Shagger

Shagger Says: GameSir T3S Wireless Controller Review I have done a number of reviews of actual video games on this forum. Some good, some not so good, but all those games, and indeed all games, have one thing in common. Something to control the game with. It's sometimes overlooked, but what you use to control the game is one of the biggest factors in affecting the experience. It is literally your connection to the game, and if that connection has something that isn't right, the game isn't right. However, even after all the game reviews I've done, I've never really covered the subject of peripherals in review before. So when I was in need of a new controller for my PC around a month ago, but didn't have a massive amount of money to spend, I started to shop around Amazon with a budget of around £30 in mind. I considered my options carefully between a number of both wired and wireless controllers and eventually settled for this. The GameSir T3S Wireless Controller for £29.99. Disclaimer Just a few things to make clear: I purchased this item myself with my own money, it has not been sent to me by Gamesir or any affiliate. No images I plan to include are likely to trigger any phobia's or extreme reactions known to me. My opinions often do, but that's another matter. This controller is marketed for use with PC, Android devices, IOS devices and Nintendo Switch/Switch light, but I only tested this on PC and Android, so your experience on other devices might not reflect this review. Whilst great care has been taken to avoid typos and errors, I may have missed some, so I beg your patience. Aesthetics and Box Contents A Package Deal The first thing to praise is the packaging, it was sturdy, compact as well as pleasing to eye. I can't imagine many collectors will be desperate to get thier hands on one of these, but It's nice to see GameSir sparing them a thought anyway with the packaging and how it's presented. In the Box: The Controller itself A 1.8m USB-A to USB Micro cable A 2.4G USB Receiver User Manual/Certification A Small, Sleek Receiver For Use on PC A slightly weird thing that drew me to this was the USB receiver. I'm sick and tired of USB receivers being shaped like flash drives. Not only is it unnecessary, these style of receivers are far more susceptible to damage. If this controller had one of those flash drive style receivers, I wouldn't have bought it, simple as that. Good on you, GameSir. I must admit I'm still usure as to why PC's that have Bluetooth so often need 3rd party peripherals to use these receivers. I have a mouse that can connect to my PC without that and this very controller can connect to a Nintendo Switch, phone and tablet without the receiver, yet PC users have to use this receiver? If anyone can tell me why that is, please do because that's been bugging me for a while. Kill Micro-USB So whilst I praise GameSir and thier common sense in using that nice, small style of USB receiver, that same person must have left the meeting to take a dump when they decided to add a Micro-USB port. There is a place reserved in hell for anyone who is still fitting Micro-USB to new devices at this point. Not only does this make the idea of connecting this to something as a wired controller treacherous given how flimsy and fragile these connectors are, it also slows charging to crawl. I waited until this thing was fully charged before using it and it took nearly 4 hours to charge it's 600mAh battery. Whilst I do like that big capacity and I'm quire ready to believe thier boast of up to 25h battery life, if this had USB-C, that 4 hours would be closer to 20-30 minutes. This controller was put on sale only last year, so there is no excuse for this. Strike a Pose! Now onto the protein on the plate, the actual controller itself: I want to make it clear that I'm not going to get into this whole debate about how the thumbtacks arrangement pitting the "Offset/Xbox" approach verse the "Symmetrical/PlayStation" approach seen here on the GameSir T3S for three reasons: That's it's own debate that isn't relevant here. It's fanboy bickering than I'm just above at this point in my life. I've always been perfectly comfortable with both arrangements, so it's not going to affect my opinion anyway. However, I will say that I like the fact GameSir choose to do this layout. 1st party manufactures and most third party manufactures tend not to cater to them, so it's nice see GameSir offering this option. That is a good thing. Now, it's obviously taking cues for it's shape from a Dualshock 4, so it is a familiar shape, but if you actually stop and look at it, it's very well proportioned and pretty handsome. It's also pretty much identical is size to a DualShock 4, but the control sticks are slightly further apart on the GameSir. We all have our own tastes, but I like the matt-black finish all-round with those little slashings of red at the base of the thumbtacks and on the GameSir logo. This is a very good looking controller. What's not so good? Well, one thing I'm not sure of is the markings for the face buttons. They are distinguished from the button faces with a shiny black finish intended into the button, but they're still very had to see in low light. That's a big deal to me as I play on PlayStation as well as PC/Xbox and sometimes have to get reacquainted with the button positions. It was actually a close toss up between this controller and another for me and the other controller had backlit buttons and that made it tough to choose between that wired controller and the wireless TS3. The buttons being hard to see is annoying, but I also suspect it was deliberate on Gamesir's part as this thing is marketed to be compatible with the Nintendo Switch. Most of you are probably aware, but Xbox and Nintendo Swich both use ABXY face buttons, but the arrangement is completely different: As you can see, the GameSir is arranged in the "Xbox" style in favour of PC, Android and IOS users. So I suspect GameSir made these face buttons harder to distinguish on purpose to lessen a Swich user's potential confusion. If that's case, then this is just plain stupid. Who in thier right mind would buy a controller for thier Switch knowing the buttons are effectively arranged completely wrong? I think it would have been better if they ditched the Switch support and made the face buttons easier to see. Overall, it is a very handsome controller that's nicely packaged with a positive user experience outside the game. There's a couple of things I would change, but to be fair those changes would have probably upped the price to beyond my £30 budget. I can charge the controller through the night and I don't plan to use this with a Switch anytime soon, so those issues of the slow charging and the face buttons aren't going to hurt me as much as having £30-£40 less in