By now, PC gaming enthusiasts have mastered the art of using their hands with a variety of keyboards and mice to choose from, but our two limbs are simply lifeless. With the introduction of the MSI Liberator, the folks at Micro Star International envision a world where we don’t just let our feet atrophy, we use them with a three-button pedal.
If the MSI Liberator gives you a feeling of déjà vu, you’re not alone: Corsair released the Elgato Stream Deck pedal in early 2022, also with three programmable keys. The difference here goes deeper than just adding RGB lighting, which you’ll probably never see in the mix.
While its rival takes a more modest and flat approach, the Liberator is more like a drum pedal, wrapping around your foot to minimize the amount of movement required to press each button. With that in mind, you can also daisy chain up to four Liberators for a total of 12 buttons at the end of your… toes.
MSI Unlocker Specifications
Each Liberator has three buttons, including the pedal itself. You can customize the two side buttons with magnetic caps to best fit your foot shape and size. It sits at an angle of 8 degrees, which according to MSI is ideal from an ergonomic point of view. 100ms response time and supposedly easy to use software. Keep in mind that you have to climb a mountain to compete with the ease of use of the Stream Deck software.
Like learning to play the drums, doubling the number of limbs used to control the game takes training, but it opens up a whole world of possibilities. For one thing, it makes complex spells easier in MMO games. On the other hand, it could potentially open up games that were previously inaccessible to people with disabilities, making them playable again. Your mileage can vary, though, and it’s not the cheapest device at $149/£122 (compared to its rival’s slimmer $89.99/£79.99 price).
Unlike the Elgato Stream Deck pedal, the MSI Liberator is not always available. MSI made the curious decision to fundraise for its pedal to gauge interest in what it sees as a lesser product that comes with a number of considerations, but also some security that’s missing from its usual Kickstarter campaign.
First of all, what you see is not necessarily what you will get. MSI tells us that the Taiwanese division working on the project is “changing some details in the design”, which may be superficial, but could also indicate changes in the feature set. We know that the company is still working on reducing latency and assures backers that you will get 100ms or less. Second, this is an official product from a renowned brand that has already achieved its goal 31 times, but you should always consider that you are buying an idea, not a product.
If you want something here and now, you have to buy the Elgato Stream Deck pedal. Otherwise, you’ll have to back the project before time runs out and have to wait until December 2022 for your MSI Liberator, assuming development goes according to plan and you don’t mind annoying hardware shortages.
Source : PC Gamesn
