Many iPad users have fallen victim to purchasing a game which uses an on-screen d-pad or thumbstick, and finding the controls taxing. The practice of creating digital inputs based on analog counterparts has been scrutinized universally by both the gaming industry and its community. Sensing an opportunity, Ten One Design developed the Fling in response to the Internet’s loathing of such game design. Keep reading on for my review of the Fling peripheral for iPad.
First and foremost, the Fling is described by Ten One Design as:
"[A]…tactile joystick for iPad. It gives you ultimate control over any game that has an on-screen joystick. Fling's patent pending design provides auto-centering and force feedback."*
A game’s HUD (if elaborate enough) will display through the Fling’s clear polymer, providing the illusion that it isn’t even there. The shape of the Fling is cut in a way that provides a good amount of resistance, while not impeding on performance. From the onset, this appears to be the perfect answer to your touchscreen gaming woes, but the Fling has issues too. The first limitation is the Fling does not work well with screen protectors! I personally had a ZAGG Screen Protector on my iPad, but the contact point of the nub was really sluggish and did nothing to improve performance. Once the screen protector was removed however; it began to work as expected.
First I tried NOVA – Gameloft’s Halo clone, was the exact type of game Fling was designed to improve. In the game settings, I could move the virtual thumbstick anywhere on the screen that was comfortable for me and then stick the Fling right on top. It worked like a charm, not only were the movement controls more responsive, but holding the iPad felt a little easier since I could rest my thumb on the nub. While on a roll, I tried two other Gameloft games: Gangstar: West Coast Hustle & Dungeon Hunter. Gangstar: West Coast Hustle was equally as good, but Dungeon Hunter is where Fling began to stumble. If there was one problem with the Fling, it would be that its design is limited to how the virtual joystick is implemented in a game. The shape of the Fling keeps the range of motion of the nub limited to the circumference of it. So if the onscreen D-pad is larger than the Fling, the game won’t register you moving up when you press up. I also saw this issue return when testing out a few iPhone games, like say Dark Void Zero. If I run the game in 2x, the onscreen thumbstick becomes too large, but if I run it in iPhone mode it fits. Although it greatly improves the control of Dark Void Zero, you are basically stuck playing it in iPhone resolution, on the iPad screen. Not really the experience I was hoping for with how many iPhone games I have.
In many ways, ensuring the Fling is compatible with a particular game is kind of a crapshoot. Ten One Design’s website FAQ, has an editable list of games already tested (about 117) in a Google Doc. You can access it
here and I would recommend doing so before purchase. As more people use the Fling and update this list, it will increase the viability of the peripheral. Still, with thousands of games going untested and new titles like Infinity Blade changing the standards for capacitive touchscreen controls, the virtual thumbstick is becoming less relevant. Therefore, I can really only recommend this to anyone who views the iPad as a gaming platform first and everything else second. If you are one of those gamers, pick up your Fling by clicking the link below. Thanks for reading!
http://www.tenonedesign.com/checkout.php?product=Fling
*Quoted from
http://tenonedesign.com/fling
Note: all images come from Ten One Design website
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