It’s been a long time since we’ve talked about the following creator in the scene. His name; RockerGaming. His passion; creating solutions for retro and modern controllers/consoles. Today I’m going to be discussing one of his newer concoctions which is a rumble replacement for your OEM wired Gamecube controller. So come on, let’s get into it, shall we?
Unboxing/Install:
Pros:
- Weight. Due to the OEM vibration motor being a metal box that has a swinging, spinning metal piece, it is heavy. I mean, we all know math, right? Metal plus metal equals not light. But at the time, it’s all that the world had in terms of making your controller vibrate. When it comes to what Rocker Gaming is offering, it’s primarily plastic. The weight of the cell phone motor and mounting bracket is 1/4 of the weight of the original rumble setup. Your wrists and hands will thank you in the long run.
- Simplicity. Installation is easy. First, you’ll take out the old setup. To do so, open up your controller, desolder your rumble motor, and lift out the rumble motor and mounting bracket. You’ll also remove the trigger boards from the left and right sides. Now set the new bracket into the same place, flip the whole PCB over, screw the two screws into the GC PCB, and then solder the 2 wires in place of the old motor making sure the red wire goes to the positive marked solder point. Slip the trigger boards into the new rumble bracket in the left and right sides and you’re done!
- Colors. There are different colors to choose from. My guess is that if you have a transparent shell, you might care about which color you’re buying. I’m not sure if it’s the same colors RockerGaming supplies every time or if he just prints the brackets using extra color on hand. At the time of this article, he has pink and orange available. It’s a good thing to have options, even if you don’t need them!
- Design. This part is not going to matter to anyone but me, I’m sure. But you’re reading this for my opinions, right? Well if you look at the picture below of the pink bracket, you’ll see that the wires have a little plastic bracket that keeps them in place and routed to the lower right. This is personally genius since it takes stress off of the ends of the wire. Speaking of smart design ideas. The vibration motor itself is locked inside of a small door that is screwed shut. Sure this is so he can add the motor in after printing, but he could’ve cheated on the door. He could’ve omitted the door and just glued the motor down hoping that would be good enough, but he didn’t! He made sure the motor is never coming out. He also has a big square brace below the motor. Do I know why; no. Do I think he did it for a reason; yes.Additionally, can we talk about how cute the little cell phone vibration icon on the left is?! He could’ve left that out or put in his RockerGaming logo, but I love the small touch of the cell phone vibrating embedded into the bracket.
- Feel. Man, it’s a crazy thing to have a different feeling to your controller. I think everyone will experience the sensation differently. By that I mean some people who are in their 30s and higher may not immediately care for a buzzing feeling over the overt sensation that the previous rumble got you. Having said that, if you’ve played cell phone games before that featured vibration and/or used Joycons and been fine; you’ll be right at home here. At first, I was like🥴, but after a while, I started to feel🤤. I hope you do too!
Cons:
- Wavebird? It doesn’t support the Wavebird wireless controller and that makes me sad! Imagine having a Wavebird controller that’s 30 grams lighter.
Final Thoughts:
Look, if you buy this product and you’re unsure if you’ll like it, do the following. Put it into your secondary controller. If you come to find you like it, you can just swap it into your favorite controller. It is $25, so it isn’t the most inexpensive product out there, but I find the price to be logical. If you can’t come to terms with buying something you may not like at $25, then don’t do it in the first place. But I honestly think you’ll have a great time with it. Eventually, you will get used to its nominal difference.
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