Wolfking Warrior Key Pad - Red

Warrior Key Pad - Red

Ever since games like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom came out in the early 90s, gamers who play first person shooters (FPS) have had a love-hate relationship with the keyboard. Today, despite a quantum leap in the state of computer technology since that time, a lot of us are still stuck with a standard keyboard or WASD layout to play games—and the feeling ain't sweet like Valentine's Day. We've tried other off-beat gaming peripherals in the past, such as the Mystify Claw, or even a 21st Century Programmable Keyboard. They were good, but not quite what we wanted.
That was until we came across the Wolf Claw Type II keyboard from a small company in Singapore last summer. To a normal keyboard, the Wolf Claw added a dedicated WASD-friendly gaming area to the left. Although our review was positive and many community members said "gimme!" many other holdouts weren't convinced enough to abandon their existing keyboard and to foot the extra shipping costs. Even people in our forums let us and the company know what they wanted.

Now WolfKing has opened shop in the U.S. and is releasing its newest product, the Warrior, a new and improved version of this dedicated gaming area as a standalone and portable unit. The Warrior comes in the same size and form as the original Wolf Claw gaming pad, but adds 12 small function keys and 3 buttons (for a total of 55 controls). Its well-thought-out placement of common keys in FPS games ensures a quick and efficient style of playing.

We decided to fire up our graphics card, plug in this beast, and see if this is what every FPS gamer should have.

Front View

Top View

WASD Gets a Face-Lift
The original Wolf Claw keyboard introduced a new-and-improved WASD design without strictly conforming to a standard QWERTY layout. Many feel that the QWERTY design slows down typists, and gamers will usually agree that its small and closely knit keys can cramp their style.
The Warrior maintains the shape and size of the original Wolf Claw WASD key area layout, which presents plenty of surrounding keys in an arc so that your hand can easily access or reach keys that are crucial and common in FPS games. The WASD buttons have the familiar "W" at the top, while "ASD" are below it. Bigger buttons also means that your hands aren't confined in a small place for too long, essentially adding to comfort and ergonomics during gameplay.

Keys are layed out in an arc to keep your fingers in a normal gaming position without requiring much stretching to access any keys. This makes perfect sense for the numbered keys. On a normal keyboard, a healthy stretch of your index finger is required to access the eighth or ninth weapon in your arsenal. With the arc layout, your hand resumes its normal gaming position when you access the other numbers, because they surround the WASD keys. Bigger, conveniently placed keys at the bottom right of this pad also give your thumb more mobility and options.

Where the original Wolf Claw keyboard had 40 keys for its gaming area, the Warrior has 52, plus three new function buttons. We have to admit that we thought 40 was enough, and now 55 seems more than enough. The 12 added function keys (F-buttons), are joined by two volume buttons and an escape button. The volume and escape buttons are outside the main key area to avoid accidental presses.

Since the Warrior is a standalone unit, it will gobble some of your desk real estate. It measures almost 9 inches at its widest dimension. The USB chord is about 6 feet—long enough for us to stretch across and below the desk. Below the unit are two feet you can raise for a little height boost. The boost isn't very substantial, but it's better than nothing. Four little pads keep the unit in place, and they aren't made up of that annoying kind of rubber that stains desks.

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The first shipment of Warrior products will come in red with a silver lining. Following that, the company also plans on shipping a green model, which Nvidia fanboys will absolutely devour. Both the red and green colors suggest that patriotic fans of either ATI or Nvidia can pay tribute to their favorite graphics company by purchasing one of the two models. A more neutral Swiss color has yet to be announced.

Gaming with the Warrior
The unit will gobble up one of your USB ports, but it's pretty much plug and play—no software or drivers required. Each key does exactly what its key label tells you, so could use the Warrior as an additional number pad for your left hand, if you wanted.
Since there are so many keys to work with, you might find yourself reassigning some in certain games to better suit your needs. For instance, weapon commands like switching from the next or previous weapon is controlled with the "," and "." keys, which we felt was a bit distant from our thumb with the Warrior, so we opted to change those to the "O" and "B" buttons. We could even have chosen "G" and "T," which would be even closer.

Playing with the Warrior was very comfortable. The ergonomics of stretching out the fingers a bit more while in the WASD position was relaxing, and we literally had the control of everything we needed at our fingertips. The keys are soft, cushy, and quiet. Although we think that 55 buttons is more than enough, we still found ourselves using some of the new buttons. The function keys were handy for quickly saving or loading games, and the volume control was nice as well, especially if your existing keyboard doesn't have any volume controls.

A major plus of having the unit as a standalone product is that lefties can position the Warrior to the right of their keyboard (if they use the mouse with their left hand). The non discriminatory arc layout can relate to righties and lefties equally, while the lower buttons that seem unfit can be reassigned in the game you are playing. For instance, the vertical spacebar is very convenient for the thumb if you use the pad with your left hand. On the other hand (no pun intended) you can choose from several buttons to substitute for the jump command if you are using the pad on the right hand. It's nice to see a non-biased input device out there for our southpaw readers.

We didn't run into any problems of accidentally pressing down any keys with our palm while our fingers were on WASD. The arc layout stops toward the bottom of the pad, a place where you can comfortably rest your hand.

Final Thoughts
Many of us asked for it, and now we are finally seeing it. WolfKing's standalone version of its famous Wolf Claw comes new and improved, and gets the job done right. For those of us who still use WASD, there's no reason to pass this up, for a mere $35.
The new gaming pad will gobble up a USB port, as well as add to your existing desk clutter, but it's hardly worth knocking it for that alone. As for gameplay, we just love the new WASD layout, the arc configuration, and numbered and function keys, as well as the larger-than-normal keys that let your fingers relax. - Reviewed by Extreme Tech.

Product Description
Warrior Gaming Key Pad - Red

Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #17506 in Consumer Electronics
Brand: WolfKing
Model: KBWOLDK2388URD
Dimensions: 3.00 pounds

Features
Satisfaction Ensured.
Manufactured to the Highest Quality Available.
With True Enhanced Performance.
Latest Technical Development.

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