By Nelson Schneider - 01/19/13 at 02:25 PM CT
Recently, I’ve been attempting to find some way of replicating the Wii’s pointer capabilities on Windows in order to make playing FPSes on PC a more pleasant experience. While I found numerous dedicated motion controllers for PC, all of them were either expensive, crap, or both. While a few options did fall into the acceptably-cheap price range for experimental purchase, most of those were so obviously marked-down that they raised red flags in my mind immediately. Despite the sirens going off in my head, I made the decision – against my better judgment – to “take one for the team,” as it were, and test out the Splitfish SFX Evolution.
After launching at a price of $90, the drop to $20 on Amazon.com is an obvious signal that the SFX Evolution hasn’t sold well. But maybe, just maybe, it hasn’t been selling well because the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race can’t appreciate it rather than because the controller is a piece of trash? If only that were the case…
The first thing I noticed when taking the SFX Evolution out of its box is that it is big… REALLY big! As a large adult male, I usually have no problems handling gadgets that daintier folk, women, and children find bulky and unwieldy. I could not handle the SFX Evolution. The controller comes in two parts, one for each hand. The left-hand “frag-chuck” almost fits in human hands, but the right-hand “evo-chuck” is difficult to merely grip, let alone try to press the trigger buttons (which aren’t analog, like on a PS3 or Xbox 360 controller). The other ergonomic issue that is glaringly obvious is the unorthodox layout for the face buttons. Normal controllers follow the paradigm set down by Nintendo with the SNES controller and arrange the face buttons in a diamond pattern. The SFX Evolution doesn’t do that, but instead arranges the face buttons in a single row. I noticed this issue in the pictures before I bought the SFX Evolution, but thought I could get used to it if the controller provided the promised motion-controlled aiming to replace the right analog stick. Let’s just say I never had a chance to acclimate to the button layout.
The second thing I noticed when taking the SFX Evolution out of its box is that the entire thing looks and feels like a cheap Chinese piece of junk. Both of the ‘chucks feel light and emit distressing, plasticky rattles when moved. The instruction manual is in broken Engrish, and mine had several mangled pages that looked like the printing machine tried to eat them. On top of low-quality impression the product itself gives, the fact that Splitfish doesn’t have a dedicated section for the SFX Evolution on their website makes the entire thing seem like a product that was stillborn.
After installing the 6 AAA batteries (3 in each ‘chuck), I plugged the SFX Evolution’s wireless dongle into my PC and crossed my fingers. This is the only place this controller was able to shine: Windows automatically installed a driver for it, the dongle recognized both ‘chucks, and I was ready to go.
To test the SFX Evolution, I fired-up “Borderlands,” the next co-op game on the MeltedJoystick crew’s list and the game that spurred my quest for PC motion controls. Everything seemed to work fine (aside from the controller’s ridiculously-short range, which required me to consciously sit forward in my chair to keep both ‘chucks in range of the dongle). The computer accepted button inputs from the evo-chuck to start the game and, after referring to the manual to find the convoluted button press sequence required to turn-on motion-sensing (hold the evo-chuck’s proprietary F-trigger, click-hold R3, and click the motion sensitivity rocker to the left), I was ready to shoot some skag-pups. I tried to walk to the entrance of the starting town, but instead ran into some scrap piled-up behind me. WTF? I tried moving around some more, only to discover that the frag-chuck’s analog stick has forward and backward reversed. At first I thought I might have received a defective controller with a crossed wire somewhere, so, since the SFX Evolution is compatible with Windows and PS3, I swapped the dongle from PC to console and tested a PS3 game… in which the joystick worked correctly.
The inability to correctly move a character using the left analog stick in PC games was already a deal-breaker, but I still might have been able to hack something together as a work around (maybe using Xpadder) if the motion controlled aiming was awesome. Back in “Borderlands” for PC, I ignored the broken movement in the frag-chuck and focused on aiming at (harmless) objects with the evo-chuck, just to get a feel for it… It was not a good feeling. Even with the sensitivity jacked-up to the maximum, the evo-chuck feels unresponsive and sluggish for aiming. Even worse, instead of airmouse-style gyroscopic aiming, the evo-chuck uses PS3 SIXAXIS-style tilt-based gyroscopic aiming. Moving the ‘chuck vertically or horizontally through the air provides no response. Only by tipping the ‘chuck forward/backward or side-to-side does the motion-sensing gyroscope register movement. Thinking that maybe the evo-chuck might work better in a PS3 game, I switched from PC to console again and tested it… There was no improvement.
The bottom line is, the Splitfish SFX Evolution is an ergonomic nightmare, cheaply built, only halfway compatible with Windows, and not a viable replacement for a gyroscopic airmouse. While I wasn’t expecting the SFX Evolution to be great when I bought it, I truly wasn’t expecting it to be THIS awful. This is the first thing I have ever purchased from Amazon that is going back to Amazon. It isn’t even worth keeping around as a novelty.
