A short while ago, I received a modded PlayStation 3 controller from GamerModz. For those of you who haven’t heard of the company, GamerModz make custom controllers for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 which feature shells with graphics, colored trigger and face buttons, and, more notably, various iterations of their signature “Rapid Fire” feature.

Rapid Fire allows you to fire semi-automatic weapons as if they were fully automatic by simply turning the feature on and holding down the fire button. This feature is supposed to simulate pressing the fire trigger at an incredibly fast rate, to make the gun fire as fast as the game will allow you to fire that particular weapon if you were to repeatedly pull the trigger yourself. Rapid Fire has been developed over the years, and there are three different versions of the feature: SPS-X1, SPS-X2, and SPS-X3. The mod is, according to developers, undetectable.

The controller I was given to review is a PlayStation 3 SPS-x2 controller. This controller can be programmed, in theory, to have both single and dual-trigger rapid fire, while the rate of fire can also be adjusted.

I was also given the chance to have the controller visually customized to my taste. Overall, the process of customizing my controller was a pretty straightforward, smooth, and enjoyable one. There’s quite a selection of visual modifications to choose from for the shell of your controller, like zombie graphics, skull graphics, as well as some color alterations for the trigger buttons, face buttons, d-pad, and analog sticks. You get to preview all of your selections, with the exception of the color of the trigger buttons. I ended up sticking with this sweet looking black and white circuit board graphic.

The looks of the controller, however, did not compensate for the incredibly hard time I had setting it up and using it. As straightforward as the instructions were, they did not tell me that the trigger and D-Pad buttons had to be pressed INCREDIBLY hard to switch on and program Rapid Fire.  I actually spent the first couple of days with my controller thinking the Rapid Fire features were non-functional. It was only after I contacted tech support that I became aware of just how hard I had to press down on R2 and left on the D-Pad to turn rapid fire on. It also didn’t help that the feature had to be turned on every time I switched on my PlayStation 3.

I should also mention that firing my weapon with Rapid Fire was also a bit aggravating, even after I had managed to turn the feature on. If I pressed down on R1 as I normally did, the weapon would fire once, as usual, waiting for me to pull the trigger again. Only if I pressed down a little harder than usual would the gun fire like a fully automatic weapon. I didn’t have to press down as hard as I did to turn the feature on, but it was still pretty annoying.

With that said, the dual-trigger rapid fire feature refused to work completely. After a solid 20-30 seconds of working out my forearms by pressing down on R1 and L1 with all my strength, as the instructions told me (minus the “all my strength” part), Rapid Fire would turn off for some reason, instead of Dual-Trigger Rapid Fire switching on. I tried this around 3 times, with the same results every single time.

With no real choice, I ended up sticking to just Single-Trigger Rapid Fire for my review. Three of my games of choice for this review were Borderlands 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, and Max Payne 3.

Overall, the feature was functional in all three games, although the results were more interesting in Borderlands 2. Those of you who are fans of the game will know that all guns manufactured by Jakobs can supposedly fire as fast as you can pull the trigger. With that in mind, I was really eager to try out any Jakobs weapon I could get my hands on, to test out this controller’s capabilities and see just how fast it could pull the trigger for me.

After setting up my game, I got my hands on a Jakobs revolver. The speed at which I was firing that thing by simply holding down on R1 was absolutely ridiculous. We’re talking a revolver firing at more or less the speed of an Assault Rifle. It was a pretty absurd yet gratifying thing to both see and feel. There’s no doubt that the controller really did give me an advantage here, as I was definitely firing these weapons at a rate faster than I could repeatedly pull the trigger myself, and dealing a little more damage than I normally would.

Black Ops II was a pretty average experience, as most semi-automatic weapons were limited to fire rates that you could probably pull off by pulling the trigger repeatedly yourself. Having Rapid Fire turned on in this game seemed more like a convenience than an actual advantage.  I was hoping I could jump into a game of zombies and save myself a power up slot by skipping out on the double tap……….I still needed double tap.

Results were the same with Max Payne 3, as all of the semi-automatic weapons I used could now be used as automatics, but at a pretty normal rate of fire that pretty much anyone could pull off by pulling the trigger manually.

I should also mention that the rate of fire wasn’t really adjustable. I don’t think at least. The instructions told me I could adjust the rate of fire by pressing up and down on the D-Pad. I did this, but couldn’t really make out any noticeable difference in the fire rate of the weapons I used in these games when Rapid Fire was turned on.

Overall, my experience with this controller wasn’t an awful one but definitely not a great one either. As nice as it was to customize it visually, and use it in Borderlands 2 with guns made by Jakobs, the problems I experienced with the trigger buttons mean that the only time I’ll probably be using its Rapid Fire feature is when I’ve slipped the Borderlands 2 game disc into my PlayStation 3.

Rating – 6/10

That VideoGame Blog