I am a first person shooter fanatic. If there is a FPS demo on Live, I will download it. I am one of the few people that love The Darkness and even found Legendary to not be that bad. Feel free to check my 360voice page, where you can see that my Xbox has become quite the bit of a Call of Duty 4 machine. Despite my love however, I am not perfect (please don’t tell anyone on my friends list though). Thus comes the aid of a nifty device called the “FPS Freek” which I have grown accustomed to the past few days.

It all started right after I did a stupid little unboxing video, where after taking these little nubs and putting them on my controller, I put them to the test by doing what I would have been doing anyways, getting my CoD4 on. Now, I figured there would be some kind of adjustment period with the very noticeable raised look of the analog sticks, but no such luck.

After jumping in, the only difference I felt gameplaywise is the sensitivity felt like it was slightly higher. But unlike when I have tried higher sensitivities through the game, I wasn’t over aiming my shots and frantically going around the screen every time I looked around. Seeing my analog sticks higher up made me think games wouldn’t have as tight of a control, but it was quite the opposite.

Game after game, I was definitely upping my kills. I am no slouch, but I know when I am doing better. I tried to pin point how or why this device works in scientific terms, and Google’d around and found Word on Mars put it best:

“Officially, the the device adds an additional 40% length to the standard 360 and PS3 controller Joystick. While this may seem like just a small change, the added 40% claims to give more stability, smoothness, torque, and control when playing precision games such as First Person Shooters.”

So basically, having more room to move my thumb around in, means I have more options on where I can hit. Obviously most FPS games are so quick, you don’t have time to think about this 40% more room to work with, but when you play, it just comes automatic. At this point, I’m already sold on these nub enhancers, I can’t deny I’m playing better. But now.. to put things to the another test…

…I went ahead and grabbed a sniper rifle… something I am not good at, at all. The only two guns I use in CoD4 are the RPD (LMG) and M1014 (Shotgun).. and when I say only, I mean it. Well let me tell you right now, the FPS Freek completely does the job when it comes to helping with precision…. but it does not perform magic. I was slightly better at sniping, but in no way to the point that I would ever pick one up again.

What about non-FPS games – My goal in testing these on a non-FPS game was just to see if they would interfere with gameplay. So I throw in… Beautiful Katamari (I may hate Scamco, but I still love this game). I found it very amusing that rolling regular was feeling easier, and doing a speed roll was better than ever (maybe I have fat fingers, but doing a speed roll was always slightly harder using the 360 versus a PS3 pad, now there is no difference). Sweet. This must be a fluke though, onto another non-FPS game. Halo Wars, plays just the same, which is perfect. Started booting up random XBLA games, all were fine, Hexic 2, Omega Five, even Uno (j/k).

Downside to the FPS Freek – Taking these things off. See, when I took the pictures above, I had to do some ‘before & after’ shots, which meant the appreciation I have on how snugly this fit on my controller was going to be just as tight coming off. When it comes down to it, there is really no need to take them off, I cannot see the case in which having more control would be a bad thing. However, it is still noteworthy, and possibly just unavoidable by design.

Pricing – You can buy a two nub pack for $9.99 or a four pack for $17.50. With shipping about $5-$6, to set yourself up with one controller isn’t too shabby for what this product does. I wish GameStop or even larger chain stores like Target/Best Buy/etc would carry these, but for now, buy it right from the source.

While checking out the exact pricing, I did see on their site an offer for the FPS Freek bundled with the SpeedFreek (which James has reviewed favorably in the past), for only $17, so if you are into racing games too, that is your best bet.

To sum it up

I am now a fan of the FPS Freek. Who knew extending your analog sticks just slightly would improve your game, but they do. In other games, it so far has either effected me positively or didn’t change the games, which is the only thing that matters.

Note: If you did not notice, I have reviewed the Xbox 360 version of this product, they do make a PS3 version as well.

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