In 1992, my father bought me an FC (accidentally exposing my age), and the game has occupied a major place in my life ever since.
Fast forward 30 years, from the original 8bit to the current 3D masterpiece, I can also be regarded as witnessing the era of the most rapid development of the game. While game graphics, gameplay, mechanics, and console performance continue to change and improve, gamepad changes are also earth-shaking.
In addition, as more third-party manufacturers venture into the field of controller peripherals, today's gamers can choose the right controller for themselves. It can be said that the prosperity of the game industry can be perceived from the changes in the controller over the years.
As a 30-year-old player with "travel age", the author's personal requirements for the controller are always to put the control comfort first, and the appearance should be enough to see, and the shape should not be too jumpy.
With these needs in mind, we take a look at Thor's newly launched Scorpion Tri-Mode Elite gamepad G70, which will undoubtedly give us a more targeted understanding of its characteristics.
01 Elite handle standard shape Function buttons are more abundant
In terms of overall appearance, the Scorpion G70 adopts the common handle shape. The whole body is black color scheme, and the main body is a matte matte textured shell. The left and right sides of the grips have a three-dimensional texture treatment on the back shell surface, which mainly plays a non-slip role.
The size of the Scorpion G70 is not very large, so it is very comfortable for people with relatively small hands like this.
Due to the shape of the "elite handle", the Thor Scorpion G70 button configuration is very rich, and the joystick (joystick cap can be replaced) and the buttons are modular design, which can be freely replaced.
In addition to the regular buttons such as left and right joysticks, arrow keys, and ABXY, the front buttons are also provided with Turbo burst keys, Fn function keys, as well as light adjustment keys, vibration adjustment keys, and Bluetooth pairing keys.
This handle light supports three levels of brightness adjustment, motor vibration support 100% (factory default), 75%, 50%, 25%, 0% five levels of adjustment.
In addition to the conventional four L and R buttons, the shoulder key area is also equipped with two programmable buttons M3 and M4, and the two grooves on the left and right of the middle area are mainly used to connect the mobile phone holder. In addition, the data cable for this handle is Type-C.
The back is set with two programmable keys M1 and M2, which are the back keys that both elite handles have. In addition, the trigger stroke gear lever is designed on the back, and the four mode gears on the back correspond to different platforms:
X-block - Xinput mode - PC platform, iOSmfi game
S block - Switch mode - Switch platform
T-Stop - Virtual Touch Mode - Android/iOS Devices
D-stop - Dinput mode - Android device
In terms of button configuration and functional features, the Thor Scorpion G70 is indeed a veritable elite controller, if you are a speed player, or like to play "Devil May Cry 5" such a relatively demanding game, then this controller is a very good choice. Because compared to the Xbox elite handle with a price of thousands of yuan, the reference price of the Thor Scorpion G70 is only 399 yuan, and the cost performance is quite high.
02 Comfortable handling The replaceable buttons bring different styles
Next, let's talk about the feel.
For gamepads, feel is definitely the first element. In the author's opinion, the feel of the gamepad is mainly divided into the overall grip feel, the anti-slip of the joystick, the feel of the D-pads, and the main button feel.
The overall grip feel we have already said before, this handle is not large, and follows the ergonomic design, so the overall grip feel is very comfortable, especially the texture of the back panel of the grip, making it feel more stable after holding.
In terms of joystick, the Scorpion G70 adopts the original Japanese ALPS e-sports joystick, the damping is relatively light, and the three-dimensional texture treatment around the joystick cap is also done, which enhances the anti-slip, and there is no problem with the direction of the hand. In addition, because it adopts an interchangeable design, you can choose a high stick or a low stick according to your preference or the game you are playing, which is very convenient to plug and unplug.
In terms of D-pads, the same is the use of Japan's original ALPS cross switch, the stroke is short, the trigger is fast, the eight directions can be perfectly recognized, and they are not affected by each other.
The ABXY buttons also adopt a detachable modular design, two sets of schemes and two feels. One is the traditional handle of the conductive silicone press feel, like the author of the old player may like this feel more; the other is the micro-motion button, pressing feels very much like the left and right buttons of the mouse. In terms of personal feelings, the trigger of the micro-motion button is faster, for example, when I tried to play "Eldon's Ring of Law", pressing the B button to run sometimes directly triggered the tumbling.
Therefore, which set of two keys to use, in addition to determining according to their own habitual feel, the other is to see what game they play. If you are playing a fighting game, then the faster response of the micro-motion button will naturally be better.
