With all the media content that the world has given us all access to, it’s quite easy for some of us out there to assume that without the top of the range gear there’s absolutely no point in getting into gaming. It’s either a Razer this, an Elgato that or a Corsair goodie that you think you need to start digging into that game of Resident Evil or to hop on to COD server with your buddies.
Well, I’m here to tell you that there are other options out there that don’t necessarily require you to take out a loan or to sell your little brother’s bicycle to get, and they aren’t half bad.
VX Gaming might not be a household name, but I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of Volkano. Volkano have been making affordable, portable speakers, headphones and other accessories for years now. I’ve had one of their Blaster’s since as far back as I can remember and besides one incident with our Random Sales Guy, it’s worked flawlessly.
VX Gaming is by Volkano, so although you might not know the brand too well yet, it doesn’t just come out of nowhere. Think of it as Volkano’s offering of gaming hardware made for those of us on a bit of a budget, but without compromising too much on quality.
I was given the VX Gaming Heracles bundle to take for a spin and the amazing price it has quite a lot to offer. Yes, there are some areas where the devices could improve but getting 4 pieces of peripheral equipment for less than you could spend on a mouse alone means they had to cut some things out somewhere.
The Heracles bundle includes a mouse, a keyboard, a mouse-pad and a pair of headphones. Essentially everything you need to get right into gaming.
Let’s start with the least exciting of the bundle, the mousepad. Yes, it is the least exciting but only because it’s simple. It is a bit smaller than what I prefer, measuring in at 250x210mm, but it does the job it was designed to do. It doesn’t slip around the table and allows the mouse to glide around it like a professional ice skater doing their routine. It’s plain black with the VX Gaming log on the bottom corner so it’s not flashy, but sometimes simple is better.
Moving on to the headphones, at first I thought they were relatively light, however, after some extended use I came to enjoy that I could hardly feel them on my head. They don’t have an adjustable fit, just the elastic style band that will try to fit to your head, which works perfectly fine but some with a smaller head might have an issue with the headphones sitting nicely. On the box VX Gaming calls the headphones a “Deep Bass Headset” and you can certainly tell that the sound that comes out of the headphones is quite deep. The headset doesn’t come with any software so you can’t tweak it that way, but you could use some other programs if the sound profile is not to your liking, personally, it did take a while to get used to over my current headset. The microphone works well enough and your teammates won’t have any problems hearing you shout “I’M GOING IN” when you’re not supposed to. The Headset does have a USB Cable to power its RGB and the audio connection is the standard dual 3.5mm jack for both the earphones and the mic.
The keyboard and mouse are where the bundle starts to show value though, while the mousepad is just a simple mousepad and I didn’t completely enjoy the bassy sound profile from the headphones, I had absolutely no troubles with both the keyboard and the mouse.
The mouse’s weight is kind of in the middle, it’s not too heavy or too light so it would make for a good all-rounder for most game types. The finger buttons are quite long so it fits both a claw and a full palm grip and the material is comfortable in your hand. It comes with two side buttons which you can configure in-game or in-app and has an adjustable DPI switch with 1200, 1800, 2400 or 3600 DPI options. I didn’t love the random lightning pattern on the palm of the mouse, but that’s just my personal preference. It does come with a non-configurable Rainbow RGB light to add that extra 0.1 KDA to the mix as well. The mouse performed as I’d expect any mouse to and I’d be happy to have one on my desk.
The keyboard also comes with the same Rainbow RGB as the mouse, so in total, we’re getting at least a 0.2 KDA increase, but it also comes with 10 extra functional keys and the F keys also double up as media control. It’s not a mechanical keyboard like you hear everyone talk about online, but the key-press feel is not spongy like a lot of membrane keyboards are. There’s some nice feedback when tapping on the keys and they feel responsive in the game as well. Of course, I do a lot of typing and I was quite satisfied to use the keyboard for a bit of that as well. The 10 extra function keys do make it very easy to pull up other apps like email or the calculator quite quickly too.
While this isn’t the best set of peripherals I’ve ever used, what blew me away was that I could pick all of this up for as little as R700 and for that price, this is a fantastic set of gamer gear. There are a few things that I didn’t love, like the small size of the mousepad or the sound profile from the headphones, but overall, this is the complete package and for someone looking to get into gaming I would definitely recommend this as an entry-levelset. I can even see it being hard to upgrade from it once you’ve got it as the value for money is just insane.