You know the 'Kotaku' boomerang knock-off? I just bought one:
Sorry for the crappy phone pics. This thing is made by "ProGamer" and was AUD$29.95 in a 2-in-1 pack that included a PS3 component cable. As a means of comparison, the RRP of the Sixaxis is AUD$79.95. It connects via USB, has no tilt or rumble, has all of the normal buttons including a PS button (lit up in red), and has "turbo" and "macro" buttons (turbo for rapid fire, macro allows you to program in a button combo and execute it by pressing a single button).
Anyway, I saw this thing in Target and had to buy it. I'd always thought that the Sony boomerang controller looked pretty comfortable and was disappointed when they dropped it. Was I right? After five straight hours of gaming, the answer is (mostly) yes.
This thing is the most comfortable controller I've held; that animated Sony gif was absolutely right. When you think about where your elbows are in relation to your wrists when you're holding a controller, and the way your hands would fall if you relaxed them, you can see why the boomerang shape makes sense. Well I can tell you that the theory is right, and it's obvious the moment you actually put your hands on the controller (so much so it's kind of disconcerting). It now feels unnatural (almost like a chore) when I hold my other controllers - which is a shame for reasons I will talk about later.
So why only "(mostly) yes"? If you look at the last pic of my controller, you can see that in profile the controller is very similar to the Sixaxis and its clones (e.g. Logitech PS2 controllers). And that's the problem. With the boomerang, the Sixaxis (due to convex L2/R2), and my wireless Logitech PS2 controllers, I generally use my triggers fingers on all L and R buttons, and use my middle fingers underneath to support the controller, whereas with the old DualShock2 I tend to use my ring fingers to support the controller and use my middle fingers on L2/R2.
The boomerang suffers from the same problem as the Sixaxis (for me), in that after a while (5 hours?) my middle fingers start to ache from supporting the controller. I don't know if the Sony boomerang featured a similar profile to this ProGamer one or not; hopefully not because this is the only downside to the ProGamer comfort wise. I can't stress how easy it is to hold though, my wrists feel relaxed the whole time.
Finally, what are the actual buttons and sticks like? Well the layout feels very nice, all are easy to get to and nicely placed. The little sticks are cool, I actually prefer them to the bigger sticks on the Sixaxis. The L and R buttons are OK, at least your fingers don't slide off L2 and R2 as they do on the Sixaxis.
The biggest disappointment with this controller is how crappy the quality on this ProGamer one is. The buttons are all dodgey (it sometimes take me three loud, clicky presses of L2 or R2 before I actually change gears in GT5P, and the face buttons are just as bad) and the d-pad is so unreliable I started navigating menus using the analog stick rather than the d-pad. The sticks also suck majorly with large deadspots (which is a big problem on such little sticks!) and seemingly non-uniform response across their range of motion. The sticks especially are a shame, because the size and tension on the sticks just feel so right! But the sensors are horrible.
Yes this controller was cheap, but I couldn't in all honesty recommend it to anybody, the quality is just that bad. At the moment it is only good for one thing, and that's reinforcing how comfortable the Sony boomerang would have been. The worst thing is that it's made all other controllers feel uncomfortable to me, and yet they're the ones I now have to use
