Conclusion
It’s scary how strongly I feel about the comparison of the “Noisy Cricket” to the Roccat Lua Gaming Mouse. The Lua is well built. The Lua is small. The Lua is lightweight. The Lua looks cool. AND the Lua performs well respectively. It’s a mouse that packs a punch in relation to its size and stature.
Sadly at the end of the movie when they shoot the spaceship out of the sky Jay trades in his “Noisy Cricket” for a more suitable gun. The more suitable gun is a metaphor for any gaming mouse with more than 3 primary depressible buttons. From this point I’m going to say that anyone who is really looking for a “gaming” mouse is going to bypass this product.
The Lua, in my eyes, is not really a gaming mouse. No mouse with this number of buttons is going to be considered a gaming mouse. The days of only needing a ‘right’ and ‘left’ click function are days of the past. Games incorporate functions like ‘prone positioning’ and the ability to talk using a 3rd party client like Ventrilo or Teamspeak which has the ability of using a ‘press-to-talk’ function.
The box for the Lua features an interesting quote: “Honor the past while moving boldly into the future” – Dr. Erik J. Dale (Roccat Scientist).
This is might be the ONLY scenario where I couldn’t think of a more inappropriate statement. The computer peripheral industry advances and changes as the games that they are meant to control change. The days of the standard 3 buttons mouse and 104 key-switch keyboard are days of the past for a reason. A perfect example of this is the Logitech MX518, arguably the best gaming mouse of all time. The MX518 came out in 2005 and had 5 primary buttons. 2005! 7 years have elapsed since the MX518 and games have only gotten more complicated.
Don’t get me wrong, my intention is not to discourage anyone from buying the Lua. I know there are a lot of classic shooter gamers out there that would have an orgasm over this mouse but I’ve found a more contemporary use for it. The Lua is now my regular day to day office mouse. I know, I know, why would you use a gaming mouse as an office mouse? Well, if you haven’t noticed, products with the ‘gaming’ moniker have a tendency to be highest end products so why not replace my GARBAGE Lenovo stock desktop mouse with one that makes me smile every time I look at it. The Lua is supposed to retail around $30 upon release. With a retail price so low why not invest in a product that would be a definitive upgrade to the mundane “day to day” of your crappy work-PC’s mouse? Overall ThinkComputers gives the ROCCAT Lua Gaming Mouse an 8 out of 10 score.
Pros:
- Typical Roccat Construction
- Cool Illunimation
- Lightweight
- Good Software
- Cost
Cons:
- Only 3 Buttons
- Small in Overall Size
