Manufacturer : NYKO

RRP : $89.95

Available : Nosegrind.com.au

If you’ve read our previous reviews of wireless controllers and experienced them yourself, you will know that we absolutely love them and that it’s hard to go back to normal controllers. Myself, with a couple of young kids running around the house, wireless controllers are an absolute necessity during daylight hours. This latest controller from Nyko aims to solve the ‘cables everywhere’ problem a lot of us have and also offers something a lot of us probably haven’t experienced before in its unique Air Flo system.

The Air Flo system works by pumping air through a fan at the back of the controller and out through some vents on the side where the palms of your hands hold on. Quite a simple idea and I was surprised at how well it worked. To make room for all this the controller is a tad bulkier than other brands and the area where the fan is housed is quite large. Wireless controllers are usually a bit heavier because of the batteries that they need but with all the extra internals that the Nyko one needs it only weighed in at 100grams more than the 4Gamers wireless controller that we reviewed late last year. The speed that the air is pumped out can be adjusted with a small dial on the top of the controller that is marked simply with a + and a -. There didn’t seem to be any difference however in its output between about half way and maximum so perhaps a simple ‘high, low and off’ sliding selector would have worked better.

The idea with the Air Flo system is obviously to keep the hands of gamers nice and cool during those long hot and supposedly sweaty gaming sessions and while I can’t say that I suffer from sweaty palms, the cooling effect it has is noticeable and works exactly as intended. The controller makes very little noise with the fan running and you won’t hear it anyway while you’re gaming.

The other great feature of the Nyko Air Flo is that it is completely wireless. It has 8 selectable channels to avoid conflicts with other wireless controllers that you or your friends might own and works at ranges up to 15 meters or about 50 feet which is pretty decent. I wouldn’t be able to see my TV from that far back but for Xbox owners running a projector or sitting further away from their screen, this long range will come in handy. Even at around 40 feet which was as far as I could test it there was no lag whatsoever and the controller worked perfectly.

The controller features almost the exact same layout as your typical ‘S’ controller. It has the regulation 2 analog sticks, D-pad and the face buttons are in the exact same spot as well. The start and back buttons are in the middle of the controller instead of the left hand side and I do think that the left is the best place for them. To press start I found myself having to extend my left thumb just that bit extra to press it which was a little bit uncomfortable after a while. There are also your two triggers in the normal spot but a nice surprise is that there are also black and white buttons on the back of the controller above the triggers which were easier to access than the normal ones. It would be good to see future official Xbox controllers look at this option as it’s a great idea.

Unfortunately as with most third party controllers the D-pad is its biggest let down. It works well enough but doesn’t have the precise feel that you need, especially for relentless fighters such as Soul Calibur. There is a little bit too much of a ‘soft’ feel to it for my liking but for games where it is used for accessing menu items there wouldn’t be any problems there. The D-pad also features a little removable rubber grommet to allow you to screw in a stick. This gives it a little bit more precision but I would have liked to also see Nyko provide one that is a bit shorter as the stick that is included feels too high when you’re using it. What it is perfect for is the old arcade games in the Midway Arcade Treasures series but including two sticks would have catered to most gamers needs in this area.

Lastly the only other major issue with the controller is that the face buttons all use a clear plastic and have the yellow, blue, red and green coloured area slightly recessed. On an angle this makes it impossible to see which button is which but as we’ve all been playing Xbox for so long we don’t need to look at the buttons anyway. Saying this though, it’s my opinion that from a usability perspective, coloured buttons should always be made from coloured plastic. This controller isn’t the only third party controller guilty of this however and hopefully Nyko will fix this and improve the D-pad in future models.