Best gamepads and VR accessories 2022: escape reality | Articles | Gadgets, gifts and accessories

For some peo­ple, video games are a source of plea­sure and an excit­ing pas­time, with­out even hav­ing to leave the house. For max­i­mum immer­sion in the game world, appro­pri­ate acces­sories have been cre­at­ed — joy­sticks, steer­ing wheels with ped­als, hel­mets or vir­tu­al real­i­ty glass­es. We have stud­ied the mar­ket and select­ed the best gamepads and oth­er gad­gets that will take the qual­i­ty of gam­ing to a new lev­el.

The gamepad is one of the most pop­u­lar game con­trollers. Source: engadget.com

Game controllers

Let’s start our review with gamepads for com­put­ers, game con­soles and even smart­phones.

Sony Dual Sense

This gamepad appeared along with the fifth gen­er­a­tion of the PlaySta­tion game con­sole. The sig­na­ture fea­tures of the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tion of Dual­Shock 4 con­trollers have been pre­served, but new fea­tures have been added.

DualSense is avail­able in three col­ors. Source: wylsa.com

Instead of the Share but­ton on the gamepad, there is now Cre­ate. It opened up new oppor­tu­ni­ties for gamers:

• game­play record­ing;
• cre­at­ing screen­shots;
• pub­lish­ing con­tent in com­mu­ni­ties.

Also DualSense equipped with a micro­phone. Now users do not need a sep­a­rate head­set to com­mu­ni­cate with friends dur­ing the game.

Gamepads are pre­sent­ed in dif­fer­ent col­ors. In addi­tion to the clas­sic white and black, there is also red. The con­troller was orig­i­nal­ly designed for the PlaySta­tion 5 and is also com­pat­i­ble and con­sid­ered one of the best gamepads for PC. You can con­nect it with a cable via USB or via Blue­tooth.

GameSir X2 Bluetooth

This con­troller is designed for “mobile gamers” — users who pre­fer to play on smart­phones. The gamepad makes con­trol more con­ve­nient and is attached to any phone as an addi­tion­al unit. A fea­ture of the Game­Sir X2 Blue­tooth mod­el is a wire­less con­nec­tion, but you can also use a wire. In reg­u­lar ver­sions of the con­troller, a Type‑C cable is required — there are no oth­er options.

Game­Sir X2 Blue­tooth can also be con­nect­ed to a com­put­er via Blue­tooth or cable. In Win­dows, the gamepad is defined as the Xbox Wire­less Con­troller.

All gamepad but­tons are easy to press and work clear­ly. The sticks are mod­er­ate­ly tight, so there are no false pos­i­tives. The case is made of mat­te plas­tic, thanks to which the con­troller lies com­fort­ably in the hands.

The slid­ing mech­a­nism allows you to fix smart­phones of dif­fer­ent sizes. Source: ixbt.com

Users have access to a pro­pri­etary appli­ca­tion with which you can update the firmware, test the gamepad and con­fig­ure it to work in games with­out the sup­port of indi­vid­ual con­trollers. The built-in bat­tery lasts for 3–4 hours of active play. It takes about 60 min­utes to charge it.

Virtual reality devices

Stores sell var­i­ous VR devices, includ­ing hel­mets and gog­gles. The first pro­vide a more com­plete and real­is­tic immer­sion in the world of vir­tu­al real­i­ty, but are not cheap. Glass­es are more afford­able and also cre­ate a VR effect, but not as deep as hel­mets.

Oculus Quest 2

This is the sec­ond gen­er­a­tion of the VR hel­met known in gam­ing cir­cles. Two ver­sions of the device are on sale, dif­fer­ing in the amount of inter­nal mem­o­ry — 128 GB and 256 GB.

The vir­tu­al real­i­ty hel­met Ocu­lus Quest 2 turned out to be bet­ter than its pre­de­ces­sor in all respects. It has increased per­for­mance, increased screen res­o­lu­tion, and it has also become more con­ve­nient due to reduced weight and size. This is not just a vir­tu­al real­i­ty hel­met, but a wor­thy replace­ment for the Xbox or PlaySta­tion con­soles.

Ocu­lus Quest 2 comes in white and black. Source: pocketlint.com

A Snap­drag­on XR2 chip and 6 GB of RAM were installed in the hel­met, so the per­for­mance is enough to run unde­mand­ing games — with­out con­nect­ing to a PC. If the user prefers top titles like Half-Life: Alyx or Asgard’s Wrath, a com­put­er is required.

The VR hel­met comes with com­fort­able con­trollers that feel good in the hands thanks to the thought­ful shape and mat­te plas­tic. The loca­tion of the but­tons is clear­ly cal­i­brat­ed. Lacks only built-in bat­ter­ies with USB charg­ing. You still have to use AA bat­ter­ies.

Ocu­lus Quest 2 is one of the best vir­tu­al real­i­ty head­sets that can work sep­a­rate­ly from the com­put­er, even if not with the most demand­ing games. Some users con­sid­er this device to be a good alter­na­tive to clas­sic game con­soles.

Bobo VR Z6

The effect of vir­tu­al real­i­ty takes any video game to a whole new lev­el. And, if a user does not always have mon­ey for a hel­met worth more than 50 thou­sand rubles, then every­one can afford Bobo VR Z6 vir­tu­al real­i­ty glass­es — they cost only 3,000 rubles. The gad­get is com­pat­i­ble with both oper­at­ing sys­tems — Android 4.4 and above and iOS 8 and above.

