What a surprisingly simple, yet very cool idea: thumbstick attachments that improve your ability to play games with a controller. Broken down into three basic categories, KontrolFreek provides these accessories for use in First Person Shooters, Racing and Sports games.

While I haven’t had the pleasure to use the Speed Freek (for racing games) nor either the TD Freek (football theme) or Hoops Freek (try and guess what this one’s for!), I have been able to use the FPS Freek--and it is simply fantastic. According to their website, the FPS Freek adds a full 40% more linear distance to the range of motion of your joysticks. This is great because it helps making the precise movements needed to do a jumping 180 degree headshot much easier to achieve for the average person--it can literally make you a better player.

The first time I picked up a controller with an FPS Freek on it to play Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, I completely expected there to be a noticeable learning curve. It’s only natural, the more time you spend with something, the better you become with it, and switching up the technology you work with can often cause your initial performance to drop fairly significantly--not so with this. During my first game with the FPS Freek, I was totally on; there may be a learning curve associated with these things, but the quality of my gaming did nothing but improve. To be fair, though, the one complaint I have is that the added distance makes certain movements (e.g. straight back on the stick) feel a little awkward for me because my fingers are short and my thumb just couldn’t reach where I wanted it to go. Overall, though, the positives far outweigh the one negative!