There is a certain market for gaming mice. These guys are the type that join an online FPS clan. They are the ones that yell at you for trying to have fun instead of cap’n the last flag. They obsess about framerates, lag, and 3DMark scores. But the key aspect of these nerds are that they often blame their computer or input device for failing. “Damn mouse! I knew I should have gotten the one with the 4,600 dpi sensor instead of this that runs at 4,100 dpi!” Well, SteelSeries is back with two new mice and a gaming surface to fuel their obsession.

Photo Gallery by Picturesurf

Who couldn’t use a sweet 15-button mouse or mousepad the size of a desk? SteelSeries is giving away a bunch of gear this month and while the prizes aren’t all listed out, you can be sure they’ve got a few of their awesome keyboards and other devices just itching to get out the door and into your hot little hands. All you’ve gotta do is sign up as a fan on Facebook. I know, a pretty transparent play, right? But it’s no skin off your back and there might just be a free mouse in the deal.
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An update to the ongoing Steelseries Word of Warcraft saga. As you know, there’s no Mac drivers for the mouse thus far, but one of our readers, Jim Krenz, pointed me in the direction of ControllerMate, a $15 application/driver/thing that lets you use the mouse as intended. I bought it late last night, and after about an hour of trying to figure out how to use it, got the mouse up and running.

The above video shows off the neat but useless ability to change the LEDs of the mouse.

A full, proper review is on the way. Give one or two more days with the mouse before I give y’all my final report.

Attention, Mac World of Warcraft players. You may want to consider holding off on buying that SteelSeries MMO mouse till January, since that’s when the company plans to the release Mac drivers, as I just learned. Without those drivers, those 15 buttons are useless. Well, like three of them work when using SteerMouse, a fancy third-party Mac mouse driver, but that’s not exactly ideal.

I have the mouse sitting on my desk right now, but without Mac drivers I have to use my underpowered MacBook just to try it out under Windows.

Just a heads up to my fellow World of Warcraft players, especially those of you who use a Mac. You know that SteelSeries MMO Gaming Mouse that came out a few days ago? It doesn’t ship with Mac drivers, meaning that you’re not able to use all 15 buttons as intended. (That’s even when using fancy, multi-button mouse drivers like SteerMouse.)

In other words, the mouse isn’t nearly as useful to Mac users right now as it is to Windows users. (Windows users can download the drivers from Steelseries’ Web site.) Mac drivers are said to be on the way, but we’re looking at around one month from the mouse’s release till the drivers are released.

Meanwhile, I have to install Wow on my Bootbamped MacBook just to be able to use it properly for the review I’m working on. Shouldn’t be more than a few days till that “drops,” though.

When I was talking to SteelSeries about this beast, they insisted that this wasn’t part of an “arms race.” No, because in a battle of ergonomics, doubling the buttons isn’t always a good idea. But they assured me that they have been working really carefully on this thing to make it usable in the first place, and actually useful in the second. I’m thinking that the diamond-shaped button goes four ways and there’s another on the far side, which, added to all the other buttons there, makes 15.

They worked with Blizzard and designed the mouse around the idea that it’s practically a replacement for your keyboard; all your spells and shortcuts are there for most things, and you can switch profiles or customize super easily so you’re not always in battle mode or all-purpose mode. It’s also kind of cool-looking, which I didn’t expect, and it can be illuminated in pretty much any color you can think of. I don’t play WoW but I’ve seen enough of it to know that this thing might actually be useful. I have a feeling Nicholas will be checking this one out.

Remember the Zboard? Remember how Ideazon got swallowed by SteelSeries? Well, they’ve regurgitated the Zboard and it looks pretty nice. I like the typeface they’ve used, although this keyboard in particular appears to be permanently marked up with WoW-related commands. Doubtless the non-special-editions will be a little less WoW-y, but in the meantime it’s BlizzCon out there and the Lich King is about to run rampant, so we’ll forgive SteelSeries for focusing on that little “niche” market out there.

Although one of the things that attracts me about SteelSeries is its understated design aesthetic, this new cherry-red version of their Siberia headset is actually quite fetching. Anything but black, please.

If you’re looking for a new pair of cans, look for some in the upcoming flurry of reviews (including some SteelSeries stuff), but I can tell you right now that the Siberias are a solid buy.

