Rushing to the keyboard and mouse aisle at a local electronics shop, my eyes darted from mouse to mouse, hoping that the raid group I was in would not find another person to take my place. I was repeatedly dying, my anger rose, and my mouse was not as durable as I had hoped. I had very little cash but did not want to buy something that would end up lasting a day then die on me. That’s when I spotted a red, silver and black mouse that was pretty big compared to the other mice but at the same time looked like it would be a good buy. Not even bothering to take a closer look, I grabbed it, got to the checkout counter where I was shocked at the $37 price tag; I took it home and thus started the great adventures and adversities of the Rocketfish Gaming Mouse.
The first thing anyone will notice about this mouse is that it’s large compared to other mice. Really large. The base area of the mouse covers about twice as much area as other wireless mice, which doesn’t mean much except to those of you who need to see every member of your family portrait mouse pad.
The second thing that you notice about the mouse is a little button on the top of the mouse that reads "DPI." DPI is basically the reading of how sensitive your mouse is: the higher the number, the more sensitive it is. The button allows you to change the DPI sensitivity from 800 DPI (John Wayne setting) to 1600 DPI (Owen Wilson setting). The button works fairy well, but is by no means easy to access considering that it is at the dead center of the mouse, which your hand covers.
This mouse has a grand total of four buttons, and one wheel. Two of the buttons are in the standard mouse position, but the other two are located above and below the thumb. Now at first glance, this may seem like a great idea, which is what I thought, but play with it for long enough and you realize that during game play if you don’t keep your thumb completely still, you’ll be randomly chucking grenades and casting on groups of bad guys; you’ll be kicked out of groups faster than Leroy Jenkins. There is hope though: if you choose not to install the software that is so graciously provided with the mouse, it won’t activate the two side buttons. For most games, I have no use for them, but if you do decide that you want or need them, the software is extremely simple to install and comes with a very easy to use interface that lets you set exactly what you want each of the buttons to do.
The mouse is very comfortable and seems pretty well thought-out for a generic brand gaming mouse. The top is hard silver plastic with no horizontal slit that separates the back section of the mouse from the front left and front right clicker, which leads to a much more natural feeling click. The sides of the mouse contour well to an average adult’s hand, and have a rough black rubber coating to insure a strong grip when the mouse bolts every which direction. All of the buttons are easily accessible and very responsive.
The mouse is an optical mouse, so it works on pretty much any surface that’s not glossy (sorry, no using your D&D books and no, not even if you’re a Dungeon Master). The glide pads on the bottom of the mouse run smoothly over every surface I’ve tried it on, even leather if you’re so inclined. I have found that the max range for this mouse when directly facing the receiver in the computer is around 10-12 feet, which is quite a bit less than the boasted 30 foot range, but still fine for anyone who wants to be able to see their screen. If you place the USB receiver on a side that is not facing the mouse however, it severely decreases the range to around 3 feet.
Unfortunately, there is a very big negative for this mouse: the battery life. The good news of the mouse is that there is an LED that lets you know when the battery is running low; green means good, red means your low, and no light means your character’s dead, sorry. The battery, or rather batteries (two AA’s), will last you about two to four weeks of battery life (the DPI setting matters so little that it won’t affect the battery life no matter what it is set on). This leads to you seeing more red than green and flying through batteries faster than they can charge.
It’s a solid gaming/home hybrid mouse, due to the fact that you can change your DPI on the fly. It’s comfortable, it’s slick looking, and it works great, even if the 30ft they claim was just a bit over exaggerated, so the range is more than sufficient. The software included is very user friendly and allows you to program the two side buttons on the mouse; that being said the two buttons are more of a nuisance than a help. Overall, the Rocketfish Gaming Mouse is an incredible value for what you get, and will leave you with high spirits and a sore throat from all the headshots.
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