games: Renegade Gaming Chair

This beauty is a pretty serious bit of gaming kit: the Ultimate Game Chair, Renegade model, from the Gaming Collection.This is an all in one video game, home theatre and massage chair, compatible with pretty much any audio based product, so all major consoles, dvd and home theatre devices, and mp3 players.

Now assembly was reasonably simple and took me on my own a bit over 10 minutes. But it is pretty heavy, and I wouldn’t fancy hefting it out of prime position infront of the TV every time my boyfriend came over and wanted to snuggle up on the sofa infront of a movie.

The chair itself is pretty comfy, in a race car style, with sturdy supportive padding and it doesn’t have any lumpy bits despite being filled with motors. It’s warrentied to up to 200lb and the headrest height is adjustable for all you Lurchalikes out there.

On the downside, there’s no lumbar support, the seat recline doesn’t come fully upright, nor does the angle of the headrest adjust, and for me, lying straight backed at an angle, is not my optimum gaming position.

I tested this on a variety of games on the 360 and PS3 and it worked well on both. On the 360 you simply need to unplug the audio cables from your TV and connect them up to the chair’s audio in cable. In standard definition, it’s the same process for the PS3, but in HD connect PS3 to the TV via HDMI cable as normal and additionally connect the chair to the console via the phono cable and then change your sound settings accordingly.

The main feature is obviously the 12 vibration motors with adjustable settings. These synch to your video game responding to bass frequencies in the audio. This is quite effective and when it works well, does add intensity, but sometimes doesn’t synch in quite the way you expect.

The main problem with the vibe motors though was the noise, which was excessively loud, intrusive and actually a little distracting from the game. You’re forced to turn the sound up pretty high to compensate, and the chair also makes the ground shake so it is certainly not going to go down well if you live with anyone else!

You can also use this as a massage chair, but this is essentially just constant vibration, which to me feels a bit weird and not really very relaxing at all.

The Renegade has speakers built in on either side of the headrest, which, with a decent volume range, really immerses you in the game. But, if, in a moment of intensity you lean forwards, you will pop out of the rather small sound field and the difference is quite jarring.

The sound quality is ok, but definitely more on the side of PC speakers that happen to be loud and next to your ears, then top quality surround sound home theatre. There are also no adjustable audio settings, not even a bass boost. There is a headphone socket incase the other people in your house don’t want to hear you blasting the bejeezus out of someone, or playing the Katamari Damacy theme AGAIN, but this was a little crackly, and also somewhat redundant as the chair itself is so damn noisy.

Other features include a rather flimsy storage compartment, a cup holder which wasn’t included in our review model, and a flashing light under the seat which also synchs with the game. Now in theory this is very cool, and it’s undoubtedly a real treat for anyone who likes inviting their friends round to watch them play, but if you’re sat in the chair, you can’t see it so it feels a little wasted.

So overall, this isn’t a bad chair, pretty comfy, highly compatible, decent vibration, but probably not quite the ‘ultimate’ posterior delight for the avid gamer. 3 stars, and at £235, I would definitely recommend trying it out first.