my bank about would have. What is it Like to Actually Use? Making a Connection To sum up, it's straightforward to connect this controller. I'm not going to go through the entirety of how to connect this thing to whatever device you want to use it with, I'll leave that up to the user manual. If you are curious, here's is a Tutorial on GameSir's Website. There is a couple of interesting things to note. I like how they use colour coded lights to indicate what device the controller is set to connect to, whether if be PC, Android, IOS or Nintendo Switch, making it immediately clear if you've made a mistake. Another Orange light is related to charging (Solid when charged, slow flash when charging, fast flash on low battery). I did notice when I was first charging it that the light from the orange LEDs found a slight gap at the base of the thumb-sticks reflected off the red thumb-stick base, lighting them up in the dark. I don't know if this was a deliberate thing to make the controller easier to see in the dark (To be fair, it did do so) or if this is an effect from a woeful shut line. That brings us neatly onto what it always an important question when it come to 3rd party controllers, how well made are they? Am I a Believer? GameSir have been in this game for a while and there is a lot to this controller that makes me feel that this a culmination of learning from past mistakes to improve the user experience. Just small touches, like these colour coded lights, go someway to improve your faith in a company that, and let's be honest, you've never heard of. That's always the issue with these third party controllers, you never know how reliable they will actually be. That's extra annoying for me sitting here as I've only owned the controller for three weeks. I can't tell any easier than you can at this point how reliable and durable this controller will be in the long term. All I can tell you is that this is one of the most sturdy feeling controllers I've ever held. If anything, it actually feels stronger and tougher than a Dualshock 4 to hold. It's solid as a rock with no shake or rattle at all. My only concern right now is that aforementioned Micro-USB port. I've already ranted about it, so I won't go there again, but I do plan to take that little bit of extra care, only use this controller wirelessly and pray it never get's dropped with the cable attached. I did feel the triggers "changing" a bit over the last couple of weeks, but more on that later. Other than that, there are no signs of wear and tear thus far. Let's Play! Before I get to the part of this review that matters most, here's a short list of the games I played to test this controller (Game played on PC unless otherwise stated): Nights of Azure 2 Starfield Tales of Arise Sonic Mania Bullet Soul: Infinite Burst ReCore (Xbox Remote Play on Android) A front facing image of the controller for reference. The Good The power on button is fine, it does what it does and is out of the way. It's nice they have the power indicator lights either side of it, so one doesn't have to turn the controller around to see if it's switched on. A small, but clever touch. The D-pad is phenomenal. It's not four independent buttons as one might think by looking at it, it's one piece of plastic underneath the casing rolling on a pivot, but it feels great with a very purposeful and defined feel to each press with a very even spread of resistance. The face buttons are very satisfying to press with great click to them. There is resistance, but I would describe it as informative, but still feels light. The L1 and R1 (Shoulder) buttons are a little small, but like the face buttons offer a satisfying feel and are light to touch. They do descend into the controller casing slightly when fully pressed and whilst I feel that on my finger, but it's not distracting nor uncomfortable. The matt black finish that I already said looks good, but I honestly thought would be quite slippy. In reality, it actually grips surprisingly well. I never really felt like I was about to drop this thing. The weight feels great to hold. It's actually lighter than a DualShock 4, so you can hold it for long periods without getting tired, but it's still weighty enough to fell solid and make you confident to grip it. The REALLY Good The thumb-sticks are superb. There's a very satisfying and solid click to them when pressed in and they grip very well. The best thing is how little movement it actually takes to register an action from them, but it's in a very intuitive and predicable way. The slightest movement registers the slightest action and then you have the entirety of the rest of the stick's travel to find the pace of the action you want with no dead zone that I could feel. I've played games on controllers three times the price of this that didn't have sticks that felt half this good. No controller at this price has any right to have control sticks as nice as this. The Not So Good The central buttons are small, felt a little sharp and are wobbly compared to the other buttons. The "Clear" button is the same shape as the "Start" button and they're very close together making it very easy to press the wrong one by mistake. Same story for the "Turbo" and "Select" on the other side. Speaking of the turbo, it's fine, it works and it's cool that it can be adjusted, but it's awkward to switch on and off mid game and frankly feels a little unnecessary to me. It's 2023, how many people need turbo on thier controllers now? If you do want turbo then that's fine, but for me it's just something else to go wrong on this third party controller. To me, the vibration feels a little weak. Bit of a nit-pick and maybe it's just me, but I like a strong response from vibration function in game. The Really NOT Good The software on Android. GameSir has a companion app that allows to to test and customise the button mapping of your controller and download the latest firmware to the device. Sound cool, but in my time with it the firmware checker does nothing an d it told me I needed to remap for Genshin Impact only to find the key mapping wasn't even functioning . Also, the app is incredibly aggressive when it comes to permissions. For some reason, it needs access to your location and access to your stored media, for a companion app to a controller? And if you refuse those permissions, the app throws a tantrum, grabs the ball and goes home in the huff, refusing to even open. When I first started using the controller, the triggers (R2 and L2) felt very stiff, yet very spongey. They were horrible. As time has gone by, they've loosened up a little, but still feel very spongey and numb. I'm not saying that they're unresponsive or feel like they're going to fall off like a rotten limb, but I do feel like I have a rotten finger when the press them. Conclusion

