Thrustmaster Firestorm RF Wireless Gamepad

Rating:
Summary: Awesome price, great gamepad!
Review: I ordered 2 of these (when the price was $14.99 - it must have been a sale I guess), in an effort to reduce the number of cords running across my desk. I was skeptical about all the wireless gamepads out there, including this one, but it's almost getting to the point where all gamepads are wireless. ;-) Mainly I was looking for a decent wireless gamepad that I could just plug in and have it automatically work with Windows XP, without having a bunch of extra drivers/software running on the system (game companies are always telling you to stop all extraneous software before you try to run games, because of potential conflicts, etc., but most the game controllers come with a bunch of extraneous software... catch-22 anyone?). Anyway...

So that's exactly what happened... I plugged in the Firestorm Wireless, and it just worked, no drivers, no downloading of software, no extra software running on my system and increasing bootup time... just true plug and play joy.

Features: The "mode" button lets you switch between analog mode (two joysticks + D-Pad acting like a "hat" switch) and digital mode (one joystick + one D-Pad... left joystick deactivated). There's an indicator light that lets you know what mode the gamepad is in (press it once, light goes on, digital mode, press it again, light goes out, analog mode). This is great for switching between driving or flight sims to something where you really need the D-Pad for movement (like sports games, arcade games, etc.). And the best part, this works *without* rebooting, changing driver settings, or going into the "Game Controllers" control panel to reconfigure or reprogram the unit. As far as I can tell, as with any joystick-like devices used with Windows, you have to plug in your gamepad or change modes on your gamepad *before* starting your game.

Some people may want to have the "vibration feedback" feature. After using my Wingman Rumblepad for several years, I've found that this feature doesn't really matter to me... it doesn't really add anything significant to the "experience" in any of the games I've tried that support this feature.

Batteries: The gamepad comes with two AAA batteries, and the gamepad only transmits when you're actively moving the controls or pressing the buttons... so you don't have to worry about battery life when you not using it, and you don't have to remember to switch it off. There is a light on the gamepad that tells you when it's transmitting... it goes out a few seconds after you stop pressing buttons or moving the controls. And, they're AAA batteries, so they don't increase the weight of the gamepad much.

Wireless range: It seems to work in my small office no matter where I'm sitting. The ability to have up to four of these gamepads on one computer at a time (via the channel switch) is really cool... which is one of the selling points for me... who want's to play alone all the time? That's no fun! :-)

Grip and feel: The "rubberized" texture of the Firestorm is very good. I find it much better than the standard "smooth hard plastic" feel of many other gamepads.

Analog accuracy: I haven't tested with a driving game or other game requiring the analog sticks yet... but it seems pretty accurate so far when testing in the Windows XP "Game Controllers" control panel.

Button response is good. This is important - you can't have your controller missing button presses in game.

Button layout: For the most-part, it uses the standard Gravis Gamepad Pro layout except that the two extra buttons that are on top-center of the Gravis unit are located under the Firestorm, accessible by your middle fingers while gripping the gamepad normally. This allows these buttons to be used for "active" controls in game, so you don't have to take your hands off the other controls to press them as you might for gamepads which have these extra buttons placed top-center. This can be good if your game just needs those two extra buttons accessible for game features. Fortunately, they're out of the way enough that you can avoid pressing them if you don't want to, without changing your grip drastically (or painfully).

One negative thing I have to report is that the USB cables for the receivers of both units I bought had some kind of white, chaulky coating on them, which I had to wipe of with a damp paper towel. Not sure where it came from... but it's was a bit of a mess.

Software: I avoided this altogether, but the Firestorm *does* support programming of the buttons and functions via the optional software (downloadable from the Thrustmaster site). For Windows games from the last 5 years or so, there shouldn't be a need to reprogram your gamepad to emulate keypresses or pretend the analog sticks are pressing keys... most of the time, you can just set up the controls inside the game itself.

Overall, you just can't find this much wireless gamepad for the price. Certainly, there are plain few gamepads out there which don't require some sort of proprietary driver and/or programming software... and that was a big selling point, for me at least.

Rating:
Summary: Controller is great, wireless is not so great
Review: I've done extensive testing with many PC gamepads, including the Saitek P2500 Rumble Force Pad, the NYKO "Air Flo EX," Logitech's Dual Action Gamepad (the ubiquitous 20$ everyone seems to get from Best Buy), the Interact Hammerhead FX, and all models of Thrustmaster's Firestorm. I've used all of these pads over an extended period of time with intense use, and I heavily favor and recommend the Thrustmaster Firestorm models. Some controllers simply aren't reliable and break after only a few weeks of use (Logitech Dual Action Gamepad), while others are uncomfortable or have button configurations that, while original, tend not to be as good as the traditional PSX dual analog design (Saitek P2500, Hammerhead FX). The newly released Nyko Air Flo Ex is a nice, large controller with a cooling fan that works; unfortunately, the controller's directional pad is mediocre, the start/select buttons are very difficult to push, and the fan is annoyingly loud.

As for the Thrustmaster Firestorms, they are generally high quality game pads, have the features you'd expect to have, no more and no less, have nice analog sticks and generally nice directional pads. Note that there are many versions of the Firestorm, but I will discuss the models including analog sticks only, as most tend to expect analog stick capabilities in their gamepads. The traditional Firestorm came with a directional pad with a flat surface that the thumb could "press." Refer to the product image here:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000056Q1D/

Now, the newer Firestorm models, particularly the Dual Power 3 and the wireless version, have a directional pad that's designed to make your finger lean to the desired direction rather than press it. Refer to the product image here:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00008ZLHK/

I suppose this makes moving around the pad easier, similar to that of an analog stick, but it makes pressing one single direction, such as "left" error prone -- you often get down-left or up-left. This, subsequently, makes it impossible to "tap" a direction accurately. Keep this in mind when purchasing one of their pads, because if extreme accuracy in the directional pad is a consideration, then you might want to choose an earlier model. To the newer dpad's credit, I have been unable to wear out of one of these dpads, while I was able to wear out one of the older versions.

Also, a warning about the wireless version of the Firestorm: it's behavior is erratic at best. Note that my comments are based on the controller's performance with fully charged batteries and with the controller directly next to its wireless base. There is a slight lag between pressing a button and having it registered by the base; this is probably to be expected, but is unacceptable in some games. The problem is exacerbated if it's the first button you've pressed in awhile, because the controller "powers off" and must "power on" again when you press your next button, which takes a second and sometimes your button press is lost. A better model would be to explicitly set the controller to "on" so that it is always transmitting and doesn't have to detect when the user is no longer using it. This is done by the official Nintendo Gamecube wireless controllers and works quite well. if you must have wireless, I must recommend that you look towards other vendors' wireless models.

Linux: the Firestorm controllers in particular work well in Linux; they have no troublesome features, like shift buttons or turbo switches, that are sometimes not supported in Linux.