With the value of consoles, controllers, video games, groceries — every little thing — taking pictures up over the previous few years, you are seemingly eager to save lots of pennies the place you possibly can. It is one factor to push the boat out for a brand new Swap 2, however add-ons and equipment can stretch budgets to breaking level. Is a $90 / £75 Professional Controller 2 actually a vital buy when your previous Swap 1 Professional Controller is working simply superb?
Justifying that kind of cash (or extra if you would like that fancy new Zelda one) may be robust, however what when you might improve your previous Professional Controller with again buttons and broader performance, and throw some analogue triggers into the discount? That is what JSAUX is proposing with the Voidjoy Elite Extender, an add-on which makes an attempt to offer your previous Professional a glow-up into one thing resembling different premium pads.
The query is that if this unit will get wherever close to the consolation and utility of pricier pads or when you’re higher off saving up and avoiding this halfway-house resolution. In the end, it is nearer to the latter from my expertise: a barely clunky resolution to a single drawback, and doubtless not the issue you are trying to tackle within the first place – the analogue triggers do not work with Swap video games.
I will come again to the triggers in a second, however first let’s take a look at the worth proposition. For the sum of $39.99 USD + delivery (sorry Europeans, it seems just like the EU’s new user-serviceable battery rules imply this may not be offered within the area), you get a gadget that features again buttons and elective additional triggers, plus turbo and 42-step macro choices, and a 1800mAh battery provides additional juice to your previous pad. Swap 2 wake-up is marketed, though I could not get that engaged on the most recent replace (1.12).
The Extender additionally performs properly with Home windows, iOS, Android (together with touch-only video games), and Raspberry Pi, and you may check sensitivity, load presets, remap buttons, create macros, calibrate deadzones and analogue triggers, and all that recreation, as you’d anticipate, by way of a ‘KeyLinker’ app which features properly sufficient. It’s also possible to swap the colors of the little LED home windows on the again.
Connecting to your Swap 1 Professional Controller by way of the USB-C port, it matches pretty flushly across the high and rear of the pad, giving it little bunny ears when you have the detachable steel triggers connected. It jogged my memory of Floyd, the little floating man from Jet Drive Gemini, in order that’s some extent within the ‘professionals’ column.
The machine attaches solidly sufficient. You’ll be able to nonetheless see slightly hole alongside the highest, however I had zero points with it coming unfastened. As soon as paired, your Swap recognises it as a distinct pad and, as a result of having its personal battery, you possibly can cost your Professional Controller as you play.
The 2 again buttons — labelled ‘P1’ and ‘P2’ — perform as marketed, though you may want pretty lengthy fingers to achieve them. Utilizing the app, you possibly can map these to no matter you want. Testing the Extender over many hours with Tears of the Kingdom, I mapped ‘dash’ to the again buttons for simpler run-jump manoeuvres. They don’t seem to be as elegant as ‘GR and ‘GL’ on the Swap 2 Professional as a result of their clickiness and the Extender’s chunkier kind (they stick out fairly a bit), however they work properly sufficient.
Transferring on to these cute steel analogue triggers. The shortage of optical triggers is likely one of the Swap 2 Professional Controller’s few disappointments. For racing video games, specifically, the delicate management triggers like these afford feels transformative. The Extender’s skinny little levers function 1280-step sampling and are decently responsive. In TOTK, I merely duped the common set off features for protect and bows, however you possibly can map them to something you want. For those who’ve acquired shorter fingers, reaching them could also be a problem – my spindly digits rested on the ends of the detachable prongs, although.
Sure, detachable. With slightly jiggle, the triggers will be ‘unhooked’ and even turned and reattached by way of magnets. It is neat (as a result of magnets) and pretty tidy, though it looks like an answer to a non-problem. The area saved by inverting and ‘storing’ the triggers is minimal given their petiteness. It is a cute however odd design determination.
The main situation for Swap players right here, nevertheless, is that the small handful of video games with analogue set off assist sadly do not recognise this pad’s triggers. Whereas Nintendo’s GameCube pad does assist analogue inputs in its NSO library (as an illustration, to range the stress of FLUDD’s stream in Mario Sunshine) and choose Swap video games, that is not the case right here. If you buy this hoping to lastly feather the throttle in GRID Autosport or Trials Rising, you are out of luck.
It is a completely different story when you’re taking part in on PC. Switching to X-input mode, I used to be capable of play GRID on Steam with the analogue triggers working superbly. However PC gamers will already personal a extra snug, platform-friendly pad than a nine-year-old Swap Professional Controller, absolutely? If it does not add analogue precision to your Swap video games, it is tough to see precisely who this accent is geared toward.
The buttons on the highest allow you to swap modes and program macros, though good luck urgent them with sausage fingers. One ‘button’ pokes by to the Professional Controller’s personal sync button beneath, enabling a type of ‘passthrough’ play if you wish to use the pad as regular (with out the Extender’s features) however do not need to take away the accent for some motive.
Weight-wise, you are including 68g with this connected, so whereas it is slightly cumbersome, it does not immediately make your pad outrageously clunky or heavy.
The issue is the advantages do not outweigh the negatives – not for $40, which you can put in the direction of a recreation or a controller that has all this performance inbuilt. At the same time as somebody reluctant to splash $90 (or your regional equal) on a pad, it is arduous to suggest the GA-10 until you want again buttons and you have got an unbreakable emotional attachment to your previous Professional Controller.
Conclusion
The VoidJoy Elite Extender is not dangerous; it is just a bit cumbersome and finally ends up making you pine for a extra snug, ergonomic pad that actually solves your trendy enter points with fashion. The GA-10 has all of the macro recording skills and turbo features you’d anticipate, and you might discover its extra again buttons and different triggers helpful. Nonetheless, the incompatibility of these analogue triggers with Swap video games is an actual kicker.
As it’s, until you are determined to make use of your previous Swap 1 pad on different platforms and benefit from the precision triggers there, you are higher off saving up and investing in both the GameCube NSO pad (for its triggers) or a bespoke Swap 2 controller that has comparable performance in a extra enticing bundle.
Provides again buttons and doubtlessly helpful performance to your previous pad
Additionally provides it cute little magnetic bunny ears
Lastly, analogue triggers!…
…which do not work on Swap
An admirable however awkward resolution
Again buttons and triggers aren’t in probably the most pure place
Operate buttons on the highest are tiny
Common 5/10
The pattern used on this evaluation was supplied by JSAUX.
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Gavin first wrote for Nintendo Life in 2018 earlier than becoming a member of the positioning full-time the next yr, rising by the ranks to turn into Editor. He can presently be discovered squashed beneath a Swap backlog the scale of Normandy.
