Being GAMbIT's unofficial Playstation guy, I was excited to hear that my main man George was sending me some controller accessories to take a look at. At this point in my life, I'm fully aware that video games have long ago crossed into the 'harmful addiction' end of the hobby spectrum. I could have bought a new console with the money I spent on my current custom controller for Christ's sake! But I digress. In the world of shooters, the difference between a win and a loss is measured in 10ths of seconds. Trigger King Xcaliber PS4 Adjustable Triggers claim to give you the edge by increasing reaction times, enhancing comfort and increasing accuracy. Spoiler alert, they don't.
Anyone familiar with firearms (digital or otherwise) know that triggers have a "sweet spot", in which the gun actually fires. Depending on the gun (or game, as it were) there's some leeway between the trigger's untouched resting point and the point where the firing mechanism, well, fires. On the other side of things, there's even more "empty space" between the sweet spot and the point where the trigger is fully depressed. With practice, you could "ride the trigger" by never fully pulling or releasing it, and manually keep it in the sweet spot between firing and resetting the mechanism for the next shot. But that's hard to do.
Trigger King's Xcaliber trigger accessory attempts to mechanically eradicate those empty spaces and wasted moments by using pairs of set screws to keep your trigger(s) in the sweet spot all the time. The idea is to stick their oversized plastic triggers on top of your controller's. One screw keeps the trigger slightly depressed, while the second screw keeps the trigger from being pulled all the way. Since they're screws, they can be adjusted to whatever sensitivity works for your game of choice. In theory, this is amazing. In practice, it's aids' asshole.
Full disclosure, I was fairly hungover while trying to install these things on one of my backup controllers. The three-step paper instructions were a little vague, but luckily they posted a video to a youtu.. aw shit, the link's broken. Well, I decided to take the advice of so many unhelpful pricks and "google it". When I finally found their video, it was blurry as shit and still didn't answer all my questions. At this point I went with my usual "fuck it, let's go anyway" attitude, used their included wetnap to clean both my triggers and stereotypically Dorito-dusted fingers and got down to business.
First off, their triggers were way bigger than the stock controllers. The video explained to make the outside edge as snug as possible, but didn't say shit about the height. They're attached using those Scotch 3M sticker dealies, so I had a few tries to get it right. When I finally got it into a position that seemed to work, I got to the calibrating. I first tried it out on the current 800 lb. gorilla of FPSs, Black Ops 3. The concept is simple enough. Screw down the depressor until your gun starts to fire, then dial it back a hair. Next, hold down the trigger and screw the trigger stop until, you guessed it, the gun stops firing, and dial that one back a hair too. Bam! You're the new sheriff in town! Right?
Xcaliber PS4 Adjustable Triggers
-M. Hamilton