Max Shooter Keyboard & Mouse Adapter For PS2 & XBOX

The third and latest XBOX/PS2 keyboard & mouse adapter to hit the market is the Max Shooter. Before this adapter was discharged there was a nice chance that the guy destroying you in Halo 2 was exploitation a regular XBOX controller and not one of the antecedently discharged keyboard & mouse adapters. Enter Max Shooter stage right. Now you should be afraid, really afraid, as the Max Shooter fundamentally turns the console FPS into a PC FPS with all the accuracy that that entails. After disbursement a nice few days playing Halo 2, Socom II, and Unreal Championship 2 there is little doubt that FPS games were mostly ready-made to be compete with a mouse and keyboard.

What’s In The Package

The Max Shooter, some the XBOX and PS2 versions, come in a small package that holds the actual hardware and an instructions manual. The adapter only accepts PS/2 compatible keyboards and mice so if you have USB peripherals you’ll need to get an adapter or head over to the old used PC shop and pickup an old keyboard and mouse combo.

The actual adapter is small in size and doesn’t hog any serious figure of extra space. The XBOX version features an extra slot on the backside of the adapter for a memory card to plug in.

Features

The Max Shooter, some for XBOX and PS2, is packed with a wide array of practicality which can be accessed by exploitation certain keyboard key combinations listed in the manual. It is fully programmable and besides comes with game presets for galore titles. The XBOX and PS2 presets are listed below.

XBOX Game Presets Halo Decoration of Honor: Frontline The Chronicles of Riddick Counter Strike James Bond 007: Nightfire Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3 Return to Castle Wolfenstein Unreal Championship

PS2 Game Presets Socom II Decoration of Honor: Frontline Time Splitters 2 James Bond 007: Nightfire Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3 Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm Return to Castle Wolfenstein REZ

If your favorite shooter isn’t listed above, the Max Shooter besides has three programmable controller setups to fill your needs. The variables that can be adjusted include key assignment, deadzone adjustment, mouse speed, and mouse inversion. Most seasoned gamers cognize simply about all these terms but mightiness not be familiar with the deadzone. The instructions describes the deadzone as the zone inside an axis range that is taken as being at rest.

Along with the game presets, the mill default predetermined mechanically assigns keys in the following way.

The selection of game presets and programming for custom games is all really straightforward, if not time consuming, and is well explained inside the manual.

All these features are great but what actually matters is how it holds up in the games. So without further ado let us jump in to our 1st game.

Halo 2

My 1st experience with the Max Shooter and Halo 2 was less than stellar, but that was wholly my fault. Like most gamers I cognize I jumped in head 1st without reading a single page of the instructions guide which was a actually bad move. The mill default setup is pretty more only suited for menu navigation.

So I popped open the instructions and found out simply about the presets, sadly no Halo 2, and distinct to try out the Halo 1 predetermined so I could get a quick start. Everything worked ok but it wasn’t better than the XBOX controller I had become so accustomed to. In fact, it was more worse. The mouse sensitivity was atrocious and the keys were mapped semi-incorrectly. But once again this was my entire fault and I dove back into the instructions to see how to fix my problems.

An hour and a half later I had finished tweaking one of the user programmable presets enclosed in the Max Shooter and things were starting to feel more much better. The mouse responded close to what I would-be expect from a PC FPS and the keys were all mapped to my liking, but I was still sprawling out on the floor in an awkward position. I wasn’t quite in FPS bliss.

Another thirty minutes later I had a table setup with the TV, mouse, and keyboard in the regular PC positions and things were feeling even as better. The Halo 2 bots didn’t cognize what hit them, but the mouse movement was still a bit off. Then I detected in the instructions that this is one of the biggest issues that inevitably to be resolved once setting up the Max Shooter and that I should max out the sensitivity settings inside the game for optimum “PC Like” results. So I did that and it established to be the one tweak that turned Halo 2 into my 1st PC FPS on a console. The controls are that good.

I finally distinct my setup was available for prime time and I headed online to face the masses. I must note that my ranking in Halo 2 was quite low before I got the Max Shooter and that the PC FPS setup has always been better for me than any console controller. So with that said, I jumped into an online match and low and lay eyes on I got my rear end bimanual to me like always, but it was simply the 1st match so I pushed on.

I changed my weapon setup from what I normally used to what I thought would-be be great for accuracy based shots and wow did that do a difference. Now all I use is the Battle Rifle. Four hours later I emerged with a better ranking and an amazing kill to death ratio. My hit rate and shooting speed went way up with my new found accuracy and the competition was destroyed because of it.

Once the Max Shooter is tweaked to a gamers liking, it is an improbably deadly controller for Halo 2. But Halo 2 is simply one of the FPS games out there so lets see how it holds up with the others.Unreal Championship 2

I confess this is my favorite all time XBOX game, so I was extremely excited to see how it would-be hold up with a mouse and keyboard. I once once again tried out a predetermined which didn’t hold up so well and then went on to create my own setup. Once the setup was done I headed online for a FPS shocker.

I used the same mentality I had in Halo 2; go for the accuracy based weapons. I loaded up the marksman rifle, headed to a dark corner, and started sniping. My TV echoed “Headshot” galore times before the match was over, but that was mostly because no one ever found me. The next match was more different.

The rest of the matches I compete online with the Max Shooter were inhabited with really nice players. They would-be find me sniping and then destroy me. It seems the problem with Unreal Championship 2 is that it was designed to only be a console FPS. More of the gameplay actually relies on the button configuration on the controller. Thus I couldn’t bounce about the walls, dodge, and reflect as well as I could with the controller. This could be because I have spent so more time with the controller that I couldn’t break my habits, but I believe this is one case wherever the Max Shooter isn’t superior.

So one game is wholly changed by the adapter and one is built too more about a standard controller to benefit from it. Next up is the PS2 and Socom II; let’s see how the PS2 version of Max Shooter fairs.

Socom II

Once once again I connected the keyboard and mouse to the adapter, blocked it into the PS2, and instantly got a nice connection. I surfed through the menus with ease and entered an online game. This time about there is a predetermined accessible for the actual game I’m playing. I loaded up the predetermined and was pleasantly amazed to find the predetermined layout to be perfect for Socom gameplay.

It felt nice and worked simply as well as it did in Halo 2. I don’t play a lot of Socom but I found myself playing quite a bit in this setup as I could ne'er get into exploitation the PS2 controller for FPS gameplay.

With the large figure of customization, the ease of use, and the low cost this adapter is actually worth every penny. If you actually want an advantage in games like Halo 2 or simply want to try a new controller setup I would-be decidedly recommend picking the Max Shooter.

Pros Plug and Play Customization and presets Low cost

Cons Lack of new title presets

Overall Score: 9.5

About The Author

Jeromy is the webmaster of http://www.gamebrink.com/ GameBrink.Com Import Video Game Compare.

This article was announce on August 26, 2005