The Avenger Controller

I’m excited to write about my latest gaming purchase, the Avenger controller.   It finally arrived last week, and if you’re not familiar with this item, it’s not actually a controller at all.   The Avenger is a plastic/rubberized casing that you snap over your OEM Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller.     The features are the levers and trigger controls that augment the normal button functions of your controller.   Keep in mind, this is not a controller mod.  Modded controller’s typically involve new electronic features or changes such as rapid fire buttons.   This controller accessory allows you use the buttons on the controller through a different method of control.  At first glance, the Avenger has a funky spider like look to it.  Looks are deceiving, it is actually very functional and convenient.    The rest of this blog will follow my personal experience.

Front facing view with all showing X, Y, and B levers along with trigger assist

Bottom view showing trigger assist components

Out of the box, I snapped it on my controller and starting to configure it to my liking for all of its components.    I really felt it to be cumbersome and constricting at first, mainly around my right and left index finger movements.     With the quick trigger components, my LT and RT triggers now had a larger and longer space for which I could reach them.   The X and Y button levers are right in front of the trigger buttons, and since I had set them very tight and sensitive, almost every time I let off the trigger I would initiate the X or Y button function.   On top of that, the levers and trigger cards made it feel like I had a small space to reach up for my bumper buttons.   It became unnatural and uncomfortable for me to use it all and I was getting frustrated.    

After trying it on my own in some offline gaming, I partied up online with a friend who has the Avenger, and had him walk me through his experience.    He recommend I remove the trigger assists from the Avenger’s base set up.    A strong point for the avenger is that you can fully customize all the controls including removing them completely if you like.    For this I just undid some screws, pulled off the trigger components and voila!  I easily felt more finger space and didn’t have the trigger claustrophobia.   I also did not like the feel of the trigger assist, but it did allow for faster response times.   On top of that, I also watched a video of the Avenger on YouTube, and realized there were some extra items in the box that were not clearly obvious to me what they were for.    These are soft rubber surface stickers.   They are a mm in diameter and stick to the bumper buttons.   The tiny profile saves space, but the added padding is an easy target to reach for your fingers when shifting them from trigger to bumper.    Honestly, if this is confusing at all, search online for customization or usage videos and you will understand the features and how people set their controllers up.

Once I had most of that configuration I got into some heavy use with them.  I kept to offline gaming to avoid panic and frustration.    I played some Bad Company onslaught as practice, and then did some Medal of Honor campaign.    Once I was comfortable with how the avenger felt overall, I easily adapted to the new button lever layout.    The quick levers for X and Y are the biggest gain for me.    The B button is useful, but I do get mixed up w/ it at times.    The simplicity for which you can now access X and Y buttons on your controller w/o having to move your thumb off the right joystick, which is typically you aiming function, is unmatched.   So far, this only helps in FPS games as its all I’ve played, but you can imagine gaming situations where you are in a firefight directly w/ someone else and you both run out of ammo in the primary gun.  On a standard controller, you would move thumb from aiming to hit the Y button and switch to secondary, then have to regain your aim.   With the Quick lever, you never leave your aim, so you can flip to the next gun and continue firing and aiming almost non-stop.   I never lost any of these standoffs w/ the Avenger!!  The B button works, but may take further practice.  The button does feel a bit out of place for my hand, but you can shift to it and you can adjust the button lever down if you need.  The only drawback w/ this button so far for me is online play in Bad Company.   Sometimes you need to hold B other times tap it to get in/out of vehicles or to grab a new kit.   In the heat of battle I’ve tried to quick hit that button but sometimes I do too much and end up hitting the Y button and start myself into a panic where I just lose my reaction time overall and end up dying.   I hope this is fixed with further use and practice.

My last bit on the Avenger is the use of it with Kontrol Freeks.   Kontrol Freek makes a product called FPS Freek which are thumb stick add ons that raise up the height of the thumb joysticks.   At first I tried the avenger without them, but I’ve developed a serious need to play only w/ my FPS Freeks;it’s bad.  Playing without them feels uncomfortable now.  In any case though, I snapped them on to the controller w/ the avenger and started playing, it was great.   However, after a few minutes, I started to realize my joystick movements translated into slower actions on screen.   The joysticks seems fine and look fine, but when I got down to it, the clasp profile of the FPS Freeks was bumping into the Avenger casing.   You can get around this by pushing extra hard on the thumb stick to tilt it over the edge, but this gets tiring and doesn’t always work.     Writing directly to the folks at N-Control, makers of the avenger, they had an answer for me.  They said community feedback pointed to simply placing a dime between the FPS Freek and the thumb stick.    It’s a bit of rough engineering, but once I did that, everyone fell into place.   I’m running at 100% in my games plus the bonus of both add ons to the controller.    I’m now an unstoppable force online and likely won’t run into many immovable objects anytime soon.

My Avenger with FPS Freeks added and trigger assists removed

I give the Avenger 2 thumbs up and recommend it for anyone who is a hard core online gamer in the FPS or even the 3PS genres.   

Revisiting Old Games

I’ve been back to playing Red Dead Redemption online lately.  A friend prompted me to join them in free roam to work on some challenges and achievements.  It’s been months since I played this last and its always been a good time, so I decided to drop everything and check it out. 

