Razer Atrox Arcade Fight Stick Unboxing & Overview
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,576 words · ~7 min read
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The Arc Midi R2 by Fractal Design features massive air flow and highly
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flexible liquid cooling support. Click now to learn more. Welcome to my
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unboxing of something that's actually really, really exciting. This is the
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Atrox from Razer. They have spent a
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metric butt ton of time developing this product in collaboration with gamers who
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really understand what you need in a
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fight stick because it is a very specialized piece of hardware for the
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kinds of people who I think that their blurb on the side of the box really will
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speak to those guys that are going to care about the tactile feedback of the
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buttons on a fight stick the way that geeks like me care about the tactile
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feedback on something like a keyboard. So they have this whole long thing and
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that basically ends with forged from the fires of an arcade gaming legacy. The
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Razer Atrox is in the most primeval sense bred to fight. So, they are
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looking to replicate or at least get as close as possible to the feel of an
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actual arcade with well, I mean, by the time you buy one of these and then stop
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going to arcades and feeding endless amounts of money into the machines
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there, actually, it starts to look like a pretty good pretty good value.
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Although, it isn't inexpensive and there's a very good reason for it. So,
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the Atrox comes in a nice colorful outer box and then a more simple sort of what
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we've come to expect from their system components. Brown
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box and the usual excellent Razer
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packaging with a letter from their chief gamer as well as some instructional
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guides and all those kinds of things which you may actually need for this
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product because there are some cool features that you're going to want to
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use for sure. You also get a couple of razor stickers which you can go ahead
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and stick on this product or on something else. First things first, that
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foam. Check it out. Love it. Nice closed
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cell foam. The fight stick might be ruggedly built, but they're not taking
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any chances. And that thing will arrive in one piece. I can pretty much give
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that my personal guarantee. It also comes packed in an electrostatic bag,
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which I almost dropped it. Yep. We were going to do a ruggedability, durability
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test right there. Just like that. And finally, some plastic covers that keep
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it from popping open during shipping because the inside of the fight stick
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does come apart. So, let's start with an exterior tour. So, the first thing we're
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going to see is this is an Xbox optimized controller. So, you're going
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to have an Xbox button as well as default key mappingss to all of the Xbox
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controller functionality that you would expect, except for this guy right here.
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Obviously, there's only one analog stick. However, you can rebind that to
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left stick, right stick, or D-pad as you
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see fit with the dip switch up here. You can also unlock and lock this stuff so
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that if you accidentally mash something and slip, it's not going to go ahead and
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go to the menu of your Xbox or anything like that in the middle of a gaming
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session. They're using genuine Sanwa components. However, you might decide
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that you want something completely different, and that is where the
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customizability comes in. So, that is for both the joystick as well as the
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eight buttons over here. Check this out. Let's open this up using the button
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right here. Actually, okay. No, no, no, no. I didn't finish the outside yet. Okay. Sorry. So, start and back are over
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on the right over here. And then over here, we find nothing but the interface
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connector. So, that's for the 4 meter included cord. So, you're going to be
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able to sit adequately far away from your TV. Then, here we've got nothing.
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Here we've got that button that I teased you about before, but you know, don't
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worry, we'll actually show it to you later. And then on the bottom, we find a
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nice rubber pad that's going to allow it to sit on your lap or on a desk or
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wherever else you prefer to put it without it slipping. So now we can open
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up and have a look at the inside. This is where things get really cool. So
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there's a nice little hydraulic thing right here that opens up and allows it
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to not, you know, close on its own accidentally. You've got a convenient
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little colorlabeled action button guide up here. And all of the buttons are
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completely swappable simply by There we
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go. And there's a way to do this. I'm quite certain of
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it. Yes, there we go. Simply by popping
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off the leads and then popping them
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through the front of the device. Just like that. So you can change out for a
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completely different tactile feel should you so desire. And they they wanted to
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make it as modern friendly as possible. So same thing here. So you can swap out
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the joystick. In fact, it includes a different joystick knob if you joystick
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knob if you prefer that. So there's a ball one on there now. And this
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is it's sealed in the bag. There it is. There we go. So there there's the
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alternate knob that's also included. And then they've got what they're what I
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guess I would call like modding friendly mounting points down here. So, you can
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actually mount additional componentry or whatever else you want to do in order to
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customize the fight stick. And these are all meant to have uh screws driven into
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them so you can put, you know, PCBs or whatever else you would desire to do. It
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also includes a flathead and Phillips combo screwdriver, although I'm sure if
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you're really that into these things, you're going to have your own screwdriver at this point in time, as
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well as the 4 meter wire that I mentioned before. So we can find out how
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long this is in minus ARM lengths, but it might actually take a while. Okay, so
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basically it's really really long. It terminates
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in a standard breakaway connector, so you Xbox folks are probably going to be
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familiar with this one, but of course it also runs of off USB. So it does work on
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the PC just fine, which is excellent for
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folks like me who are going to be using it there. So, since we showed you guys
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the button swapping procedure, which was very straightforward, you can actually
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open up this box right here as well if you want to really get into the nitty-gritty of things. So, all you got
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to do is go ahead and hold that screw in place, and then you can swap out the
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stock joystick. There we go. Which actually has a different texture to it
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as well. So, the bat one has a bit of a
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um of a rough texture, and then the uh the spherical one has a glossy texture.
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So, you just go ahead and screw that back on. I'm just holding this in place
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with my finger for now. And then I can go ahead and use the included tool.
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There we go. Lock that into place. Now,
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I missed something on the outside before, and that was the Xbox headset
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connector down here. So, you're not going to have to worry about not having voice communication. And I also wanted
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to go into a little bit more depth about these guys right here. So, these are
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turbo buttons. You can program them completely without any software, which
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is great because you're not going to be expected to install a driver on your
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Xbox. Duh. So, all you got to do is there's a button combination. I forget
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what it is, but it's something to do with holding like one and eight and something else. Anyway, so you can
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program them for either a four four actions per second repeat or an eight
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actions per second repeat rate. And then you bind them to any particular button
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that you want. So, it glows solid when
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it's set to four and it glows or it blinks rather when it's set to eight and
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then it's not illuminated when the turbo functionality is off. So, that's
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definitely something that you're going to want to set up pretty much immediately when your Atrox arrives.
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Thank you for checking out my unboxing and overview that also missed yet
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another thing. You can swap out the graphics on the top should you so
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desire. It's part of the whole modular design concept thing. You just undo
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these screws. You can put in whatever artwork you want. And now I'm actually
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done. Click like on the video if you liked it. Click dislike if you disliked
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it. Leave a comment if you really disliked it. And don't forget to share
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if you think anyone might find this little guy kind of cool.