Once I was past this hurdle, I really started to have fun with the chair. Racing down a track in a muscle car and power-sliding through a corner really takes on a whole new feeling with the leaning sensation the chair provides, and being able to grip the gamepad like a joystick and push your aircraft into dives and turns makes games like Ace Combat 6 thrilling to play. First-person shooters still felt a little awkward at first, but after getting over the weird feeling of ‘floating’ over the terrain, I was surprised at how much fun I was having each time I tried to literally ‘jump’ away from grenades or melee attacks. Once you get past the initial adjustment curve, (it really is a unique experience) the novelty of having a whole new way to play games is difficult to resist.

With that in mind, the chair does have a few challenges to overcome. Given the chair’s somewhat pricey nature ($389 at the time of this writing) and its initial perception as a ‘novelty controller’, I’m unsure how it will be received by the console market. While companies such as Capcom and RedOctane have thrown custom controllers into the fray with decent success, it’s not often that I’ve seen something this ambitious come out for consoles.

In contrast, the PC market is used to seeing setups like this all the time (consider how much dough the average hardcore flight sim enthusiast must spend on average), but there’s another problem: While 4th Motion promotes the chair as being “PC-compatible”, no actual drivers are provided for customization.

Connecting the chair to my PC (after bolting on the Xbox 360 controller) caused Windows to detect it as a generic “MadCatz GamePad”, making it a bit frustrating to try and use it for games like Freespace 2 due to the limited axis and buttons available for binding. I’d love to see an official customization utility on par with Saitek’s brand of controllers to properly unlock the full potential of the chair for PC usage, because I know this will help encourage a lot more PC gamers to invest in the chair – until this happens, the best bet for using the Gyroxus on the PC platform is to try playing with some of the third-party driver packs available (such as XBCD ) and hope for the best.

Despite these problems, I don’t want to sound like I’m coming down hard on the chair. My contact with 4th Motion has shown me they’re paying very close attention to the feedback the product is receiving, and are already reviewing possibilities for expanding support on the PC platform (citing an understandable need to strike a balance between ease-of-use and flexibility), as well as making considerations on how else they can extend or improve the chair’s functionality. So while it may need a bit of work to get the full attention it deserves on the PC platform, the Gyroxus still provides a very appealing, unique, and at times thrilling experience for console gamers – for those willing to take the plunge.

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