[typing]
Hori USA just sent me this thing to review,
since they thought it seemed right up my alley
and they were right!
This is the Tactical Assault Commander Pro,
the latest attempt by a company to bring mouse and keyboard controls
to console games.
And not only is this one made by the company famous for arcade sticks,
it's also licensed by Sony for use with the PlayStation 3 and 4,
which made me think the Tactical Assault Commander Pro might not suck.
It also has an obnoxiously long name that's trying way too hard to be cool,
so I'm just gonna call it the TAC Pro from now on, if that's okay.
As you can tell, this is not just an adapter for your existing peripherals,
and instead it comes with its own mouse and keyboard.
And I'm happy to say that even though you can use your own mouse,
the one it comes with is quite nice,
and it feels similar to my current weapon of choice, the Ducky Secret.
I like the shape. I like the material. I like the weight.
I don't really have any complaints with it.
There aren't too many extra buttons, but there's enough.
You get two on the left-hand side and two on the top
below the main mouse buttons
for adjusting the DPI up to 3200.
You also get a keyboard base unit
with a setup mimicking the far-left side of a full keyboard,
along with a few function keys, an analog stick,
and a PS4 touch pad.
It also features an optional backlighting system
because it just wouldn't be a gaming device without LEDs these days.
The keys themselves are mechanical
and use Hori's proprietary switches.
They aren't as clicky as I prefer
and take very little pressure to press down,
much like Cherry MX Reds,
but that's fine since these are built for gaming and not typing.
Along the bottom, you have an adjustable wrist rest,
on the left-hand side is a headphone jack,
and underneath, you've got some toggle switches
for playing on different systems and swapping movement functions.
The mouse plugs into the main base unit,
which in turn plugs into your system
using a pretty long USB cable.
No wireless functionality here.
And if you want to, you can install some software on a PC
to program the keys to your liking and apply various presets,
although a good portion of this stuff can also be done on the hardware itself.
Now the TAC Pro is tailor-made for playing first-person shooters,
but it'll play any game you like.
I ended up choosing Skyrim: Special Edition,
Duke Nukem 3D World Tour
and Mafia III to test here,
and I picked these because I've played each of them on PC recently
and I know how they should feel,
at least, to my preferences.
So, what's the verdict?
Ehh, well, the TAC Pro ranges from pretty okay
to absolutely awful, depending on the game.
I spent a couple hours messing around with various settings,
presets and adjustment across each title, but
none of them ever felt like they do on PC.
The keyboard portion feels fine,
an it's nice having such precise controls for movement,
but... the mouse?
No...
No matter what settings I used, it's always either too fast,
too slow, or has a very obvious dead zone
or mouse acceleration function being applied,
which makes things imprecise.
Mafia III was the worst offender here,
since the game itself artificially smooths out the camera movement
and it made me motion sick almost immediately.
Skyrim played alright, once I got the mouse acceleration and DPI dialed in,
but it still felt super awkward when trying to make finer movements
like shooting arrows or picking up objects.
Duke 3D was the best of the bunch,
but that makes sense due to its copious usage
of old-school auto-aiming being enabled by default.
But even there, aiming at things like switches and shooting at smaller objects
felt less natural than it should.
And to be honest, these results are pretty much just what I expected.
The TAC Pro is emulating an analog stick and applying that movement to a mouse.
It's not a matter of build quality or design.
Both are quite nice.
It's all about how the vast majority of console games
are not designed to be played with a keyboard and mouse.
Unless the game specifically allows you to disable things like smoothing and acceleration,
there's only so much the TAC Pro can do for you in this regard.
And perhaps an even bigger issue is the fact that most people I know,
including myself,
like to play console games from a couch or a lounge chair.
Unless you want to set up your console at a desk,
you're probably stuck awkwardly using some kind of lap rest
or table while playing with this.
Granted the setup I'm using here is not meant for this purpose
and you'd want to get something that is wider and more stable, but
even then, how many people are going to use a wired mouse and keyboard in their living room
on their PS3 or 4?
And taking these issues into account,
and seeing as the TAC Pro costs $150,
I can't say I'd recommend this for its intended purpose.
And that's not really Hori's fault.
I know this because if you use it on a PC as a regular mouse and keyboard for gaming,
everything feels solid. Excellent, even.
But on the console side,
while they did about as good a job as can be expected,
they're fighting an uphill battle.
Unless console games just start supporting a proper mouse and keyboard control scheme,
gameplay with this feels unnatural and annoying
as a PC gamer.
Maybe if you play with a controller exclusively
and you're not gonna notice things like mouse smoothing and acceleration,
you'll have a better time with it, but I just couldn't get used to it.
Combine this with the need for an extra surface to use it
in most cases in the living room and...
yeah, I would pass on this one.
[jazz music]
And if you enjoyed this episode of LGR,
perhaps you'd like to see some of these other videos on hardware things,
as well as games and whatnot which come out every Monday and Friday here.
And as always, thank you very much for watching.