The Bobo VR Z6 has secure, adjustable straps to pre­vent acci­den­tal drop­ping of the glass­es dur­ing the game. Source: techxreviews.com

This device works in com­bi­na­tion with a smart­phone with a screen size of 4.7” to 6.2”. The larg­er the dis­play, the more detailed the pic­ture will be. The phone is insert­ed into a spe­cial com­part­ment and the game starts on it, and a sep­a­rate gamepad is used to con­trol it. In fact, there is no real inter­ac­tion with the vir­tu­al world, and the glass­es sim­ply pro­vide a deep­er immer­sion in the image on the screen. This effect only appears in 3D smart­phone games designed for VR glass­es.

The glass­es put on the head adjoin to the face with a soft sponge. It elim­i­nates the for­ma­tion of scuffs, scratch­es and the usu­al dis­com­fort dur­ing pro­longed use of the device. VR glass­es don’t offer the deep immer­sion of the Ocu­lus Quest 2, but they also cost less.

Fit AR‑X 3D

This is anoth­er vir­tu­al real­i­ty glass­es that are cheap­er than the pre­vi­ous ones — only 1800 rubles. The reduced price is due to the sim­pli­fied design and the use of less expen­sive mate­ri­als.

Fit AR‑X 3D also work togeth­er with a smart­phone, which is insert­ed into a spe­cial mount. All gad­gets run­ning Android and iOS oper­at­ing sys­tems are sup­port­ed. Allow­able screen size is from 4.7” to 6”. Glass­es give new impres­sions from favorite 3D games and view­ing of three-dimen­sion­al videos.

Steering wheels and joysticks

For fans of sim­u­la­tors, there are high­ly spe­cial­ized con­trollers — steer­ing wheels for auto rac­ing and joy­sticks for var­i­ous “fly­ing games”.

Thrustmaster T150 RS

One of the top PC gam­ing steer­ing wheels with ped­als, which was orig­i­nal­ly released specif­i­cal­ly for the third and fourth gen­er­a­tion PlaySta­tion con­soles. This is a brand­ed steer­ing wheel suit­able for all rac­ing games. The device is com­pat­i­ble with com­put­ers with any oper­at­ing sys­tem: Win­dows 10/8/7/Vista/XP.

The brand­ed PlaySta­tion logo in the cen­ter of the steer­ing wheel indi­cates the full com­pat­i­bil­i­ty of the gad­get with Sony game con­soles. Source: trustedreviews.com

The ped­al block is made of high-qual­i­ty durable plas­tic, and the steer­ing wheel is cov­ered with rub­ber­ized mate­r­i­al and is pleas­ant to the touch. It rotates with a slight effort, increas­ing the lev­el of real­ism in rac­ing sim­u­la­tors. Steer­ing wheel return is pro­vid­ed, as in real cars.

Thrust­mas­ter T150 RS ped­als are also hard to press, and all but­tons are pro­gram­ma­ble through the set­tings menu in the game. You can use the pad­dle shifters to shift gears.

Logitech G920 Driving Force

This game steer­ing wheel with ped­als is not suit­able for PlaySta­tion, but can be con­nect­ed to Xbox con­sole and PC with any oper­at­ing sys­tem. Using pro­pri­etary soft­ware, you can cus­tomize the device to your require­ments and enjoy your favorite rac­ing sim­u­la­tor.

The brake ped­al has a non-lin­ear trav­el, sim­u­lat­ing the oper­a­tion of a real brak­ing sys­tem. A spe­cial mech­a­nism responds to the force of press­ing, pro­vid­ing a feel­ing of more pre­cise brak­ing. The steer­ing angle of 900 degrees allows you to rotate it two and a half turns in each direc­tion. This indi­ca­tor is sim­i­lar to real cars.

The steer­ing wheel Log­itech G920 received a qual­i­ty fin­ish, like a real car. Source: whichcar.com

The Log­itech G920 Dri­ving Force steer­ing wheel has high-qual­i­ty and secure­ly pressed clamps to the table, and a patent­ed anti-slip coat­ing is applied to the bot­tom of the ped­al unit, which reli­ably adheres to shag­gy car­pet or smooth lam­i­nate.

Thrustmaster joysticks

For game con­soles and com­put­ers, a large num­ber of con­trollers designed for flight sim­u­la­tors have been released. Which joy­stick is bet­ter to deter­mine is dif­fi­cult — they dif­fer in func­tion­al­i­ty, on which the price great­ly depends.

Thrust­mas­ter TCA Offi­cer Pack Air­bus edi­tion is a top-end joy­stick, the price of which is almost 17 thou­sand rubles. The kit, togeth­er with the main con­troller, includes an engine thrust con­trol lever with but­tons. This joy­stick is designed specif­i­cal­ly for var­i­ous flight sim­u­la­tors. It will not be pos­si­ble to play rac­ing or shoot­ing games on it.

Thrust­mas­ter TCA Offi­cer Pack Air­bus edi­tion is one of the top con­trollers for flight sim­u­la­tors. Source: thresholdx.net

Thrust­mas­ter T‑16000M FCS Hotas is one of the best PC joy­sticks in terms of val­ue for mon­ey. It costs about 13 thou­sand rubles and also has a thrust con­trol lever for engines. It dif­fers from the pre­vi­ous one only in that it has a some­what sim­pli­fied design. It is also slight­ly small­er and lighter.

Thrust­mas­ter T‑Flight Stick X — This joy­stick is com­pat­i­ble with PlaySta­tion 3 and PC. It is much cheap­er than the pre­vi­ous two — only 5700 rubles. In the kit there is only a con­troller, and the draft reg­u­la­tor, which is present in the two pre­vi­ous mod­els, is miss­ing. This is a ful­ly pro­gram­ma­ble gad­get that allows you to immerse your­self in the vir­tu­al world of a space or flight sim­u­la­tor.