Getting Your Head in the Game – TrackIR 5 with TrackClip PRO Review

The majority of games that you will be seeing here are simulation games. While there are older games that support TrackIR, I’m going to showcase the newer games that support it, including: Elite Dangerous, Dirt 3, War Thunder and Star Citizen.

Since most games don’t support the TrackIR, it doesn’t mean you’re out of options. There is a mouse emulation feature and I will demonstrate how that works in Test Drive Unlimited 2 and Tomb Raider (2013) later on.

Star Citizen

During the FPS part of my testing, I only used the mouse to turn my body, all the looking around you see, is the TrackIR. When I was dogfighting, I did not touch my mouse once. All the tracking you see with the green circular reticule is done via the TrackIR and to pilot the ship, I was using my X52 joystick. The ship I chose has gimbaled weapons so you can better see how it can provide an advantage in a game like this.

I had not previously practiced dogfighting before recording this video, so it took me a little bit to get use to it; once mastered, you can see how this could be a major advantage over those who don’t have a tracking system like TrackIR. Star Citizen is currently in early alpha, it looks damn good for an alpha, right?

Elite Dangerous

As in the previous video, I again used my X52 to pilot this ship and used the TrackIR to look around. There are plans to add FPS combat in the future, but that will not happen until well after the game’s official release.

War Thunder

During this playthrough, I used my mouse and keyboard to control the plane. All of the looking around was done with the TrackIR. There are options to look around in-game, but you have to re-center the camera afterwards, and that can be time consuming.

I’ve played War Thunder for quite a while now, so when reviewing the TrackIR with it, I felt using it was a precise, natural and effortless way to control the look of the camera. As it was with Star Citizen, this was my first time flying a combat mission with the TrackIR in this game.

DiRT3

I used my Xbox 360 Controller to drive the car and used the TrackIR to look around. A rally game doesn’t always give you the time to look around and admire the view, but when I did need it, it was great to have.

At this point, we have looked at games that fully support TrackIR, now we move into the world of mouse emulation. This feature is included in the software package, but do not expect it to be perfectly implemented in your game.

Test Drive Unlimited 2

While TDU2 supports someone looking around, you have to press the Mouse Button 1 to engage that option. Fortunately I have a mouse that will lock my MB1 for me but it didn’t do me much good.

To re-center the camera you have to let go of the MB1 so I was fighting the camera to go back to center even though I turned my head back to center. The game kept over-correcting my movements and so my head was oddly positioned the majority of the time.

Tomb Raider (2013)

This one is a mixed bag between the mouse and TrackIR when moving Lara around. Sometimes I had to use the mouse to re-center my third person view, but for the majority of game play and the entire weapon aiming parts, the TrackIR was used.

I have to admit using my head to aim and control Lara at first was a little disorientating, but once I started to weed out the particular quirks of the TrackIR, I found I could be almost as accurate with it as I was with my mouse.

A game like this could incorporate TrackIR no problem, and it wouldn’t change how the game is played what so ever. I am disappointed that I could not do away with the mouse entirely, since that would have been a truly unique experience.