Review: The Mad Catz Cyborg R.A.T. 7 Gaming Mouse for PC

E3, I believe, is generally ruled by the video game companies and respectfully it’s not an unfair assessment. With the coiled claws of the gaming industry firm around the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, we had very little time for many companies outside of gaming. However, we would’ve been stupid to not at least give a few minutes to those companies that provide us with periphs for gaming on both consoles and PC, right? They’re important too! You can’t just leave out the technology that betters our killshots and turns our corners with hot-butter silkiness. Yeah, so think about who we visited and Mad Catz was one of the few companies that got some time with us.

Before everyone leans back in their deskchairs, swiveling with judgment about how this is going to sound like some sort of sponsored drivel — I will tell you this — I am not to be bought. In the past, I have claimed absolute adoration for companies but still put the hammer down when they’ve done me wrong. (Let’s not even go into Logitech’s ALTO and how it disappointed my love-affair for the company and all they did. Or perhaps let’s not even speak on how Saitek, a company that MadCatz bought and completely retooled, made a mockery of my love for them by giving me terrible items in the previous Cyborg lineup. I blasted them for it, ask them.) With all that said, I sat before Alex Verrey alongside both Manda and Trina and awaited to see what they were doing with the new line.

Sitting upon a table, you couldn’t help but want to reach out and wrap your digits around the R.A.T’s oddly mechanical surface. Like a Decepticon made sweet-yet-wrong-love to a Desktop mouse, the R.A.T. looks like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Well, at least on your desk. To pick it up, you feel a heft that’s hardware-laden body almost makes you second-guess it’s worth and quickness but the kind of salivary daring perks your mind as you know, once you get it alone, you want to try it out. That’s the kind of curiousity I felt with the R.A.T. and even Alex could see it in my eyes — I had to try it.

Luckily enough after the Cyborg experience in the past, Alex trusted me not to draw him and quarter him; so he sent me one to review once E3′s chaos had calmed down and the product hit shelves. It boasts “Uncompromising, unparallelled and unmatched” technology for a mouse and as I unboxed it, one thing was for sure: The retail packaging was the most confusing thing I’d ever tackled in my life. Every eschelon of cardboard turned me into a wild maniac, just clawing at thin plastic and chewing at twisted-metal to try and pry the beautiful machine from it’s box. Yes, it’s pretty. That’s not bias because I was excited to review it — every single inch of the R.A.T. is designed to a science to fit your hand. If it doesn’t? Well, we’ll get there in a second. Regardless, I got the damn thing out of it’s box and angels shone their tears, kisses and winged sparkles upon what rested in my palms.

If this was a video review, I’d bring up some Mission Impossible screen as if I was rotating a wire-framed copy of the R.A.T. within a blue and teal backdrop and I’d explain every single feature. Picture it with your Mind Television, if you will, the following facts:

• 5600 DPI — Touting a new generation “twin eye” laser sensor, it tracks up to six meters per second. Now, for those PC gamers out there that know what that means? I’m told it’s pretty fantastic. Personally, I just know that it means that the cursor goes where you want the cursor to go and at a rather revolutionary rate.
• A Custom Weight System — I know that I like when my mouse has some heft to it, since my games on PC always require a lot of quick-jerks (Shut up.) and the more light-weight mice don’t seem to give me the best movement. Five six-gram weights can be either added or subtracted and within the case is a storage container for those you’re not using.
• Precision Aim Mode — Now, you see controllers or mice that boast this all the time but it NEVER worked for me! Using the software included, you can adjust what DPI you’d want the mouse to go down to when clicking the Precision Aim button and it will immediately slow down your mouse temporarily so you can hit your target. This ACTUALLY worked, I was shocked.
• 5 Programmable Buttons — There’s a total of seven buttons on this monsterous machine, but five of them are completely programmable with your included software. Don’t ask what I have mine set to, just know that nobody’s going to have to climb the ladder to turn on the Batsignal tonight.
• Interchangable Parts — (Again, shut up.) Like any good piece of technology, the R.A.T. wants you to get under the hood and really customize it. With a built-in screwdriver (Is it called something else?), you can easily adjust the lift, width and length of the mouse anyways… but they GIVE you more parts to customize your fit. 3 Pinkie-rests and 3 Palm-rests with different tactile surfaces for you to switch in and out of. I loved this, as there are days where I need a good grip. Don’t we all? Har-har.

