KontrolFreek Blog

The Elgato Game Capture HD is the easiest to set up and most versatile video game capture device I have ever used.

I’ll be honest, coming from me this isn’t saying too much—considering I’m not a professional YouTube director or even an amateur video creator. But let me tell you, I know a quality piece of hardware when I see it and I couldn’t be happier with the Elgato.

In case you’ve been under a rock, let me start with the basics:

The Elgato Game Capture HD enables you to record PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 gameplay to a Mac or PC and share it with your friends (or YouTube subscribers). With advanced hardware H.264 encoding, you can capture gameplay in HD quality while keeping the file size small on your computer’s hard drive. A recent update even adds the ability to record in full HD 1080p at 30fps, making the Game Capture HD the first and only USB capture device to do so.

Your gameplay is passed through from your console to the TV via HDMI and then in to your PC or Mac’s USB port without loss of quality. Elgato Game Capture HD doesn’t require a bunch of cables or a bulky power supply to record your gameplay. With a direct Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 input, you can use a single cable to connect it to your console. Everything included, it literally uses three cables (HDMI in, HDMI out, USB in). You can seriously be recording clips in about 10-minutes. It’s that easy.

The included software is pretty nifty too. Even if you forget to press the record button, the Flashback Recording feature lets you go back in time. So, you can simply slide the slider (did I say slide the slider?) back and hit record retroactively so you don’t facepalm when you miss something awesome. Elgato Game Capture HD’s software also allows you to quickly trim your gaming clips and pass them on to your favorite editing program for easier editing later. Again, easy!

For $179 (Amazon.com price as of this morning) the Elgato Game Capture HD seems like a good deal to me. It does exactly what it’s supposed to do and makes it easy for you to do what you’re supposed to do—create epic gameplay montages! So this is good news for all of you guys and gals looking to make a name for yourselves on YouTube: Elgato did all of the hard work for you so all you need to do is hit the big red button and play.

Up until recently I have always had a difficult time playing first-person shooters. One might ask me why I have this problem, and the answer to that would be that I have a form of Muscular Dystrophy called Charcot Marie Tooth (CMT). This disease affects my hands, feet, legs, and arms making them very weak. It is also a disease that gets progressively worse. With that said, playing first-person shooters on my controller is very difficult.

Because of my hand weakness, I hold my controller differently in my right hand than someone else would. I have to position my hand a certain way—with my thumb and index fingers “pinching” the thumbstick—so that I can play. I wasn’t aware that there was anything out there that could potentially better my gaming ability and make it easier and more comfortable to play until I came across KontrolFreek.

When I received my package of the Rcade Freek and FPS Freek Snipr, I was very excited and hopeful that these would be the improvement that I needed to play games better. After trying both the Rcade and FPS Freek Snipr, I found both products helped a lot! The height and convex, “dome” top benefitted me greatly and I was able to do the thumbstick "click" a lot faster and more reliably, which was a problem I had before. I noticed from the first time I put them on that my aim had greatly improved as well. The greater range of motion made it easier to snap on to enemies faster.

Another thing I struggled with was—because of the lower stock stick height—I would constantly hit the ABXY buttons by accident, and that was a big problem for me while playing. The added height of the Freeks makes it so that I do not hit the ABXY buttons accidentally anymore.

I’m still trying to decide which set of Freeks I like the most, but I can definitely say that I highly recommend these products to gamers with or without disabilities.

By: Brent "SwiftyKaos" Clayton 

Fans of arcade rally racers like Dirt and the classic XSN title, RalliSport Challenge will find a lot to love about Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad. Is it a good as either one? Probably not; but you’ll be shocked at this racer’s cost-to-fun ratio.

For only $10 you get 5 different vehicles including buggies, trucks and rally cars—each with 3 different setups and each really fun to drive. You get a 23-event career that takes about 2-hours to complete on semi-pro difficulty and moving up to the harder difficulties adds more challenge and more time.

The 7 included tracks are some of the most fun I’ve played in a racing game in a while—with trips through jungles, deserts and snow-covered passes. Beating and banging with opponents, launching for big air and crashing through dynamic environments was intense and gratifying. As you progress, you’ll earn experience each race that buys you simple upgrades reminiscent of the old Ivan “Ironman” Stewart’s Super Off-Road arcade game. It’s not a big deal, but it was nice to see my vehicle’s performance improve along with my own.

I think developer 2XL Games and publisher D3 made a good call with this game. It’s fun, value-priced and looks great running at a buttery smooth 60 frames per second at 1080p. There are a few small peeves here and there but nothing that will get in the way of your good time. Completionists and online players will find nearly unlimited playability with Jeremy McGrath—as long as you can find some other humans in lobbies to play with.

Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad is available for both PSN and XBLA for $9.99.

What can you say about something that does exactly what it’s intended to do? Well, quite a bit actually.

