When it comes to first person shooters, the twin analogue sticks of the Xbox 360 are just “ok”. The One True Path of FPS control is, of course, using a mouse to aim and WASD on a keyboard to move forward, back and strafe left-right. It’s obvious, a truth universally acknowledged.
Shame you can’t do that on an Xbox, really. Or ratther, you can – but you have to either know your way around a soldering iron or slap down $179 for a pre-built Xim 2 mod.
The Xim 2 looks like a bit of circuit board and a couple of wires (hopefully they will snap some kind of casing around it) but it should allow a USB keyboard & mouse to speak directly to your Xbox, with their inputs translated to look like those of a ‘real’ controller, chatpad, etc.
You can only preorder at the moment, but the fact that it is described as ‘PRE-BUILT’ suggests that there may be a kit form ready for launch soon as well. Don’t fancy soldering it myself, mind you. You can’t circle strafe with burnt fingertips.
19th January 2009 | $179 | Xim
