The third and latest XBOX/PS2 keyboard & mouse adapter to hit the market is the Max Shooter. Before this adapter was released there was a good chance that the guy destroying you in Halo 2 was using a regular XBOX controller and not one of the previously released keyboard & mouse adapters. Enter Max Shooter stage right. Now you should be afraid, very afraid, as the Max Shooter basically turns the console FPS into a PC FPS with all the accuracy that that entails. After spending a good few days playing Halo 2, Socom II, and Unreal Championship 2 there is little doubt that FPS games were mostly made to be played with a mouse and keyboard.

What?s In The Package

The Max Shooter, both the XBOX and PS2 versions, come in a small package that holds the actual hardware and an instruction manual. The adapter only accepts PS/2 compatible keyboards and mice so if you have USB peripherals you?ll need to get an adapter or head over to the old used PC shop and pickup an old keyboard and mouse combo.

The actual adapter is small in size and doesn?t hog any serious amount of extra space. The XBOX version features an extra slot on the backside of the adapter for a memory card to plug in.

Features

The Max Shooter, both for XBOX and PS2, is packed with a wide array of functionality which can be accessed by using certain keyboard key combinations listed in the manual. It is fully programmable and also comes with game presets for many titles. The XBOX and PS2 presets are listed below.

XBOX Game Presets

• Halo
• Medal of Honor: Frontline
• The Chronicles of Riddick
• Counter Strike
• James Bond 007: Nightfire
• Tom Clancy?s Rainbow Six 3
• Return to Castle Wolfenstein
• Unreal Championship

PS2 Game Presets

• Socom II
• Medal of Honor: Frontline
• Time Splitters 2
• James Bond 007: Nightfire
• Tom Clancy?s Rainbow Six 3
• Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm
• Return to Castle Wolfenstein
• REZ

If your favorite shooter isn?t listed above, the Max Shooter also has three programmable controller setups to fill your needs. The variables that can be adjusted include key assignment, deadzone adjustment, mouse speed, and mouse inversion. Most seasoned gamers know about all these terms but might not be familiar with the deadzone. The manual describes the deadzone as the zone within an axis range that is interpreted as being at rest.

Along with the game presets, the factory default preset automatically assigns keys in the following way.

The selection of game presets and programming for custom games is all very straightforward, if not time consuming, and is well explained within the manual.

All these features are great but what really matters is how it holds up in the games. So without further ado let us jump in to our first game.

Halo 2

My first experience with the Max Shooter and Halo 2 was less than stellar, but that was completely my fault. Like most gamers I know I jumped in head first without reading a single page of the instruction manual which was a really bad move. The factory default setup is pretty much only suited for menu navigation.

So I popped open the manual and found out about the presets, sadly no Halo 2, and decided to try out the Halo 1 preset so I could get a quick start. Everything worked ok but it wasn?t better than the XBOX controller I had become so accustomed to. In fact, it was much worse. The mouse sensitivity was horrible and the keys were mapped semi-incorrectly. But again this was my entire fault and I dove back into the manual to see how to fix my problems.

An hour and a half later I had finished tweaking one of the user programmable presets included in the Max Shooter and things were starting to feel much much better. The mouse responded close to what I would expect from a PC FPS and the keys were all mapped to my liking, but I was still sprawled out on the floor in an awkward position. I wasn?t quite in FPS bliss.

Another thirty minutes later I had a table setup with the TV, mouse, and keyboard in the regular PC positions and things were feeling even better. The Halo 2 bots didn?t know what hit them, but the mouse movement was still a bit off. Then I noticed in the manual that this is one of the biggest issues that needs to be resolved when setting up the Max Shooter and that I should max out the sensitivity settings within the game for optimal ?PC Like? results. So I did that and it proved to be the one tweak that turned Halo 2 into my first PC FPS on a console. The controls are that good.

I finally decided my setup was ready for prime time and I headed online to face the masses. I must note that my ranking in Halo 2 was quite low before I got the Max Shooter and that the PC FPS setup has always been better for me than any console controller. So with that said, I jumped into an online match and low and behold I got my rear end handed to me like always, but it was just the first match so I pushed on.

I changed my weapon setup from what I usually used to what I thought would be great for accuracy based shots and wow did that make a difference. Now all I use is the Battle Rifle. Four hours later I emerged with a better ranking and an awesome kill to death ratio. My hit rate and shooting speed went way up with my new found accuracy and the competition was destroyed because of it.

Once the Max Shooter is tweaked to a gamers liking, it is an incredibly deadly controller for Halo 2. But Halo 2 is just one of the FPS games out there so lets see how it holds up with the others.Unreal Championship 2

I confess this is my favorite all time XBOX game, so I was extremely excited to see how it would hold up with a mouse and keyboard. I once again tried out a preset which didn?t hold up so well and then went on to create my own setup. Once the setup was done I headed online for a FPS shocker.

I used the same mentality I had in Halo 2; go for the accuracy based weapons. I loaded up the sniper rifle, headed to a dark corner, and started sniping. My TV echoed ?Headshot? many times before the match was over, but that was mostly because no one ever found me. The next match was much different.

The rest of the matches I played online with the Max Shooter were populated with very good players. They would find me sniping and then destroy me. It seems the problem with Unreal Championship 2 is that it was designed to only be a console FPS. Much of the gameplay really relies on the button configuration on the controller. Thus I couldn?t bounce around the walls, dodge, and reflect as well as I could with the controller. This could be because I have spent so much time with the controller that I couldn?t break my habits, but I believe this is one case where the Max Shooter isn?t superior.

So one game is completely changed by the adapter and one is built too much around a standard controller to benefit from it. Next up is the PS2 and Socom II; let?s see how the PS2 version of Max Shooter fairs.

Socom II

Once again I connected the keyboard and mouse to the adapter, plugged it into the PS2, and immediately got a good connection. I surfed through the menus with ease and entered an online game. This time around there is a preset available for the actual game I?m playing. I loaded up the preset and was pleasantly surprised to find the preset layout to be perfect for Socom gameplay.

It felt good and worked just as well as it did in Halo 2. I don?t play a lot of Socom but I found myself playing quite a bit in this setup as I could never get into using the PS2 controller for FPS gameplay.

With the large amount of customization, the ease of use, and the low price this adapter is really worth every penny. If you really want an advantage in games like Halo 2 or just want to try a new controller setup I would definitely recommend picking the Max Shooter.

Pros

• Plug and Play
• Customization and presets
• Low price

Cons

• Lack of new title presets

Overall Score: 9.5

This article was posted on August 26, 2005