Playing With the FG1000

As tennis players use to say, it’s all in the wrist. That’s the secret of the whole new (but not necessarily great) experience behind playing with the FG1000 – there’s no need to horizontally drag the device, only some wrist bending to direct your aim. But there’s not much precision behind that, even though we tried several different adjustments. We could never get the same experience as the one provided from our Logitech G9 gaming mouse, of instance.

At first we blamed our lack of experience with the new gadget and tried to get used to this unorthodox approach to FPS gaming. Some games later and we were pretty much getting along fine with the FG1000. What wasn’t fine was the overall lack of precision to our shooting. We tweaked the X/Y axis speed response and tried varying the DPI resolution but our performance during some Team Fortress 2 deathmatches still came up short. We played the sniper class but the headshots were few and far between our usual 5 kills per spawn. Aiming with the wrist is a bit intuitive but the mouse lacks the spatial mobility of a real gun or a gun shaped controller like the one used in consoles for the Time Crisis series. Several times we lifted the FG1000 off the table to aim higher – a move that spoiled our aim, of course. At least the trigger action brought a degree of authenticity to our FPS gaming session.

click to enlarge
Figure 4: The grip.

In conclusion, the FG1000 is more like a gimmick for lame FPS players than a real choice for casual gamers and enthusiasts of the genre. After some hours of testing, we had difficulties going back to our regular mouse to work (and type this review). Zalman’s idea is laudable but everyone knows the way to gaming hell is paved with good intentions.