This, gentle readers, is when the journalist in me perks up and I realize that anything this beautiful to behold? It’s going to play through terribly. I’m going to plug it in, my PC is not going to recognize it and within seconds I’m going to launch it and it’s “Lightweight Aluminum Chassis” out into the cold to scuttle under the house. Trust me, I had ALL of these ideas in my head when I plugged it into the USB port, carefully making sure not a single kink or knot was in it’s cord. (I still concur that, like a Barbie doll, it should’ve come with a cleansing cloth or a hairbrush. You know, to groom it like a creeper.) Upon this moment, not only did Windows 7 recognize it — it practically sang for me to use it. Usually when reviewing a mouse and solely a mouse, I like to take it through the ringer. Here’s what I did:

The Candice Desktop Mouse Test:

1. Call of Duty: Does the mouse’s sensitivity still perform and is it adjustable on the fly? There are times when you don’t need ESP to move your cursor, does it let you without problem?
2. Online Flash Gaming via EA’s Club Pogo: A mouse this technical makes flash gaming feel like taking a nuclear missile to a water-gun fight but flash games nowadays are getting pretty quick-draw.
3. Ease of Use for Guests to Use: I’m not always the only one using my PC, even if I wish I was, and so I wondered if other folks could pick up this beautiful little beast and not get confused, and/or be discomforted.
4. Complication aka: Smoke & Mirrors: Was the mouse given TOO many features? Did they use big words, high numbers and fancy features when it’s JUST a regular PC mouse? Is there a reason for all the pretty or is it just hiding a rather substandard piece of work?
5. Photoshop & Design Work: As someone who heavily uses graphical programs such as Photoshop, Blender and so forth — was this going to bring an actual change to my work?

These questions were all posed and it took a good week and a half to really settle myself on all of these facts. I even took this mouse and one of the competitor’s to switch back and forth with to make sure I wasn’t becoming too comfortable with just one of them. Trust me, a lot went into this.

Within Call of Duty, the mouse needed some adjustment and tightening up — but since it’s got the built-in screwdriver and it literally took seconds, I didn’t even get frustrated over it. I had to pull the palm-rest down a little bit and spread out the thumb. Thing was, after hours of gaming, I usually get hand fatigue. Not so bad after using the R.A.T. though and when I was done, it was only about three minutes to really tighten it back up to normal use again. In Pogo, I noticed that it did feel a little excessive. Precision Aim mode for playing Bingo was just laughable and I found myself giggling over it for about an hour or so, then again, it doesn’t take much sometimes. To really see how the other-side would use a mouse like this, I handed it over to my Mom and let her play World of Warcraft with it for awhile. Now, my Mother is probably the worst person for tech reviewing ever but watching her use it was fascinating. She loved how sensitive it was and during certain skirmishes, she asked how to turn down the sensitivity and since I couldn’t answer immediately — she figured it out herself and was happy. Not bad, really.

On the subject of Smoke & Mirrors, I usually find such gimmick-laden projects to be too much. A lot of bluster but no substance, right? Not this way. There was a lot of attention to detail and everything has it’s use; the actual hardware doesn’t feel cheap whatsoever either which was a problem with the earlier Cyborg line. In Photoshop, I found that frustrations I’d find with sensitivity in other mice, I didn’t have this time around. Also, precision-aim worked REALLY well when I needed to clip and blur tight-corners without edging outside of the lines. Make sense? (My PS nerds feel me.)

At the end of the day, and a very long review, I felt that all the time I took to actually test this out was worth it because this kind of machine deserved a deep look-over. Would I buy this? If your budget for a gaming mouse is between $80-90 — then yes. This is what you need. I’ve tested all the gaming mice on the market right now and this one, despite not being known for it’s PC periphs in the past and quality, has taken the top prize in my book. So, thank you! Thank you, Mad Catz for reinventing the Cyborg line from the ashes and making it a respectable name. What a nice note to start in on and for my last review, for me to go out on.