Sandio 3D Game O2 - Features - The Armchair Empire

Available from: Sandio Tech

MSRP: $79.99

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Sandio 3D Game O2

If first impressions are anything to go by I would have shuffled the Sandio 3D Game O2 into a dark corner somewhere. For an optical mouse, it looks funny. It has three joysticks incorporated right into it, which is kind of off-putting for anyone like me that likes the streamline nature of a computer mouse. With the optional “fin” or more accurately the “removable ergonomic wrist support” it looks even less like a mouse. It’s like someone took a perfectly good car and slapped spoilers on it, dropped the chassis, and put spinning rims on it. First impressions made me think there was a lot of beer room doodling involved in 3D O2’s development.

That said, it quickly became my mainstay for PC gaming.

After a relatively painless setup and install process, it was time to actually test this thing. As the official website indicates the 3D O2 was designed with role-playing

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and real-time strategy games so I booted up City of Heroes, which I haven’t played in ages but was familiar enough with that any advantages the 3D O2 exhibited might be more apparent.

I accidentally set the DPI to 2000, which made starting a difficult process. For those unfamiliar, “DPI” is short for “dots per inch.” What it means in

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practical terms is that if your mouse is at 2000, even the slightest movement of the mouse will send the cursor flashing across the screen in the blink of an eye – a sneeze could completely hoop you. If you’re a surgeon or a safecracker, you shouldn’t have any problems but for those of us not gifted with unnaturally steady hands setting the device at 400 or 600 DPI is more than enough.

From the get-go, 3D O2 offers much better control of the in-game camera (by manipulating the joysticks), which is much appreciated during the larger fights so you know which targets to take out first. That said, you can also control movement normally handled by the familiar WASD configuration. Basically, this requires two hands on the mouse, which just doesn’t feel right. After a lifetime of using the WASD keys to move forward, right, left, and backward while using the mouse to look around, trying to use this different setup just hasn’t worked for me. Fortunately for the 3D O2 it’s relatively easy to customize the layout and even add games not initially supported (by default). So, while I wouldn’t say the 3D O2 game me any kind of edge in City of Heroes it was definitely a better way to control the camera.

While I hate diagrams like this, it does give a graphic overview of how the basics work when it comes to the joystick operation.

My next real test was playing Universe at War: Earth Assault (from Petroglyph and Sega), a sci-fi real-time strategy title. (Setting a game up from scratch using the included software feels clunky, though with a bit of practice setting things up it does become easier.) Hotkeys are a real-time strategy’s mainstay – if you don’t have a handle on your hotkeys, you’re very much at a disadvantage while playing online. With the 3D O2 it gives you the ability to compact many of the most important keyboard shortcuts to within very easy reach. Plus the ability to manipulate the camera without use of the keyboard is, again, a very cool feature; and with a game like Universe at War where your view is so limited it has actually helped my online play.

Though I only mention City of Heroes and Universe at War in the context of this review, I have pretty much made 3D O2 my default mouse. For everything from Half-Life 2: Episode 2 to Portal to updating the website to wasting time with Google Earth looking for nude beaches.

It took me several days to acclimatize to the 3D O2’s size, but its responsiveness and customization options outweigh that concern, at least for me. (Well, and there are some cool light effects on the mouse itself.) For most though, it’ll come down to price. The 3D O2’s has an MSRP of $79.99 – it can be found for cheaper – which marks it as a higher-end consumer good and there are a ton of so-called ultimate gaming mice out there, so it’s up to the gamer to decide what they want in a gaming mouse. For some gaming genres there is an advantage of using a 3D O2 simply due to the fact there’s more control over the camera, like real-time strategy titles (those joysticks aren’t just for show), but with more standard titles you might have a hard time convincing the casual gamer that 3D O2 is essential.

- Omni

(February 12, 2008)


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