Control Zone Keyboard Covers Review - By Mark "Frugal" Bush
In the old days of the Commodore
64 most flight sims came with a keyboard overlay to help us to remember
the myriad of keyboard commands. This was a great idea and really helped
switch from say Gunship to F15 Strike Eagle. Sadly sometime along the
way this process was dropped and we were left to fend for ourselves having
to rely on crude memory systems. We had to trust the developers to put
the commands in logical places such as G for landing gear and F for flaps.
This was a skill that eluded some developers and in fairness has become
very difficult with today's ultra realistic sims.
Buzz Hoffman came to our rescue when he designed the first true hotas
for the PC starting the Thrustmaster legacy. This really helped a lot
but has it's own drawbacks in that learning a new config has a similar
learning curve to learning the keyboard layout. Also a good hotas is
not cheap and carries a further learning curve of actually programming
it.
Cockpit Collections chose to attack the problem from a different angle.
Often the simplest idea's are worth their weight in gold. Cockpit Collections
decided to take the old keyboard overlays to the next level and produce
keyboard covers for many popular sims. The covers are made of rubber
and cover the entire keyboard. Each cover has all the commands for a
particular sim imprinted over the keys for easy reference. They have
also chosen to decorate the keys to look like aircraft lights and switches.
This is a great idea as it gives each cover a very distinctive look,
which makes them easy to locate, and also adds to the immersion slightly
when playing. You could call it a poor mans home cockpit :)
Over the holiday period I've been testing the Falcon 4, Flanker 2 and
USAF covers. The Flanker 2 and USAF versions are an improved design and
have a slight groove between the keys to give a little extra tactile
feedback. They are definitely nicer to use than the Falcon 4 one as a
result. That being said though the Falcon 4 cover does not actually suffer
as a result of not having the grooves. Basically they have just improved
on the design.
Personally I found these covers really useful I now never fly Falcon
4 without the cover. I have found that I now use many commands that I
used to neglect. Many of the RWR commands and also the aircraft lights
used to be neglected as there was no room on my hotas for them. As I
couldn't remember their keyboard locations they rarely got used or I
would use the mouse in the click-able cockpit. Now as good a job as MPS
have done with the click-able cockpit I have to admit to not being a
great fan of using a mouse in cockpit, for me it detracts from the immersion.
I much prefer hotas and keyboard as a method of controlling things.
Another big advantage of these covers was that it really made it easy
to switch from one sim to another, just download the appropriate config
for the hotas, switch covers on the keyboard and load up the sim. I found
the USAF and Flanker 2 covers very easy to scan for the required command.
The Falcon 4 one was a bit more difficult due to the amount of controls
requiring Shift, alt or CTRL to be pressed. This leads me to my one minor
criticism. On the Falcon 4 cover particularly and to a lesser degree
on the others it can be difficult to spot the colour coding for CTRL
keys etc. Not a problem in a well lit room but I'm sure I'm not alone
in favouring subdued lighting for simming.
The covers themselves seem quite flimsy so I wondered about their durability.
Due to my highly organised nature the covers would spend several days
screwed up and pushed down the back of my chair (along with many other
long lost possessions of mine). I was able to satisfy myself that they
were strong enough for the job when after several days of this inadvertent
abuse they still happily opened out and resumed their original shape
ready for action.
I would have to conclude that these are definitely a worthwhile addition
to any serious simmers collection, especially if you tend to fly more
than one sim at a time. Considering the price of just $9.95 for some
of the older covers or $14.95 for the newer ones or any 3 covers for
$29.95 they represent excellent value for money. They currently have
covers for Mig Alley, USAF, MS Flight Simulator 2000, MS Flight Simulator,
MS Combat Flight Simulator, Falcon4, F-15, Longbow, Comanche, F22-ADF,
Fly!, Flight Unlimited III, Freespace 2, Mechwarrior 3 and Wing Commander
Prophecy. They also have many more planned including Janes F/A-18 and
Di's Super Hornet.
At these prices you can't really go wrong. I certainly have my eye on
the Mig Alley cover and I'm really looking forward to the covers for
the F-18 games. I don't tend to give scores in reviews preferring to
give my opinions and findings and leave the readers to make up their
own mind. But if I did give scores then these covers would certainly
score high. You can get these covers from www.cockpitcollection.com
