There are around 105 keys on your average computer keyboard. Now I’m not counting the media keys and neither should you. Little Bobby wants to play Battlefield 3. It is 9:00 PM on a Tuesday and because Bobby’s dad is so tight with his money every electronic including the lights are off in Bobby’s house to save on the electricity bill. Well Bobby sneaks off into the family computer room after his dad falls asleep, turns on the family computer, puts on his noise cancelling headset, and boots up Battlefield 3. Not daring to turn on the light in the room, Bobby is forced to search in the dark for W, A, S, and D just move around in game. After hours of switching to his secondary weapon instead of moving forward and throwing grenades when trying to stab noobs, Bobby is fed up with Battlefield 3. He turns off the computer and attempts exit his pitch black computer room only to stub his toe on little Jessica’s Barbie doll. Bobby falls to the ground in agony, and with all of his built up frustration screams at the top of his lungs, waking up his abusive father. This all could have been avoided if Bobby had asked for a Razer Nostromo for Christmas. Razer Nostromo Although it was never in the plans to stop child abuse, Razer’s Nostromo has given abused children hope while playing their favorite PC games. In all seriousness, the Razer Nostromo is a great alternative to your average keyboard and mouse load out. With a total of 16 fully customizable keys, the possibilities are nearly endless. All preset to the popular WASD movement binding, the Nostromo comes out of the box ready to be used. No tedious loading of updates here my friends. Simply plug and play. Having been liked by over 3,300 people on facebook, I had to give the Nostromo a try. At first glance the game pad looks very generic. An ergonomic palm rest slops up to the 16 or so keys and on the right side is a scroll wheel and a thumb stick. Yet when you plug the Nostromo in something magical happens. Light! Yes the Nostromo is backlit with a well lite blue light. What this? Even the scroll wheel lights up? After tampering with the game pad for a round or two of Battlefield 3 I came to my conclusion. Although it takes some getting used to the Nostromo is well worth the retail price of $69.99 USD and here is why. To begin the keys are all well separated, allowing your fingers to feel their way to each key. It’s as though they took the entire left side of your keyboard and crammed it into a game pad. Well it doesn’t stop there. Remember the scroll wheel? Well unlike most mouse scroll wheels this one clicks as you scroll allowing for easy transition to weapons. ** Moving onto the thumb stick (which I thought I wouldn’t have a need for). I can confidently say, I will never fly an aircraft in a Battlefield game again without the Nostromo. The thumb stick is very responsive and well designed. With a surprising range of motion I never found myself in one of those “oh shit, pull up!” moments. Now my only “con” to the Nostromo would be that it seems as though (for BF3 at least) all buttons are used except one. In the process of making the Nostromo the engineers must have forgotten about our beloved “G” button. So how are you supposed to through grenades? Well after some monkeying around with the bindings, I noticed that there is one button that serves no purpose on the game pad. Right above the thumb stick there is a small circular button. After binding the grenade action to this button I was tossing hail marries. Well hail marries that go boom… All factory specs given by Razer on the Nostromo can be found here In conclusion the Nostromo was the best $69.99USD I had ever spent on my gaming PC. It provides a little bit of a console gaming feel with the thumb stick (eliminating the need of a joystick) and a little mouse feel with the scroll wheel. That plus having the ability to fully customize your key bindings in eight different profiles (all of which are saved on the Nostromo) the Nostromo will prove to get a lot of use in my daily gaming ritual. The Razer Nostromo gets the No Nonsense Gamers seal of approval! **Please note that the Nostromo does not take the place of a mouse** Continue reading...
