Mad Catz S.T.R.I.K.E.7 Keyboard Review

The STRIKE7 is very simple to setup, especially with the assembly manual to help you if you get stuck (remember you lose man-points if you look at it). When setup just like in the first image in the introduction, the keyboard is very comfortable to use, especially with the wrist rests connected. The only issue we had at first, was the lack of spare mains socket, so we unplugged the landline – it’s not like we were expecting any calls anyhow. Bear in mind for the following tests, that they were carried out on a DE layout, but with switched to UK, so the key labels did not necessarily reflect their function.

First Person Shooters

Many gamers prefer red or black switches for gaming, so the choice of a brown equivalent will make for interesting gaming sessions. For this genre, we fired up our current favourite, Borderlands 2. The keyboard offers many different layout possibilities and button configurations, but we stuck with the plain vanilla option for the layout and customised the wrist pad buttons to scroll and the little red button to melee. The feel of the keys was great, pretty much on par with its mechanical brothers and the wrist pads really helped with comfort levels. For this particular game we didn’t make much use of the screen (except to display the clock), but we found the additional buttons and scroll wheel really came in handy for those additional attacks and weapons switching. There was adequate anti ghosting abilities meaning we could mash many buttons at the same time and still have each key being detected. We didn’t really need the arrow keys or the numpad for this particular game, so this section could always be removed or put elsewhere.

In BF3 we decided to make use of the Teamspeak app on the touchscreen. When we logged into the teamspeak server, the screen was quickly populated with other members and all the chat rooms. This was great for seeing who was talking when in game, and would really benefit single screen users.

Role Playing Games

Roll playing games tend to require much more use of the keyboard for different attacks, spells and abilities, so the STRIKE7 should be ideal for this. Jumping into a game of Diablo 3, we quickly configured some of the additional buttons on the left edge of the keyboard to launch different abilities. As it is spaced fairly far away from normal WASD keys, it took a little getting used too, but soon meant we could case many abilities without having to move our hands that far. We also made use of the macro abilities this keyboard and queued up a string of commands for when we used a health potion. This was great as it allowed us to cast many abilities all within a short space of time, giving us the edge against some of the tougher enemies.

Real Time Strategy

A decent keyboard is crucial for RTS games, especially when playing competitively and the STRIKE7 looks like it could really help. We decided to play a bit of C&C3 and some Supreme Commander for this as these are some old favourites of ours. Whilst StarCraft II might have been more appropriate, sadly we do not yet own a copy of this! Jumping into game, we found it very easy to issue commands from the keyboard and continued to at comfort, for long hours into the night. The keys have a very nice feel to them so tapping away for long periods of time never got old and it was easy to locate all the right keys without having  to look at the keyboard.

General Use

Personally, for general use, we thought this is where the keyboard really shone. All the additional keys make it ideal for someone who uses Photoshop or a program along those lines, as it was simple to bind commands such as Ctrl + V to the additional macro buttons. The extra scrollwheel was also good for horizontal scrolling when it was configured correctly, great for when editing those images. The onscreen media player, volume controls and the mute button were also great for quickly changing track or adjusting the volume levels. The program screen was also a great feature, allowing you to quickly open our favourite programs at the touch of a button.