It would be so easy if I could just dump my enthusiasm for a topic on you, it’s much harder to translate from thought/feeling to words.  The interesting perspective here is that I already played RDR, a lot, when it first came out.   With the DLC releases through the summer and fall I did revisit the game a number of times for the adventures and achievements.   What really gets me pumped though about RDR is the fact that I’ve spent so much more of my time playing other hard core FPS games and the like.    I’ve spent over 650 hours playing Bad Company 2.  This is nowhere near the fabled 10,000 hours required to reach expert level in life (according to Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers”) but at this point I believe I can say I know the nuances of the game and have a definite hold on the design aspects, mechanics and features of the game.  Taking this point of view and applying on top of the normal user experience with RDR, I actually start to pick out things in game that impress me with each return.

Each person has their own perception of a game and how they play it for best experience.   Compared to playing Halo Reach and Bad Company 2, which are excellent shooters, there are some amazingly awesome features and animations I noticed in RDR.  Jump into free roam and soak in the ambiance of the sandbox world Rockstar has created.   Hear the buzz of flies around your ears, feel that hot sun overhead on a cloudless sky just beating down on you.   Now imagine as you ride along the open terrain, the sun starts going down and darkness creeps in from the ground up.  In the distance you can hear gunfire so you look in that direction.  Within eyesight the first thing I notice is a tiny smoke wisp.  I'm seeing the smoke trails from the pistols being shot.  The awesome curl and swash of each one as it dissipates into the air..  Now I’ve identified the source, but as I venture closer to see what is going on.  Here I see one NPC firing at some wild coyotes.   One is shot in the back and I watch as it stumbles, flops down and twitches as it lays there.   Eventually it bleeds out, but I know anyone could have just finished him off more quickly.    These may seems small and petty, but it is the tiny things like this that "wow" gamers who really appreciate their games.  With the hours people put into games, it’s these tiny features that can really stand out.  

Halo Reach came out in the fall of 2010.  I played that game until I maxed out the achievements and moved on.   It wasn’t until one night in February when I came home from a work travel trip and need to relax, that I was invited by friends to play Firefight with them.   Having played strictly bad company and mostly in Vietnam, coming back to Halo Reach was new form of shock and awe to me.   The most significant feature that struck me was around the enemy AI.   In Firefight I was noticing what seemed like squad tactics against the human players.  We would focus on a set group only to realize another set had come up behind us or beside us.   The elites had amazing animations I had not noticed before such as round house kicks, flying jump kicks and other brutal bashing moves when the come into close quarters combat with you.   I also had my first experience being duped by an AI enemy faking me out with a hologram.    That in itself shocked me.  Bungie really put in some AI intelligence for the NPCs to react to us on the map in such ways as to draw us out or distract us while another crowd moves in.  Genius Bungie, I love it.

As you know, Bad Company 2 is my game.  It’s what I play 95% of my time.  DICE did amazing work in the animations and features of their game.   This blog is just to say that when you get into something so deep, and then pull back for a short change of pace, you come to these new games or activities with a different perspective and you can really learn to notice and appreciate the parts of games you love and know to look for in the future.

Playstation Network - Out of Service

Sony's PlayStation Network, its core service offering for PS3 and Sony portable devices has been down for over 2 weeks now.   The media outlets have been on fire with news around it all from topics on who, how, why, and what is next for Sony and gamers.  

Today is May 10th and I really had thought Sony made an announcement last week stating PSN would be online by the 8th or so.    They are in a sticky situation with the immediate demands from the user base while fending off the media, and working to research and protect the network in place.   I hope they are able to turn the network back on such that PSN user's don't experience anything different from what they had before due to upgraded security or other things.  The latest news on the outage came yesterday stating that Sony expects PSN to be down for the rest of the month.   I’m not sure this is nailed down, but the Internet rumors of a 5/31 re-launch.

Since PSN has been down I just shifted any online activity solely to Xbox Live.  I have the luxury of this convenience, but it has to be seriously painful for those PSN users who only have a PS3.   With the lack of a network not only are online games blocked, but other services such as Netflix, Hulu +, PlayStation Store and PlayStation Home are down.     For all Sony does to say PlayStation does everything, now it only does one thing, play discs locally.   I guess overall this is a setback that takes us back to PlayStation 2 days at worst.   

I did consider what life would be like if my online community and access were completely cut off.   Would I just react and shift my activities?   I can do a lot of online browsing of Netflix and Hulu through my PC, and it’s not completely inconvenient.  I can watch directly or plug into my stereo and TV for the full effect.   However, on a positive note for this, as it is Spring, in most of the country, we are still pulling and grabbing here in Seattle to reach 60 deg F on any given day and hopefully it comes w/ some direct sunshine, rather than cloud filtered.  In any case, it is fair that at least the weather should be good for most people so that they are not stuck indoors moping the whole time.

Life goes on, people gripe, but they tend to get their due also.   Sony has stated it will offer a compensation package for all affected users.   Reports suggest 77 million users lost personal information via this event, yet how many of those accounts are regular PSN users who care?   Nothing definite has been posted for the compensation package, but rumors mention item such as: 1 month Hulu + free, 1 free PSN game, membership for up to a year subscription service to protect your identity and information, and maybe a few others items that are region specific.    I guess Sony will post these options and see how bites.  It’s all voluntary, so of the 77 million accounts, those who aren’t regular users and don’t pay attention likely won’t receive anything.   I do wonder how much this has cost and will continue to cost Sony business.  Microsoft has already gone through its pain points (probably more to come) and it cost them Mizillions.   

A topic I’ve read upon, but won’t comment much about is around the speculation of what hacker, or hacker groups did this to Sony.  It’s quite an interesting collection of stories from both sides and media outlets working to decipher who did it, diagram how they did, and then figure out why and what they plan to do w/ the compromised user data.    If lawsuits come down on Sony and the supposed suspects of the network break in, I wonder how far and how long the lawsuits will go.