it as I play.  It seems to work really well.  The same can be said for the remap function, I think its a great idea and the way you can change the buttons on-the-fly is fantastic.  The cable is really long, which is good, and its also sort of woven instead of plastic coated, which does alleviate any tangling issues.

I like the D-pad a lot, I always thought the MS one was off-kilter slightly.  I often pressed in one direction only for it to go a different way.  The non-slip coating is nice, it fells a lot nicer than the standard MS pad.  The soft touch buttons are great too, I hardly touch them and they go off, the merest brush of a thumb, a hair trigger if you like.  And they light up too which is pretty cool…or pretty pretty at least.  All of the important buttons are microswitched, which I like a lot.  You get more feedback and a much better idea of when the buttons is down and when its up.

So far so great, but of course there has to be something wrong with it right?  OK, well yes actually, I think that there are a couple of things that I think could be better.  Firstly the remap buttons I am finding very hard to adjust to, and its their location thats the issue.  I am sure its just a matter of time to learn the layout and I will get along with them fine.  I could set them to have the same function as the shoulder buttons, thereby resolving the problem, but also rendering my extra buttons redundant.  My other main gripe is the BACK and START button location, having been moved from the middle of the pad to the bottom of the pad.  Again I am sure I will get used to it, which would make playing without back on a MS pad feel weird, hey ho.

Another small problem is you cant plug in a chatpad, as the little connector holes are not on the Onza.  This is the biggest issue for me.  I quite like being able to use a chatpad for the odd thing, passwords and such.  I guess I will always have a MS pad kicking about for that though.  And also my headset uses those little connector holes to enable chat.  I have to use an adapter and a different cable to connect it now.

A friend of mine said he thought playing a game that used the D-pad lot would be difficult, like street fighter I suppose?  Hmmm, well maybe, I will let you know next time I play a beat-em-up…..could be a very long time I suspect 😉

That’s it, that’s the sum total of my criticism of this pad, some stuff I will get used to, and a slight modification required to use my headset.  All in all I would say it really is a great pad, and would recommend it to anyone, just bear in mind there is a slight learning curve in getting used to certain aspects.

UPDATE:  sadly my Onza seems to be suffering from a dodgy left thumbstick.  Specifically it stops working when pushing it up, which as you can imagine is a significant issue when trying to play BF3.  Its very odd, it works for a while, then it slowly gets worse.  First your sprinting stops but you still move.  Then you stop moving at all, it feels like you are snagged on the scenery, but you are not.  Sometimes it stops completely and then starts sprinting again without you moving your thumb at all.

I am very disappointed, particularly as I was just getting used to the buttons.  As Amazon are out-of-stock I will be getting a refund, so I am in the market for a new pad again.  A friend has suggested the Madcatz FPS pro, so I think I may give it a shot.  Rest assured I will post my impressions as and when.

 

Scuf up your pad??

What the hell am I talking about?  Scuf gaming supply a service whereby you send them a regular xbox pad and they will Scuf it up.  What this means is adjustable hair triggers and extra configurable paddle buttons on the back.  All this for a meagre £35.   You can get a  load of other additional extras too, all of which are included in the Scuf Atacs (pictured above), but that comes in at £75.

Ouch you might think, well let me paraphrase the speil to you from their website…

http://www.scufgaming.eu/

….it has the paddles on the back that can be programmed to act as other buttons, it has adjustable triggers and trigger stops, you can have concave or convex tops for your sticks, guaranteed no slow turn (whatever that is?), and the Scuf grip (a non-slick coating applied to the back).  You can have no rumble packs if you like too, oh yeah and you can have black buttons all over.

So we have established that it looks and sounds pretty cool.  But there are a few questions that are raised here.

1.  Is it fair that some people can have a lovely contraption like this when other people have bog standard controllers?

Yeah, I reckon it is.  There is always going to be people who have clunky, old, knackered pads where certain buttons dont work properly or the left thumbstick sticks oh-so-slightly.  By the same token there are always going to be people who have new pads straight out of the box.  I don’t see this in the same way as quick fire mods, which I do consider giving an unfair advantage.

2.  Is it really worth the extra money?

Maybe.  I have had issues with my various pads ever since owning a console,  presently the issue with my Xbox is that the thumbsticks stick.  Either the left or right thumbsticks stick just enough to throw your aim off on the battlefield, this I find massively annoying, particularly when both pads have done this from new.  Even the old original pads suffered the same fate, and I tried taking my old pads apart and oiling/greasing them.  No dice.  If these fancy pads could guarantee the thumbsticks aren’t going to let me down I think I could justify the £55 model (regular black Xbox pad with the same stuff the Atacs has).

I do have one fairly major problem with this pad.  The paddles on the back seem like a brilliant idea, on the battlefield I could find a use for a mapping to the start button for spotting on one paddle and the other to B maybe for arming/disarming.  Or X for reload maybe.  there are quite a few combinations I would like to try that currently require me to take a finger off a thumbstick, and its here we hit the snag.

They are programmed in the factory, so I assume that there would be no way for me to adjust these buttons without sending it back to them to adjust for me.  Thats a showstopper right there, the other stuff sounds great, trigger stops etc, but if I can’t modify the extra buttons on the fly I don’t think I can justify the extra expense.

It is a shame, because I am definitely in the market for a new pad, and I fancy something a bit different from yet another MS pad.   Any suggestions anyone?