The grips come in their own individual packaging, a small rectangular plastic box that opens easily. The one thing I noticed right off the bat was that these new grips didn’t have the six “claws” that the previous models had on the bottom to hold onto the Xbox’s thumb sticks. The new ones had only three claws on each one. The old ones were a complete pain to get back off of my thumbsticks, and when they did they took off a good deal of flesh from the pads. I have deep grooves on my thumbsticks now. Hopefully fewer claws means less damage.
I decided to test out the CQC first, and installed them on my controller. They go on fairly easily and feel very stable once installed. I wiggled them around a bit and gave them a little tug to make sure they were on there good. Very secure, I had no fear of losing one mid-combat. I fired up Gears of War 3 and got to killing some Locust scum. I saw a definitive improvement in my accuracy when aiming, and it certainly felt like I had more control over my movements. Having the extra height, though it seems minimal, adds a mountain of control to the gaming experience.
The convex surface and surface with lots of rubber grip is really where the CQC stands out for me. I am an “edge of the thumb” gamer. When I move, I roll my thumb and use the edge of my thumb rather than my whole digit to move the thumbstick. This had led to my finger slipping on more than one occasion, causing me to miss a shot or even stop right in the line of fire. With the CQC I can game my way and not have to worry about slippage.
Now it was time to remove the CQC and test the Havoc. Just as I had hoped, it was easy and didn’t screw up my thumbsticks. I got a fingernail under one of the claws and it came off easily. You have no idea how happy that made me. Screwing up my new controller would have cost Kontrol Freek some serious points in this review.
I popped on the Havocs and, taking the advice of the guys at Kontrol Freek, tried them out on Halo 4. The added height is a definite plus. It may not seem like much to someone who has never used them before, but it’s pretty much the same as putting an extension on a tool that won’t do the job by itself. You have more room, can put less pressure on it to do the same job, and can be very accurate with every action you take. I noticed a huge improvement in my accuracy when it came to killing alien scum.
