Skip to main content

Thermaltake’s newest mouse will keep your hands cool in the hottest games

While it’s not exactly the most physically strenuous sport, PC gaming does have the tendency to get the blood pumping. Thanks to the body’s age old fight or flight response, when the adrenaline hits, it thinks it’s about to do something physical, which means it starts to sweat. For gamers this often means an uncomfortable bout of the dreaded Sweaty Hands Syndrome.

While companies have attempted to address gamer perspiration in a myriad of unique ways, ThermalTake has decided to start its anti-sweat campaign with a PC gamer’s right hand man: the mouse.

Recommended Videos

The company’s new Ventus X comes with a specially crafted matte coating, that has a slightly rough texture, which should mean the mouse remains grippy even in the wettest of scenarios. On top of that, there’s extra ventilation provided by a honeycomb grill built into the palm rest. The idea is that when you’re frantically firing at enemies and ducking in and out of cover, any sweat that does build up is much more likely to be whisked away by the movement of air around your hand.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Related: Forget about your pulse; Electrozyme wants to analyze your sweat

Other features include additional rubber grips on the sides to, again, ward off that dreaded sweat-monster, and a laser sensor with sensitivity that can be boosted up to 5700 DPI. There are also programmable buttons and some adjustable weights for those who want to custom their gaming mouse to fit very specific parameters.

All in all it seems like a well rounded package, but whether it is able to cull the habits of gamers suffering with shoot-out induced hyperhidrosis remains to be seen. It is available now for just $50 on Newegg, so if you give it a try, do let us know.

Anyone else suffer from perpetually sweaty mitts when gaming?

Jon Martindale
Jon Martindale is a freelance evergreen writer and occasional section coordinator, covering how to guides, best-of lists, and…
Pokémon’s free mobile card game is nostalgic fun, but watch your wallet
A trading card battle on mobile.

What's sure to be mobile gaming's next big thing is here. Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket is out now and it brings the classic tabletop deckbuilding game to your phone. It's a free app that lets players open booster packs, collect cards, and play a streamlined version of the card game. On top of that, it's full of social hooks and ways for players to show off their favorite cards. It's about as much of a slam dunk as you could imagine for a mobile game, to the point where I'm surprised it's taken The Pokémon Company this long to make it.

Nostalgia is an easy path to victory, but does that make for a good game? Based on my time with it so far, I can see some immediate appeal that's sure to keep me logging in consistently for at least a few weeks. It's the kind of free download that comes with a big red buyer beware, though. This is a game designed to vacuum up money in ways that can feel a bit uncomfortable. If you're the kind of person who gets impatient anytime you're presented with a timer, download it at your own risk.
Gotta collect 'em all
Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket essentially looks to capture the full experience of the Pokémon trading card game and stuff it into a mobile app. In that sense, it's a success. As soon as I boot it up and create my account, it quickly throws a five-card booster pack my way that I tear it open by swiping the screen. All the excitement I felt as a kid doing the same with real packs flooded in instantly. Just as I did back then, I find myself marveling at the art. Classic cards from my youth appear here, including the elegant Hitmonchan card I treasured as a kid, but I'm just as enamored with the art I've never seen. When I pull a card that features a top-to-bottom art spread showing Digletts burrowing through the card, I'm hooked.

Read more
The Jackbox Survey Scramble will turn your game night into Family Feud
A survey titled Bad to Touch\ appears in The Jackbox Survey Scramble.

The heat is on. I’m halfway through a round of Hilo, a new game featured in The Jackbox Survey Scramble, and I need some points if I’m going to win. I’m competing against three members of the Jackbox staff as we’ve taken turns guessing the best sandwich fixings and getting points depending on how popular our responses were among other players. Now, we need to guess the worst response on a list that’s over 270 entries long. My instinct would have been to write “mayonnaise,” but, sickeningly, that’s the No. 2 most popular answer. If I want to win, I’ll need to think like a Jackbox player.

"Poop," I write. Sure enough, it pops up near the middle of the list.

Read more
New 9800X3D leak: ‘Strong generational boost in games’ is just 8%
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D held between fingertips.

AMD's best processor for gaming is right around the corner. Through various leaked benchmarks, we've already learned that it might disappoint, and today's leak only serves to confirm that. According to leaked AMD data, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D may offer a subtle improvement in gaming -- although it'll still be better than what most of the Zen 5 lineup has been able to provide.

VideoCardz was able to obtain what appears to be an official marketing description of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. The blurb reveals things like the predicted improvement in instructions per cycle (IPC), gaming, and multi-threaded workloads. It looks like the real deal, but as with any other leak, it's important to remember that we'll only learn the full story once we test the CPU ourselves.

Read more