The Newer Technology Power2U AC/USB wall outlet is a cool and convenient way to charge and power all of your mobile devices using USB and traditional AC powered “plug in” items. Incorporating two three prong AC wall sockets and two USB ports, the Power2U is a seamless and clutter free solution for offices, kitchens, bedrooms or wherever you do most of your charging.

Installation is a breeze, and took me a total time of about 15 minutes from “power off” to “power on”. The outlet can be installed in any existing 15A 120V electrical receptacle and requires only a screwdriver and basic knowledge of electrical wiring.

Once installed, I plugged in my laptop, Android phone, iPad and my 3DS’s charging base and found myself pretty excited that all of my gadgets were in one place!

For about $25, Power2U is an awesome, modern and totally geeky DIY home upgrade that your friends will be jealous of. It comes in four different colors to match your décor and you can even purchase in bulk so you can do your entire house if you want—and you will want.

“Cideko Air Keyboard Conqueror” is a long and confusing name for a controller. Nowhere in the four-word-title is there anything alluding to the fact that it’s a sweet multiplatform gaming controller. So, just to make sure we’re clear: It’s a controller. It’s sweet. And you can use it for the PS3 and PC. We’ll get back to the gaming thing in a bit.

At its very core, the “Conqueror” (that’s what I’m unofficially, officially renaming it to) is a wireless keyboard/mouse combo. The USB AIR dongle—which stores within the controller body quite awesomely—just plugs into your PS3 or PC for easy setup and use. The full QWERTY keyboard, complete with function keys and everything else you’ll ever need, works great for web browsing and other light-to-medium typing duties. The motion sensing gyro mouse also works really well and completes a perfect setup for those with HTPC’s or those who like to kick back on the couch while browsing.

For gaming, the Conqueror worked better than expected. Playing through some of the more casual games in my Steam library, like Beat Hazard and Super Meat Boy, the dual analog stick controls, d-pad and face buttons all seemed responsive and even let me beat a few times in SMB—not saying it was the controller, but it surely didn’t hurt me. Not wanting to solely base my review on casual games, I switched over to my PS3 to try out some Battlefield.

You’ll all be very excited to learn (as I was) that the Cideko Air Keyboard Conqueror is compatible with KontrolFreek’s entire range of gaming products. This is good news, of course, and it’s been added to our controller compatibility guide which makes it official.

Things on the Battlefield went well. I was doing my thing and the controller didn’t miss a beat. The build quality and battery life is excellent and it feels really good in the hands. My only (minor) complaint is that the triggers aren’t perfectly positioned—but hey, neither are the DualShock3’s triggers and no one seems to care about that. I didn’t expect it to necessarily be a “performance” controller anyway; so I was pleasantly surprised it performed as well as it did.

For $99.99 the price of the Conqueror may induce some sticker shock at first—but once you take in to account that it’s replacing a mouse, keyboard and video game controller for PC and PS3, it all of the sudden doesn’t seem so high. Combine that with the fact that you can use your existing collection of FPS Freeks, and you’ve got yourself a winner.

Those of you in-the-know already know, but for those who don’t know or just pretend to know, you really need to check out Attack of the Show—‘cause they know, you know?  And the latest “Attack This” segment proves how much they really know.  Their World Class Gaming Gear feature this week is the single best segment ever featured on G4TV… EVAR!  Of course, we’re a little biased because KontrolFreek was spotlighted in this week’s slice—but whatever.

Anyway, we’re pretty excited about it and wanted to thank all of you Freeks once again for your continued support.  We love seeing our products on TV, we love Alison Haislip talking about them on TV and we love you guys and gals for helping us get there.  Thank You!

Luckily a diamond in the rough has revealed itself that not only does what it claims, but exceeded expectations. The FPS Freek, from Kontrol Freek, is an analog stick enhancement designed to offer gamers a greater degree of control and motion sensitivity to improve a player’s accuracy. Sitting atop the standard analog sticks for either the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, the adaptor snaps into place with a bit of pressure minus awkward or obtrusive changes to the appearance of the controller.

At the most basic level the controller has taller analog sticks. With this simple adjustment the controller has more sensitive analog sticks that either lessen or remove many of the complaints commonly levied against first person shooters on console. The extra height decreases the amount of force a player uses to push the sticks, thereby limiting the amount of overthrow a player could experience in a heated firefight. The greater degree of accuracy can be appreci ated by any serious  first-person shooter player, but  the improvements aren’t exclusive to that genre alone; FPS Freek also works well with any game that makes use of the right analog stick.

Due to added height the FPS Freek adds to the controller there is a definite learning curve players will experience when they first adopt the product. It took about three hours before we really became comfortable using the device and another three to when shots had markedly improved and surpassed prior FPS prowess. This becomes all the more evident when the FPS Freek is removed. There was an immediate decrease in performance. Shots were less accurate and we regularly overthrew our reticles and required quick adjustments. The Freek was quickly snapped back on.

Players looking to step-up their performance quickly and efficiently need look no further than Kontrol Freeks’s FPS Freek add-on.