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Eagle Eye Converter Review
Posted on January 17, 2012 by OG

If you know someone that plays a lot of PC games and console games, I can guarantee that person has talked about how they could absolutely dominate a console FPS if they had a mouse and keyboard to play on.  Although it’s aggravating to hear this over and over again, it is true that you can be far more accurate on a mouse and keyboard than with a controller.  It’s far easier to be precise with your whole hand guiding a mouse than it is to have your thumb move an analog stick around.  What is annoying, however,  are those people that constantly bitch and moan about how they can’t play on a controller, so for those whiners, Penguin United made the Eagle Eye converter to let you play your Xbox 360 games with a keyboard and mouse.

SHOOT LIKE AN EAGLE

Works as Promised - After the setup process, which I’ll discuss further down below, I was able to get my mouse and keyboard working, and it works well.  You get a strange feeling playing a console game with mouse and keyboard since it seems unnatural, yet it is natural.  I played a few games with it (Monday Night Combat, MW3, Serious Sam 2 HD) and each game felt as it would on the PC.  There was no lag or any awkward input problems.  Once I got the flow of playing on the mouse and keyboard, I can tell my shots were getting better as one would expect.  You almost expect these kinds of converters to have some sort of noticeable problem while playing, but frankly, there isn’t one with the Eagle Eye Converter.

As Precise as You Want It - For the players that know what they’re doing, there’s an advanced setup process available.  Here you can change the dead zone, various sensitivy in the axes, and a variety of other changes.  Personally, I only change the look speed, however for those players who know how to tweak their settings for optimum performance, you can definitely do that with the Eagle Eye Converter.  Again, this is done in the setup process which is a bit of a… 

NEED TO GET EYES CHECKED

Pain to Setup - To setup the Eagle Eye Converter, you have to first connect it to your PC and use the software.  From that point, the software will have a Xbox 360 controller layout where you can go about selecting which button on the keyboard does what.  Once done, you save the keymap and  disconnect the converter.  From there, you connect the converter to the 360 and you have to use a wired controller that will plug into the converter.  When the 360 starts up, the controller will light up, and then you hook-up your keyboard and mouse.  Doesn’t sound that bad, does it?  Well that is until you realize that when you setup all your keys on the software, that you didn’t get them just right.  So you have to disconnect everything, connect the converter to your PC and start the process all over again.  What would make this must easer to work with is if there were built-in keymaps for the most popular FPS games.  During setup, you may not remember how much you use the B button so you put it far away from the rest, or that you realize that the Jump button would be better suited for the space bar rather than the Ctrl key.   It also doesn’t help that only two sets of keymaps can be stored on the converter at once, increasing the amount of effort needed to switch up the keys if you like to play a variety of FPS/Third Person Shooters.  With the amount of effort needed to get the device up and running the way you like it, it’ll make you question on whether you really NEED to play with a mouse and keyboard.

Not For Every Keyboard - On my PC I use the Logitech g15 and I have the Thermaltake TT esports Challenger as a back-up.  Neither of these keyboards will work with the Eagle Eye Converter due to their needing additional drivers to work.  Also, wireless keyboards and mice will not work either.  You'll have to get a barebones keyboard while a gaming mouse will work just fine. 

Not For Every Game - Playing Serious Sam 2, the turn speed was fairly horrible.  It was like steering a car without power steering, requiring me to lift up the mouse multiple times to do a 180.  To remedy this problem, you could adjust the sensitivity, but in this game, it wasn’t an option.  It’s hard to say how many shooters games don’t have this option, but my guess would be that any non-competitive ones will likely not have that option available.  Basically, don’t expect the Eagle Eye Converter to be usable on every game.




As I mentioned in the beginning, for those people that complain about not being able to play on a controller and insist on only playing with a mouse and keyboard, this is an ideal purchase.  In the hands of these players, the Penguin United Eagle Eye Converter can be deadly, but it’s not for the lazy.  You need to have that drive to prove to everyone how amazing you can be with a mouse and keyboard in order to go through the timely setup process to get the keys just right.  If that drive is not there, you’ll quickly realize that playing with a controller is not bad and go back instead of going through all the setup headaches.

 

OG - Editor-in-Chief / Original Gamer og (@) www.original-gamer.com | all author's articles

Is crowd funding the way of the future?

Absolutely. It gives power to the gamers by letting them pay for the games they want to see.
Nope. Crowd sourcing will be fine for a year or two until too many developers do not follow through with their games and waste our money.
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