The feel of the shoulder button and trigger key is also a feeling that I personally like very much. Taking the Xbox handle as a reference, the Thor Scorpion G70 L/R shoulder button pressing feels more gentle, especially the trigger key uses a Hall linear trigger, driven by electromagnetic induction technology, so the overall pressure gram is relatively low, the pressing feel is softer, and the trigger speed is fast enough. And the trigger is equipped with a stroke lever, which can be adjusted in three steps according to your own preference.
In addition, M3, M4 two programmable buttons feel good, personal feeling with the index finger simultaneous control LB / RB and M3 / M4 more comfortable, and its position is also designed better, the control will not feel busy.
The back key design of the Scorpion G70, the author personally believes that there is still room for improvement. For example, the Xbox Elite Handle Back Key adopts a very "hook hand" paddle design, so it feels very close when pressing. The surface of the Scorpion G70 back key adopts a glossy treatment, the key range is relatively short, and the surface is relatively flat, so the feel used in the actual game can only be said to be decent.
If you are a mobile gamer, the Scorpion G70 comes standard with a mobile phone holder, and it is easy to connect, you only need to insert the corresponding position of the bracket into the handle groove.
The Scorpion G70 is a three-mode handle, so it supports wired connection, Bluetooth wireless connection, and receiver wireless connection.
When connected to different devices, it can be switched via the mode paddles below the back, as follows:
The relevant connection method we will not repeat in the evaluation, after all, the manual that comes with the handle has a very clear and clear introduction.
It is worth noting here that when the controller is connected to the Switch, it can directly and perfectly support the six-axis gyroscope, which means that the Scorpion G70 can also control some games through somatosensory mode. At the same time, this handle can also read the amiibo function through NFC. However, if you want to use a six-axis gyroscope on your phone, you need to set up virtual touch technology.
In wireless mode, the Scorpion G70 has about 10 hours of endurance, it has a built-in 860mAh lithium polymer battery, which can provide good endurance.
In addition, Raytheon has also developed the KeyLinker APP for this handle, where you can intuitively adjust the parameters of different functions on the handle, such as button function, joystick parameter, trigger parameter, vibration intensity, continuous button, macro button, RGB lighting effect and so on.
The KeyLinker APP can support up to 4 sets of gamepad key solution storage, each storage can support up to 32 touch points, and support up to 8 contact control at the same time. And the user can simulate the operation of continuously tapping the screen with the finger through the APP settings, and can set the time of pressing and interval to change the frequency of combos.
In addition to clicking, the APP also supports finger sliding screen simulation, users can set the start point and end point by themselves, and the time of pause at each point, sliding speed, trigger response time, etc. can be freely adjusted.
Taking "Glory of Kings" as an example, the author experienced the virtual touch function of the Scorpion G70.
On the APP side, players can take the lead in setting their own customary keys, and can directly read the saved key settings after entering the game. In addition, players can also enter the game and call up the virtual touch setting interface through the Fn key (to open the floating window permission) for real-time settings.
As you can see in the following figure, the blue floating ball in the upper right corner is the KeyLinker APP, click or press the Fn key to bring up the setting interface, more intuitive and convenient.
After clicking the corresponding button on the screen, you can also enter the key editing interface, where you can further set the parameters such as time, speed, distance and so on.
Relative to other handles. The virtual touch function and the accompanying KeyLinker APP are undoubtedly the core of the Scorpion G70, which provides players with a better experience and a good adaptation for games that do not natively support gamepads.
03 Comfortable feel Suitable for all kinds of games
Let's talk about the actual gaming experience.
Ever since I got the Thor Scorpion G70, I've been playing games with this controller. I tried Eldon's Ring of Law and FIFA 22, respectively.
By default, the LT/RT button of the handle is not activated, and it needs to be activated in the handle settings to use it normally.
The more highly used buttons in this game are the RB key (attack), the A key (jump), the B key (speed up to run or roll), and the arrow key (I personally set the riding here). In terms of overall feel, the author personally feels that the Thor Scorpion G70 is more suitable for playing games like Eldon's Ring of Law than the Xbox One controller I have been using before. Because the RB key of the Xbox One controller is a micro-motion trigger, the hand feel is not as good as the conductive gel buttons such as the Scorpion G70 when attacking.
"FIFA22" commonly used keys include X key (shot), A key (short pass), RB key (acceleration), etc., for this game, after the actual experience, the author found that the feel of the micro-motion key module is more suitable. Because the micro-motion button trigger speed is faster, so like the author like to play short pass penetration, the transfer and cutting with the instant feels a lot of silky.
04 Review summary
As an elite handle, the Thor Scorpion G70 is excellent in terms of ergonomic design and functionality, customizable freedom and overall handling feel. And the price is only 399 yuan, which can be said to be an elite gamepad with high cost performance.