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.