Handling and Game Play
The NZXT Avatar was nothing if not comfortable to use. The mouse fit well in my hand, and didn’t force it into any weird positions like previous mice we’ve reviewed (I’m looking at you Microsoft Sidewinder). Its small and ambidextrous design doesn’t quite lend to fitting in your hand perfectly, but the low profile does allow your wrist to lie more naturally. Mileage may vary from user to user of course, but I do have to say that this mouse does a good job by not making its presence known beyond normal usage.
The customizable features and speed of the optical sensor are a little more difficult to test in desktop usage. That being said, I found a few useful tricks to see how well the Avatar faired. Photoshop found some use with the adjustable DPI when making pixel sized adjustments with zooming, and the accuracy of this mouse aided in this exercise.
Still, to put a mouse through it’s paces, you do have to turn to a couple games. So we turned our eyes to some serious and not so serious 3D fare. It’s time to get our frag on.
The so called “serious” game I chose for testing is Call of Duty 4, though I think I called it that just because too many other people take it far too seriously. Anyhow, this game is focused on modern warfare and modern weaponry. This means normal guns that shoot normal bullets that actually need to be accurately aimed at your opponents. So how did the NZXT Avatar fair in this environment? Well the Avatar certainly didn’t hinder my killing ability.
I game primarily with gaming and performance mice, so it is getting really hard to judge them apart at this level. That being said, the NZXT Avatar did feel as smooth as some of the best gaming mice I’ve used. I was able to line up sniper shots easily on low DPI, and should I need a less finer touch I could ramp up the DPI and cut a swath of destruction with a large turret gun. Mouselook was nice and smooth, and I didn’t find myself skipping about too much. So with that in mind, it was time to move to a much more kinetic game.
…and boy can Team Fortress 2 be kinetic and fast moving, especially in the shoes of the Scout class. Though this class doesn’t need adjustable DPI, the youngest of eight boys from the south side of Boston does need twitch capable accuracy to make the capture or kill. I found that while running about, the NZXT Avatar made sure I was able to spin and move to and fro without any lag or skipping.
When it came time to switch classes, I moved on to Sniper and Heavy. Both of these classes benefit from the adjustable DPI. The lower DPI settings allowed me to once again easily draw a bead on someone and snipe their head clear off, and the quick adjustment buttons made it easy to switch to a more combat friendly movement speed when I came under attack. The same things could be said for the Heavy when using the minigun.
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