Cyber Snipa Intelliscope Gaming Mouse
The first thing I noticed about this mouse upon plugging it into my computer was that it glows. I hadn't even installed the drivers yet and I was fascinated by pushing the center-most button on top of the mouse to switch the LEDs between red and blue. Although glowing mice are certainly not a grand-spanking new feature on the market, this one is pretty cool because the color of the glow is an indicator of the sensitivity setting of the mouse. The red glow indicates that the 1000 dpi setting is in use. This is used for your usual mouse grunt-work, click and point, solitaire, etc. The blue setting at 2400 dpi is best suited for sensitive detail, such as sniping. And holy crap, is it sensitive. I can set it on the edge of my laptop on its blue setting and use it as I would my touchpad. Its crazy!
As far as size and heft goes, the Intelliscope is like a thundercloud. Its pretty big (I measured 127x64x38 mm, or 5.0x2.5x1.5 inches) but also light and easy to handle. For me, this is a mouse that requires the palm rest on it in order to reach all the buttons. If you are someone that controls their mouse with their fingertips as I was, this will take some practice to get used to. Its worth the switch; being able to rest more weight on the mouse means less stress on the wrists, a boon for those ungodly long frag sessions.
The drivers offer a goodly assortment of customization options. Here, you can assign different function to each of the 6 buttons on the mouse (standard left and right, scroll wheel, two buttons on the left and one on the right), adjust scroll wheel and double click speed as well as mouse efficiency. I saw little need to dink around with anything other than the button customization, the mouse performs very well at its default settings. Outside of gaming there's not much of a difference performance-wise between installing the drivers and not installing them, but even if you don't game I would recommend installing them if only to take advantage of the three extra buttons.
I put this mouse through its paces with three different applications; Codemaster's Operation Flashpoint, Persistent World's 9Dragons beta, and Yahoo! Scrabble. The most notable improvement in gaming was experienced with Operation Flashpoint. Although this FPS is now 5 years old, it still demands a fair amount of quick and accurate reflexes. It also has a rather bizarre mouse accelerator program which can make gaming with a less sensitive mouse difficult. In spite of this, the Cyber Snipa did admirably. I had no problem controlling the various planes, jeeps, and tractors that inhabited the game, and hiding in a bush while sniping enemy troops was an absolute joy.
The 9Dragons beta, a localized Korean Martial-Arts MMO centered around China's Ming dynasty, was next on my list. Although in the U.S. the localization is being handled by Acclaim, I picked the UK version, which is from Persistent Worlds. While the improvement between my old mouse and this one wasn't as great as it was in Operation Flashpoint, it was noticeably easier to rotate my camera. This is especially helpful while running. My hands also didn't cramp up as much, which is nice if when after playing for a while you start sounding like an arthritic Grandmother. Also, I had fun switching the colors of the mouse to kill time between load screens.
Now came the ultimate test. Yahoo! Scrabble. Okay, it really wasn't that much better. But, as it turns out, "Cyber" is an excellent word to use in Scrabble. In the end, the mouse did get me one step closer to winning after all.
All in all I recommend this mouse. Its responsive, easy to control, and accurate. While I'm not a hardcore FPS fan, it handled everything I threw at it easily and didn't cause my hands to cramp up. The blue or red glow not only looks cool, its functional too. Online its retailing for about $25, so it won't kill your budget after the holidays. Hooray!
Rating: 9 Excellent
* The product in this article was sent to us by the developer/company.
About Author
Lydia Graslie is a crazy English/Math double major and a glutton for punishment at BHSU, which is located in scenic Middle-of-Nowhere. Her age is the product of two consecutive numbers with a sum less than 30. She can often be found reading old-school science fiction novels and pestering professors with bizarre physics questions, such as "Why do rocks make that ploosh noise when you throw them into deep water?" and "How much force does it take to throw a sewing needle through a pane of glass?". Lydia kinda looks like a librarian but has picked up too many swear words and uses them too effectively to ever be one.
A fairly recent comer to the world of console gaming, Lydia's first real system was a PS1. Video games were for boys when she was a tyke. That all changed when she swiped a cousins N64 for a weekend and was quickly sucked in. She got a Playstation for Christmas and caught up fairly quickly to her peers, and now enjoys friendly competition with friends who have been gaming since they were just out of diapers. Playstation is her favorite console, primarily because the controller is far more symmetrical button-wise than other recent systems.
Lydia specializes in action platformers, her favorites being the Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank series. She's also pretty good at DDR and enjoys a good space drama, such as Xenosaga or Star Ocean. However she's not too big on violent games and owns only one title rated higher than Teen. Games with wicked social commentary and moral conflicts delight her immeasurably. P.S. Barbie has the intellectual depth of a bag of microwave pork rinds. View Profile
