My hand and other parasitoid xenomorph second stages.

So, after only just making a post about having trouble with the often vast number of keys attached to skills and abilities in MMOs, I thought I’d try to make life easier for myself. Where I use ‘easier’ quite wrongly.
G13 Gameboard
As such, while I was away over the past couple of days my G13 gameboard turned up at home. I plugged it in this evening and had a quick go in a couple of MMOs. So far, so ow my hand. It’s amazing how much one’s hand has moulded itself comfortably to the standard QWERTY-based WASD-type configuration. This evening I’ve found several tendons that I didn’t even realise I had, and they’ve made it be known that they are not amused at being exercised in such a manner. No sir, not one bit.

Still, I can definitely see the potential in it (once my hand stops cramping up in what I assume is an attempt at impersonating a facehugger from Aliens) with a great many keys at hand and available for binding to abilities, skills and other functions; and once I beat my brain into submission (I think it’s jealous of my hand and is trying to impersonate Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a form of one-upmanship) over using the thumb-stick to drive my character rather than the keys, I will free up even more space for extra abilities. Then there’s the multi-page function switching and even LUA scripting should I want to have a go at creating a sentient device that will play the game for me while I sit back and drink my favourite King’s Peg; although, considering the ‘success’ of our sentient Captcha system, that might not be considered the wisest of plans.

I’ll hopefully post a reviewlet in the coming weeks, as and when I get to grips with the thing. Speaking of grip, I need to go and find some Deep Heat to massage into my hand to see if I can shift it from this Hammer horror-esque claw configuration before I go to bed, otherwise I’m going to wake up in the night, see it sitting their beside me on the pillow, and try to beat it to death with a slipper before I realise what’s going on.

6 thoughts on “My hand and other parasitoid xenomorph second stages.

  1. Docholiday

    I just mentioned last week about my version of this as I use the Microsoft Strategic Commander. Certainly the G13 seems to be more featured but I do love the MS-StratCom’s ergonomics as I have spent QUITE a few hours using it and never have had any issues.

    With that being said, I do find it very hard to play MMOs without it now that I’m used to it.

  2. Melmoth Post author

    Hoom, that’ll be the danger: I’ll become so used to using it that it will be very difficult to go back to using just a keyboard.

    That and the possibility I become known as the Crab Hand, and thus am forced to take up a life of super villainy.

  3. FraidOfTheLight

    So you’re keeping your slippers on your pillow now as well? Aren’t the shoes getting jealous?

    Having a hand in permanent claw-shape could grant you major kudos. If you have a doctorate, you could call yourself Dr Claw. Put on a hoodie, and you’re The Hooded Claw. Become a disembodied hand, and you’re simply The Claw. The possibilities are endless.

    (References there are, respectively: Inspector Gadget, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, and Toy Story 2 & 3).

  4. Melmoth Post author

    No need for my shoes to be jealous, there’s plenty of Melmoth to go around.

    Excellent claw references there. I’ll just add Lion-O’s claw shield as a particular claw-based favourite.

  5. Ysharros

    Does it work for left-handed weirdos like me or is it Righty-restricted (as so many mice are these days)?

    I need to do something about my incipient RSI (working all day on a keyboard and playing all night aren’t helping) and though I *was* considering something more simple like a trackball, this FaceHuggerInator does seem intriguing.

  6. Melmoth Post author

    The keypad seems to be pretty hand neutral, but the little thumbstick is attached to the right-hand side, so I expect that that would be unusable by a leftly handed person.

    I would definitely recommend trying one in a store where possible, the keys are spaced such that even my not inconsiderably sized hands are only just able to reach the keys comfortably.

Comments are closed.