So sorry to hear about that. Our thoughts are with you.

I think this looks better that the Steam Deck and will perform better. I must disagree with @Debashis, I see windows 11 as an advantage over the simi-skimmed Linux that is Steam OS. And that armoury care system that can group together you games from multiple accounts rather than it turning playing games from EGS, GOG into something to feel guilty about is joy. Yes, I know it possible to add games from other launchers or even games that are individual installs into your Steam library, but it's a pain in the ass to so in part because the game itself to be instilled with a findable .exe file. This is just a far more user friendly solution.

Just because they've only announced it now, doesn't mean they've only just started working on it. Rockstar haven't actually released a new game in 10 years (That is maddening to think about), so they have likely been at work on this for a long time. Yes, a lot of that time and resources have been spent on supporting GTA Online, but trust me when I tell you you won't have that long to wait for RDR3, a year or two I suspect. Three at the absolute most. However, despite what I just said, I also wouldn't trust Rockstar to be an assurance for quality. They were happy to see the Definitive Edition of the PS2 era GTA games come out in a disastrous state. I know they didn't actually develop those ports, but it's still on them to care enough to properly oversee the project at least, but even better would have been to care enough to do the job themselves. Then there's the debacle over the recent port of RDR2 made for PlayStation 4/5 and PC. A game with less content and poorer performance than if you just used an Xbox 360 disk in an Xbox One or Series S/X. I personally don't think Rockstar are the same company that they used to be. Greed has overtaken passion in Rockstar, so thier name means nothing to me anymore.

Bandai Namco have confirmed that a DLC expansion for Tales of Arise is coming on November 9nth 2023. This is two years after the release of the original game. Shameless plug, I did review that game here on VGR, so click here if you want to check that out. It appears they have been working on this DLC for quite some time as "Beyond the Dawn" was filed as a trademark by Bandai Namco back in December 2022. More on that story here. No word yet on the cost of this expansion, but this will apparently add around 20 hours of playtime to the game, so I'd expect something in the region of $15-$20. However, I would expect people who bought the Ultimate Edition to receive this DLC at no extra cost, but we'll see. Here is the trailer for the new expansion: I enjoyed the game, despite a few issues with the story, so I have high hopes for this. The trailer itself sets this up well and it looks promising. What do you guys think?

If the fanbase of a certain game, movie, TV show or whatever develops an obsession over name pronunciation, it's a comparatively nice problem to have. If that is something to get one's tits-n-a-twist over, there can't be much worth complaining in the first place. so yeah, I see it as petty and puerile for the most part. People grow up in various places around the world with various languages and accents, so people are going to pronounce this in various ways. Even if it is a proper noun, like a name, so there is technically a "correct" way to pronounce it, is it really that important?

There's a big focus on FF16 on this issue (At least the article is focused on that, but since it's IGN, I'll do not take it that seriously), but there is more to this... surly. Yes, $6 billion is a lot to loose in share value, but it looks like Square Enix are taking a bit of pain in the short term for a gain later as they are restructuring and refocusing thier business to what looks like a more sensible and customer focused direction. And after some truly mind boggling choices that they have mad in thier recent past, I remain positive for them despite how this looks.

