Review: SplitFish GameWare edgeFX Mouse/Keyboard Controller (PS2)

SplitFish GameWare edgeFX Mouse/Keyboard Controller (PS2)
Review by: Lastblade aka kingoffighters
Provided by: DCEmu Reviews
Manufacturer: SplitFish
Site: Buy from Play-Asia
Price: $29.99

Overview : PS2 owners who have been asking for a better controller for their beloved FPS (all 2 of you), SplitFish has answered your prayers. edgeFX is a mouse/control pad hybrid controller that attempts to give you the type of control that PC gamers have been enjoying since the dawn of humanity (or circa early 1990s).

Quality/Usability : This controller claims that it will work with any game, so I am curious to see how it works with both FPS and non-FPS. Installation is as easy as plugging in any PS2 controller. The tricky part is putting the contraption on your lap since it has the mouse pad along with the one-handed control pad (let’s call it the “nunchuck”) for your left hand. To be honest, I never could get comfortable with this setup.

First game I tried is one of my favorite FPS, Black for the PS2. It is a great game and I have hopes that this controller will improve accuracy and speed. Both my accuracy and speed has gone DOWN from using this controller. The reason is that the mouse is basically emulating the right control pad (thus, it can work with any game and does not need special programming from developers to take advantage). There is a knob on the left control nunchuck that allows you to change the sensitivity of the mouse on the fly. This is actually very helpful to find how fast your mouse moves in relation to how far you push the right analog stick on a regular pad. However, even with the highest sensitivity, you are not moving any faster than pushing the right analog stick to the maximum. Of course, this is obvious since the mouse is emulating the right analog.

Next game I tried is Killzone. This game is noticeably slower than Black so I was doing a bit better with the mouse. After tweaking the sensitivity knob, I was doing better than Black but still not turning around as fast as I want (again, this is inherent in the game itself and not a fault of the controller). The thing is that I did not want to turn faster with a regular control pad, but I do with a mouse. I suppose my own history of playing FPS with a mouse colored my expectation of how a mouse should work on a PS2 game (even though none of them are programmed with this mouse in mind).

On the nunchuck controller, there is a very nice analog stick for movement and a cross pad. One very cool button is a “focus” button that slows your controller down. You can snipe much easier with this button held down. I wish this button was incorporated in all FPS.

Finally, I tried to play a non-FPS game, I figure a setup like this would be ideal for RPGs so I tried Final Fantasy XII and it worked quite nicely. I actually enjoy using this controller for this type of games over a RPG. I would not recommend playing an action/platform game with this setup though.

Conclusion : Overall, the edgeFX controller is a decent alternative for the PS2 FPS library. It does NOT make you turn faster like a real mouse would (unless developers actually develop a game with this mouse in mind, which won’t happen with the last days of PS2), but does make it more intuitive if you are used to mouse + keyboard control.

I would also like to give a big THANKS to bandit (DCEmu Reviews) for letting me review this product. I hope everyone enjoyed my review.

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