Non-PC Geeks

Are you one of those gamers that wants total immersion in your gaming experience? Do you find yourself cranking the volume up on your sound system so you can not only hear, but feel every explosion, gunshot, punch, and engine rev? Do you frequently get yelled at by your roommate, parents, neighbors (or police!) because of the reverberation of your subwoofer penetrating the walls? Then the Buttkicker gamer is your salvation! The Geeks got our hands on one of these babies and have been very impressed to say the least.

Initially, like you probably are right now, we were skeptical. “How is this any different than using my subwoofer?” In principle, it’s not – The Buttkicker is driven off the subwoofer output on your computer’s sound card, or the audio out jack on your console game system, and it picks up those signals and translates them into movement. The difference is in how it does that translation. Where a subwoofer uses the energy to move a speaker cone to push air in an undirected way, the buttkicker drives a transducer that is attached directly to your chair. So, rather than pushing air all around the room and blasting the walls with sonic energy, all of the power is sent directly through your seat (and thus your body.) How much energy? How about 100 Watts blasted right at you! In addition, because the Buttkicker doesn’t produce any sound (aside from the movement of the transducer itself in it’s housing, and the humming of your chair) you won’t be bothering people in the next room (or if you’re like me, in the next house!) You can even use the Buttkicker in conjunction with headphones so you can still hear AND feel your game quietly.
For our testing, the Geeks hooked the Buttkicked up to our test PC and ran our old standby games: Battlefield 2142 and Flight Simulator X. Hookup was relatively easy. You attach the transducer module to the center post on your office chair and run a thick wire (with a quick disconnect) to the 100W amp control unit. The amp then connects to your PC with an audio splitter so you can run it in conjunction with your speaker system. Numerous splitter jacks are provided, and as a nice touch Guitammer included two velcro straps for use in holding the connection cable to the base of your chair. We (ignorantly) turned the control dial for the Buttkicker all the way up and started up BF2142. At the crack of the first gunshot we nearly were shaken out of our chair! Quickly we turned it down to a more reasonable level and found that when explosions went off on the battlefield near us, not only did we hear it (thanks to our Logitech THX speaker system) but we felt it, and much more so than we ever have with a subwoofer alone. Riding in a tank and taking enemy fire from an opposing tank takes on a new dimension as your chair suddenly thumps with the impact of the shell on your tank. We next fired up Flight Simulator X and loaded up the default Cesna 172. Punching the throttle to full blast, we could feel the hum of the engine, much like the real plane does. As we climbed out from the airport and changed the throttle levels and the engine moved through different harmonic ranges, the vibration in our chair changed to match. It really added a whole new dimension to the simulation. In the past we could feel some vibration in our rudder pedals from the subwoofer, but this was a much more directed and distinct feeling.

There are a couple things we don’t like about the Buttkicker however, and both are related to the Amplifier unit. First, the instruction manual states that you should turn the unit off whenever not in use. Unfortunately, Guitammer has chosen to use a rocker-style power switch on the back of the Amp unit, rather than an integrated on/off position on the front control dial. This wouldn’t be a big deal if it weren’t for problem #2 – The cooling fan on the back of the Amp is relatively LOUD. Louder than our entire test machine with it’s 4 120mm fans, CPU fan and dual video card fans. If the power control was on the front we could tuck the AMP away so the fan noise wouldn’t be so noticeable, but with the power switch in the back you really have to keep the control unit someplace easily accessible.
Otherwise, we are totally in love with the Buttkicker. If you are a fan of Force Feedback technology, a gamer who wants to feel their games as well as hear them, or in an environment where you have to keep your gaming sounds down but still want to feel that thump, the Buttkicker is for you!
By the way, if you’re a home theater nut, Guitammer makes a version for home theater use as well.
In the end, we give the Buttkicker Gamer 4 out of 5 stars.
The good: Does what it says, and MUCH more so than a subwoofer could. Easy to set up. Very good instruction manual. Relatively low price (we found it for $65+shipping + a $20 MIR) Works with all games, both PC and console.
The bad: Loud cooling fan on Amp. Bad Power switch placement.

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