I think that's a great idea. They do something very similar to that over on JoyFreak whare the editor's articles get posted as topics. The problem over there is that one of those editors (who shall remain nameless) basically abuses the system and uses thier "articles" to peddle affiliate links, some of which are really shady. However, I am in support of this. I hope @DC can work that in in some automatic way, but in the meantime it might take either myself or @The Blackangel to update a sticky thread for it.

Welcome to VGR. We're very happy to have you here. What MMO's are you playing at the moment?

A new trailer for this has dropped and a release date of October 19nth.

I'm not the biggest fan of this franchise, but this is certainly welcome news for fans. RDR3 will be a great game I'm sure, but I'm more interested in GTA VI to tell the truth.

Been playing a bit of Starfield, Hogwarts Legacy and Nights of Azure 2. Bit of an odd mix, but I just bought a new controller for my PC and wanted to test it out on a variety of games. I'm considering actually reviewing it as I do have quite a lot to say about it.

I'm locking this thread as it does not conform to the parameters set in the Rules and Guidelines for this Sub-Forum. Please refer to these before creating any more new threads on this sub-forum.

By reading the article, I learned this same studio was Parralax before they changed thier name, the studio behind Decent, so I must say I am saddened by that more than the connection to Saints Row. Still, this is sad, but from a studio that hasn't really had a hit in around a decade, I can't say I'm totally shocked either. That Saints Row reboot was the final nail in the coffin it seems EDIT: I'm also going to move this to Gaming News.

Weird, I thought they had scrapped that a while ago. Still, it is a shady move, but not a surprising one.

I'm trying to get my Gamepass subscription sorted before Starfield launches. For a big, money hungry cooperation, I'm finding it surprisingly difficult to actually give them money. I'm cautiously optimistic, though. I love the look of the starship customisation and the story has potential. Sa with any Bethesda game, my biggest concern is if it will work at launch, but heard no horror stories from those who are playing it early so far, so fingers crossed.

I know there was no ill intent here, so don't worry about it. We're glad to have you here.

It might not have been the first, but the first I remember was a game called Screamer. It was a great looking game for it's time with a vibrant colour pallet and an impressive level of detail, even if as you can see in the video that the draw distance was pretty terrible. It wasn't exactly the most fun to control either with the cars feeling very stiff when turning slowly to then breaking loose big time and slide all over the place. And of cause, you had to use the keyboard, which made the idea of trying to use the manual versions of the cars to scary to even to try for me. Don't get me wrong, I loved it as a kid, but I know that would have pretty poorly. There wasn't much in terms of a verity of tracks and cars, but for 1995 I suppose it was acceptable and cars did feel district and the tracks had verity with very different demands and driving styles required to get the best out of them. There was one thing, though, that it did brilliantly. If you could set the sound up to use the CD tracks instead of the default sound font for the music (Oh yes, GONFIG and SETUP programmes for games, gotta love the 90's), what you would get is one of the best game soundtracks ever.

I actually can see the point to this. As @The Blackangel touched on, these old consoles can have reliably issues because of thier age, not to mention compatibility issues, especially with modern TV's. So if people want to play their old Atari games in a way that feels authentic without having to deal with the real world troubles of using original hardware, I can understand that. I will agree it's a little pricy, though.

Honestly, there's too little here to really generate much to say. I will say that I am a little concerned with the way this game looks. There's a difference between retro and dated, and this digital FMV stuff from the late 90's into the 2000's I'd definitely describe as dated because back then it was never a stylistic choice, that was thier best attempt to make a game look realistic. It's not the same thing as, let's say, pixel graphics because even though it was a style through necessity as the tech was limited, it was style none the less. The last few seconds in particular with the girl struggling with her lighter really do look like shit.

I'm suprised to find Sega were still making new games for Mega Drive/Genesis as late as 1995. The Saturn was already out. It's not like this is even Mega CD/Sega CD or 32X Game either. Anyway, the game looks cool. I like it's graphics and colourful design. I can see the Sonic DNA, so I do wonder how much effort really went to this. I mean, is it a game Sega really cared about, or was it something they quicky botched together to squeeze that little bit more money out of thier aging console?

@Shortie I've merged these two topics together as I feel that the topics are similar enough that were is no need to have two separate threads for responses. People can easily say that they've played the new season of Fortnite and share thier thoughts on it within the same post. I've also move the thread to the "Video Games" sub-forum as this is about a specific game instead of gaming in a more general sense.

In that case, they really do need to take some cues from Saints Row. You customised and collected vehicles and then called somebody to bring that vehicle to you whenever and wherever you wanted. Even Farcry 5 had a similar mechanic, so there really in no excuse Rockstar.