Last year when I bought the iMac, I made the decision that it wasn’t a gaming platform, and I would use the consoles for my gaming needs. Since then Steam has come to the Mac, and with the Mac App Store providing the likes of COD4, Bioshock and Borderlands, it looks like I may have to rethink.
Although I am a major Apple fan boy, the Apple Magic Mouse is good, but no good for gaming. Don’t get me wrong the precision is good, but the touch sensitive top…not so good. I recently started playing Minecraft, and found it extremely annoying that every time I rested my middle finger on the right side of the mouse (as we all do) it would randomly scroll through my inventory. I found this to be the same with any game that uses the scroll wheel, and to be honest became a pain in the butt.
So, I needed a reasonably cheap, but mac compatible gaming mouse. Now I know that you can just plug in any mouse and it will work, however I’ve used the Razer mice in the past and I’ve really liked them. The DeathAdder comes with compatible Mac drivers allowing you to configure every last feature to get the perfect setup.
The full spec is below
3500DPI Razer Precision™ 3.5G infrared sensor
Five independently programmable Hyperesponse™ buttons
Ultra-large non-slip buttons
Ergonomic right-handed design
PC/Mac compatible
I have to say, it feels good to have a decent mouse in my hand again, and looks like I’m back to “PC” gaming.
Screenshots below, as well of a video of the cool light on the back.
As time goes on, and I buy myself more and more gadgets, these obviously come with more and more remotes. Over the last couple of years I’ve tried various “All in One” remote controls, from the cheap “enter the device ID, and hope for the best”, to a Cambridge Audio MI+ “Smart Remote”
I’ve been more than happy with the Cambridge MI+ however I made the mistake of leaving another remote on top of it, which drained the batteries….
As I couldn’t really be bothered reprogramming it all (which took me ages to get everything how I wanted, also all the macros I had set up), I decided to give the Harmony remotes a try.
I found a good deal on Amazon, and got one of the basic Harmony 515 remotes just to give them a try. The major selling point to me, was that it backed up the remote to an online database.
A couple of days later, the remote arrived, very simple PC/Mac GUI interface, pick your devices and bobs your uncle !
One of the limitations of the 515 remote, was the fact that it will only run up to 5 devices, however this is where the limitations end.
The major thing that makes the Harmony remote series stand out from all the rest, are the way they work. On the “All in One” remotes, you basically switch on device a, then device b, then device c, then switch device a to channel d, etc etc. The Cambridge remote did attempt to combat this, by giving you the option of macro, which meant with 1 button press, you could macro “switch on device a, then device b, then device c, then switch device a to channel d, etc etc”.
The setup of the Harmony creates Activities. Once you have set up your devices, it will give you a list of suggested activities based on your devices. An example of this would be “Watch TV”. The setup runs through, and asks the following question.
Assume you want the TV on (and what channel, AV, etc), the PVR on, do you want the amp on, if so what channel, when the activity is complete, do you want the volume controls to control the amp or the TV, etc. Once done, you plug your remote into your PC/Mac and download the information to it, and your done. When you then click the “Watch TV” activity, it turns on the TV, switches to my HDMI channel, turns on the Sky HD, turns on the amp, and switches to CBL/TV, sets the control to emulate the Sky+ remote, and the volume control to control the amp.
This setup works for DVD, PS3, Xbox, and anything else I throw into the mix !
With being so impressed with the 515 remote, I treated myself to the Harmony One remote, and moved the 515 up into the bedroom. This gave me chance to use the “Replace Remote” function within the Harmony software, plugged in the Harmony One, clicked Replace Remote, and within a few minutes it had configured the new remote with my configuration, all the devices worked as before ! Brilliant !
The advantage of the Harmony One, is that it can control up to 15 devices, has a colour touch screen and comes with dock/charger, and to be honest looks the business.
If you are looking for a smart, all in one remote, look no further than the Harmony series !
I like most of you, use twitter, facebook and occasionally pop on to myspace to see how many bands want to be my friends.
Anyway, on the 4th of October, through total fluke read through a twitter conversation, and noticed a load of twitter entries from @squ1r3ll, with updates on his gaming status….linking to a site called raptr.com.
Being a bit of a gamer I’ve tried for months to get my gamertags, achievement, out to my friends and virtual friends, but the only way I’ve found to do this is manually.
I tried a number of facebook apps, and had varied success, they would either change my status to “Darren is playing…..” after a couple of hours of gaming, or just not bother at all. The achievements would post to my feed, however this was a manual process, I belevie the app is called “Xbox 360 Live GamerCard”.
Anyway, raptr.com, what is it…well let me tell you, it’s fantastic, and what I’ve been looking for, for ages. You sign up (using Facebook connect if you like) and add your gamer profiles, eg Xbox Live, PSN, Steam, Warcraft, etc etc, what it then does is monitors and reports on your gaming activities, eg which game your playing, on which platform, and records how long, and any achievement you may get.
Xbox live is monitored through the feed that Microsoft so kindly provide, and updates almost in real time (can be a 5/10 min delay), PSN tracking is currently broken due to Sony putting a restriction on their data. Everything else is tracked by the client.
The client is a custom messenger type client that can also run your msn, gtalk, aim, yahoo, xfire and icq, however this is the key to tracking the stats on your PC/Mac. On initial install it will scan your hard drive for games, and add them to your collection (both on the client, and on the website), any new games installed it will pick them up and also add to your collection.
When your ready to play a game, just start as normal and this will change your messenger stats to “Darren is playing xxxxxxx”, as it does with your online raptr status too, and logs the time played. When finished, it calculates the time you were playing and adds this to your tally on the website.
With the site you also get the option of a couple of signatures with varied information, all updating in real time, varying from currently playing to, the last/most played with you longest played 6 games.
Once you start to build up your friends, it will give you a ranking out of your current friend on a particular game (bases on the number of achievements you have), you can also compare achievements on a game with upto 3 friends at a time.
Finally one very cool feature of Raptr, is that when you get an achievement, it will tell you what percentage of Raptr users who have that game, have gained that achievement, giving you an idea of how hard it was.
The only downside with Raptr, is that it is unable to check your PSN stats, now this is through no fault of their own, it just seems Sony is being a little protective about their data. You can update your playing time, but this is manual, hopefully some day in the future, they will allow this.
From googling the PSN issue, I stumbled on a number of other social networking for gamer sites, GamerDNA, Playfire and Giantbomb.
I haven’t used any of the sites as much as I’ve used Raptr, however they all seem to be kinda tracking my stats.
GamerDNA, does seem to track PSN stats, and pull through the trophies, but there seems to be around a 2 day delay
Playfire, Love the layout, but again doesn’t pull through the PSN stats/trophies, doesn’t track time, and also about a day behind.
GiantBomb, I only signed up for this last night, but it’s already tracking my Steam, Warcraft and XBL, but again, no PSN.
All in all, it’s good to more and more of these sites popping up, I remember the day when gaming was deemed as geeky, however seems every man and his dog is doing it now, and it’s now socially accepted.
Personal recommendation, give Raptr.com a try, it just works and if you do, feel free to add me as a friend
and if you do, feel free to add me as a friend