Good Work Systems Fragpedal Classic

In fact, there were a number of fairly large design flaws in the Fragpedal. The first was that the buttons provide no resistance when pressed. There's no click to let you know you've pressed a button, forcing a player to rely on on screen action to let them know they are even pressing the button. If the player is barefoot this is less of an issue, but when wearing shoes then it often makes playing games impossible.

Another design error is the shape of the slab, which from what we can tell are designed to be positioned sideways so that you can rest a big toe on one button and a little toe on another. This means your toes are always in contact with the buttons – buttons so sensitive that they always seems to be misfiring.

The shape also forces the toes to be raised higher than the heel, which isn't always very comfortable.

The major problem we had with the Fragpedal though, other than the fact that one of the buttons broke, was that we kept losing them under the desk. It wasn't really the fault of the pedals, because as we already pointed out, they don't move about at all thanks to the rubber grips on the bottom. It's more to do with the fact that our feet had to fumble backwards and forth a lot in order to find the buttons and returning them to a neutral position afterwards wasn't very easy when we couldn't see what we were doing.

Conclusion

There are so many problems with the Fragpedal that it's hard to find a reason to recommend it at all. The buttons are difficult to press and prone to breaking, the design is uncomfortable to use of extended periods of time and the advantage of using such a device is negligible.


We imagine that with the right game and the right control setup, the right person might prove to be worth it and might actually benefit gamers. Unfortunately, though we tested it on a number of games the flaws still prevented it from being anything other than gimmicky. Sure, having leaning and zooming on your toes might be handy but the same functions are available quicker and more naturally through the keyboard or mouse.

The worst thing about the Fragpedal is the price. At $79.95 from the official site, and with no UK price listed, the pedals are horrendously expensive for something that doesn't even perform that well. On top of this, it's possible to see the potential behind the product and within moments of spotting the flaws we were coming up with simple solutions – easy to pick apart some, we know – that would restore some of the coolness to this little gadget.

In the end though, we have to judge the Fragpedal on its actual merits and not the potential it might hold and, on that basis, the Fragpedal is a horribly designed and pretty useless gadget which is ridiculously priced. We're sorry to leave it on such an awful pun, but gamers should really just give the Fragpedal the boot and find something better to spend their money on.

• Build Quality
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 3/10

• Ease of Use
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 3/10

• Value
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 2/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 3/10

What do these scores mean?