There’s also a lot of empty space here so I’m going to fill it.

With text.

That’s probably enough.

I’ve always been slightly skeptical about custom key setups. But, of course, I don’t usually play the types of games where a truly custom keyboard might be really handy. Maybe in Guild Wars. But I can certainly see, for games like WoW, EVE Online, and now Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, that a custom keyboard might actually be a real plus. As much as I’m used to it, it does feel a little weird hitting something like just “h” for an AoE heal when I could be hitting, you know, the “AoE Heal” button.

Since SteelSeries took over Ideazon, they’ve assumed control of the zBoard brand, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they put out something completely separate soon.
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The video’s a little longer than the others because I… I mean you love hearing my voice.
It’s another one! For our fourth mouse in the glorious Mouse Review Week here at CrunchGear, it’s the SteelSeries Ikari laser mouse. Sounds serious! We’ve already handled mice for the large-handed and small-handed — will this be the one for the rest of us? Let’s find out. Death from above, text from below! I mean video from above.
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Today, reader PG reviews the SteelSeries SIBERIA Full-Size headset. Want to be a citizen reviewer? Post a review of one of your current gadgets on BFF and we may just send you something nice.

The Siberia set was designed for both gaming and MP3 players. First thing you’ll notice is the clean high-quality open design. The headset is built using a minimal amount of materials supporting an overall light comfortable feel. Other full-size headsets can get uncomfortable after extended use, but not these. The headset is of the open air type, so if you’re looking for complete sound isolation then look elsewhere.

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If you’re a lady (and I think that you are), you may already be concerned about the understated, black-white-and-grey color scheme of SteelSeries’ line of gear. Well, you’re in luck: they’ve updated their line of gaming headsets to include a nice shade of pink, about the color of strawberry ice cream. Now you can scream “girl!” and “gamer!” simultaneously. Check ‘em out here.

The headphones themselves are… well, you’ll find out soon, I’m going to be posting a review shortly.

Steelseries, the pro gaming gear guys who put out (among other things) the 7G Keyboard and the Ikari Laser Mouse, have bought Ideazon, the peripheral maker best known for making the Zboard, a skinnable, customizable gaming keyboard.

As an avid consumer of such accessories and peripherals, I’m glad this is happening; I know the 7G was intended to be just as straightforward as it was, but maybe a little zazz thrown in from the Ideazon side might have made it pop a little more. I’ll stay in contact with them and see what kind of new gear they come up with.

Since the most I ever do with my mouse is scroll up and down looking at dolphin porn, I don’t consider myself the best judge of a high-end gaming mouse from Steelseries. The Ikari has a bunch of insane settings including CPI modification, high sample rate, and built-in macros. It’s basically designed for the people who shoot me in the head whenever I try to play Counter-Strike online.

That said, one lucky commenter who can convince me that they’re worthy of this mouse will receive it to review and keep. All we ask is that you write a review in BFF when you’ve played with it for a while. Comment away, gamers, and become a CrunchGear Citizen Reviewer (TM) (R) (:P).

UPDATE – The winner is DrStrangelove:

Let me start by saying that I’m not a FPS person. Having me play Counter-Strike is like having Michael Vick watch your dogs for the weekend while you’re away; it’s a poor life decision. I’m an RTS guy – mostly gems like StarCraft in it’s pixilated glory.

Two months ago my mouse bit the dust. Since then I haven’t had much in the way of disposable income, so I’ve had to resort to using the track pad and little red dot in the middle of my ThinkPad’s keyboard… I could have stopped purchasing food to buy a new mouse, but eating is easily my second favorite pastime. This is no way to live, I tell you! Not only is it damn near impossible to effectively play any sort of game on my computer, but now I can no longer partake in my favorite pastime of getting hammered with my roommates and playing Portal separately, seeing who can go the longest without throwing up…

We at CG support drunk gaming wholeheartedly.

High-end keyboard week continues! You may not have heard too much from SteelSeries yet, but they’re big in Europe and they’re starting to make their mark here. One of their flagship products is the keyboard I’m typing on right now: The 7G. It’s aimed at gamers, but more in that it’s extremely durable and reliable as opposed to being covered in buttons. Read on for the skinny.

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