KontrolFreek FPS Freek Galaxy for PS4 – Accessory Review
Accessories for consoles and controllers have become an important feature in our gameplay experiences, whether they range from simple charging stations to bumper triggers and thumb grips. The latter can give your controller a unique looks while preserving your controller’s analog sticks for a long duration while providing a more comfortable and enhanced grip. KontrolFreek provided us with their FPS Freek Galaxy thumb grips for PlayStation 4 controllers that has all of the aforementioned features.
As stated in the introduction, thumb grips can give your controller a unique look while providing enough protection to last your controller’s analog sticks a while longer. KontrolFreek offers a wide range of unique designs in a decent variation of colors, allowing the player to truly customize their gaming hardware but their designs are also produced for specific types of games. We’ll discuss this in detail later, let’s continue with the design of the FPS Freek Galaxy.
The FPS Freek Galaxy features a simple yet beautiful purple-on-silver color scheme that in all honesty goes well with the black PS4 controller. At the saime time the color scheme does not fit with the black scheme. This opinion is personal and simply relies on the taste of the player. Aside from the color scheme, the thumb grips features an aggressive design of bumps and grooves resembling Resident Evil’s Umbrella logo. Quoting KontrolFreek, this design was “inspired by games like Destiny, Halo and even a certain space opera” and one can certainly sense a certain Star Wars vibe from the design but again, personal opinions and all.
The pack comes with a mid-rise stick which raises the height of your analog stick with 5.7mm and a high-rise stick which raises the height with 10.4mm, a rather significant height difference for people with rather small hands such as myself. The high-rise stick provides more accuracy while the mid-rise stick offers extra grip and comfort. While this is certainly true, both sticks seem to provide more accuracy than the original analog sticks of the controller. Originally the intention is that you should use the high-rise stick on your right stick and the mid-rise on your left stick but you can easily change this set-up depending on how you’ve set up your controller bindings.
Both sticks have a concave design which works better than a convex design due to the fact that the sticks do extend the height of the original thumb sticks somewhat already. Despite the concave design, the sides of the sticks do provide an excellent grip whereas other designs such as the FPS Freek CQC Signature do not provide the same kind of friction at the sides. It may as well be due to the CQC Signature’s convex design but most likely the excellent grip of the FPS Freek Galaxy is caused by the star-like bumps and crevices umbrella design.
Installing the thumb grips – or stick extenders – is rather easy compared to other brands. The Galaxy sticks “slide” over the original DualShock4 sticks without chafing them, effectively prolonging the lifetime of your analog sticks as they cannot wear from extended use and sweaty hands. Once installed, it’s clear that the extenders are not going anywhere as they fit tightly despite the fact that the extenders are attached with “only” three clips. And in case you were wondering, clicking the DualShock4 analog stick is still as easy, if not easier than before.
A slight change in your set-up can take time to get used to but with its increased comfort level, the thumb grips are insanely easy to get used to and with the improved accuracy these simple additions grant a more immersive gameplay experience due to better handling.
As mentioned earlier, KontrolFreek’s thumb grips are designed to work great in specific type of games. The name FPS Freek Galaxy already suggests that these thumb grips are an excellent choice for first person shooters such as Destiny: The Taken King, Halo 5: Guardians and Call of Duty Black Ops III. They also have other products designed specifically for sports and racing games but we can’t comment on how they play in other games. We can however say with all certainty that the FPS Freek Galaxy thumb sticks do work well with other types of games other than the first person shooters. They’ve proved their worth in MMORPG’s such as The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited and motocross games such as MX vs ATV Supercross Encore but also in casual platforming games.
Conclusion
The FPS Freek Galaxy is an excellent addition to your controller by taking the comfort levels to new heights. Furthermore the height difference does make it easier to handle the sticks although the high-rise extenders prove to be difficult for small hands. Aside from the comfort levels and increased accuracy the sticks also provide a certain protection, effectively prolonging the lifetime of your DualShock4 controller. Lastly, the Galaxy thumb grips grant a more immersive gameplay experience without feeling fatigue in your hands, even during extensive gaming sessions.
KontrolFreek FPS Freek Galaxy for PS4 - Accessory Review,
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