GamerModz.com Halo 3 Controller Review [Updated]

Posted by: rasp1 on: 07/07/2009 11:17 AM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]

I came across Gamermodz.com when some of my friends and I were playing a game on Construct. The guy in the game seemed to have double shot, which we all thought was impossible in Halo 3. So I of course started to scour Google with many different search variants in hopes of coming across the mythical page that showed how to double shot. I didn’t find the glitch, and I still don’t know how he did it (you will have to see the video on the wall of shame.) In the process I ran across two sites that offered modded controllers for Halo 2 and 3. The first being hgcontrollers.com and the second being gamermodz.com.

I started talking to the owners of both sites and worked out a deal to review both controllers for Hellrazzors. Gamermodz even sent me a controller for Gears of War that I will be covering in an upcoming review. Gamermodz.com’s owner is an all around nice guy.

The controller was sent unceremoniously in a well-padded bag. They left the controller in its original blister pack, but of course it has been opened to perform the mod. The lack of any documentation is a slight knock against them, not that it needed a full manual, but a little quick start guide detailing the button arrangement would have been nice. You will quickly notice the four buttons on the bottom of the controller. There are two on either side of the battery pack, and two on the top inside slope of the hand hold curve. They stick out maybe two or three millimeters from the controller but have a nice feel to them and would be hard to accidentally hit.

The ‘r1’ button on the right hand bottom of the controller is the BxB combo. It works in a dual fashion. If you push the button once then a simple melee is performed, but if the button is pushed and held it will then perform the BxB. The ‘r2’ button is a rapid-fire button for the right trigger. Simply hold the button and it will make any weapon (a semi or automatic weapon) shoot a bunch of semiautomatic rounds.

I’ve looked at the videos and I would have to say that they do make for a tighter grouping of shots. Especially for the Assault Rifle, there is a vast improvement of grouping. But it doesn’t seem to translate into more damage to your opponent. We took a cleared out forge map, and had each person stand on the lines in the floor for a somewhat exact measure of distance. With neither target moving there seemed no great advantage with the Needler, Assault Rifle, Spiker, etc… The one weapon that I really like the rapid fire on, and use it all the time now, is the Battle Rifle. Instead of being that half-shot down that I would always seem to be, I would, in the majority of time, come out that half shot to shot ahead of the other guy. Thus, winning the BR battle that I would have normally lost. It is invaluable in that respect.

The ‘L1’ button is the auto stick. I couldn’t seem to get it to work right for me. It did as advertised when I would push the button it would melee and then toss a grenade. The problem came when I was actually fighting against someone. In Halo 3, the centering that they have the Spartan do is not as pronounced as it was in Halo 2. What this translates to be is when you are in a firefight, and about to do the melee, unless you are already pretty much centered on your target, then the grenade is just going to sail right past him. I think I got about a 20% success rate with the auto stick, not great, but that could have been for other reasons I will go into further on.

The ‘L2’ button does team talk. Instead of having to push up on the d-pad when you are in a game with a group or team bigger than four people all you have to do is hit the L2 button. It does not sound like much, but if you play Big Team Battle, or Social Slayer a lot, then believe me, you will like it. I would hope that Bungie fixes the Social Slayer flaw, but leaves the Big Team just the way it is. The reason I say this is 5 is not too many to have to have the chatter, but 6-8 is. Plus Social Slayer is something that people come to from Team slayer when they have too many players or just want to warm up. Until then, this is a nice feature that will give you an edge in battle.

Now for the areas I found lacking: The first being as you progress through Halo, you find that the default layout of the controller does not address a power players needs. I switched myself at first to a green thumb layout, and then Scorched Raven convinced me that I should try a Boxer Style layout. It is a truly nicer way to play. The problem with that though is this controller will only do most of its magic for you when you are in a Default Layout. If you do not play it within that parameter, the auto stick, and BxB just simply do not function.

Because of the way the boxer setup was laid out I was able to salvage some of it because the BxB button would allow me to throw grenades from the button on the bottom. You don’t know how nice that is. My grenade throwing on this controller went way up and became way more accurate. To put it another way, I went from 5-10 grenades a match with no sticks to 20-30 with any where between 2-5 sticks per game. This was about where I was in Halo 2. Yes, I’m a grenade whore, but you do what you are good at.

The second problem I ran into was that the buttons on the bottom of the controller just didn’t line up with my fingers very well. They were about one third to one fourth of an inch to low for my middle finger, and were about one quarter of an inch to high for my ring fingers. There is a ‘but’ in here though. I’m a 6’8 400 pound guy. I have hams for hands. So, I don’t fall into the 80% area that most of the world falls into. I am in that 20% that is just outside the normal that it just doesn’t work, or work well for. I can use the controller. I have to shift my grip enough to be able to manipulate the buttons properly. I lose a lot of accuracy with my aim, and I would use the rapid-fire button instead of the regular fire button. Not always a good thing to do. The impact on my left hand was minimal. I only have to use it for front, back, strife, and beat downs.

I have brought up both of these concerns with the owner of gamermodz.com and he has told me that the boxer layout has been one of the most requested changes he gets for a new controller. Gamer Modz based the button placement on the designers own hand size. Gamer Modz's told me it would be easy to move the buttons up or down a little bit. They just aren’t setup to do that at the moment. That could be a nasty gotcha especially for such a expensive controller. That along with the fact that it will only work properly in a default layout, and seemingly at any time Bungie could fix the button glitches it is definitely a risk. Bungie did not address the BxB glitch in the AU(Auto Update) they just released, but you can not rule it out in the future. They need to find a way to future proof these controllers.