The last time I used a trackball, it was one of those weird models that had a big ball in the middle, with mouse buttons to either side. That’s not exactly conducive to gaming unless you’re playing Missile Command, so I’ve never really considered trying my favorite genres using an upside-down ball mouse.
However, Logitech recently sent me their fanciest trackball mouse to test it out, and so I wanted to know if you could game on it at all. As it turns out, for some people it might actually be the preferred choice.
Trackball Mice Have Come a Long Way
Trackballs were the dominant pointing device in laptops for many years, and I was already halfway through high school before I personally encountered a touchpad. My old 486 laptop had a trackball—and frankly, I hated it. So much, that I carried a serial ball mouse around in my laptop bag and only used the trackball as a last resort.
We also used to have those big center-ball trackballs at school, and at my dad’s workplace. In fact, you can still buy that style of trackball if you like, such as the Kensington Orbit.
However, that’s by far not the only style of trackball, and these days it seems a more popular option is the ergonomic approach where the trackball is offset to one side of the mouse, and operated by your thumb. This has the obvious downside of removing the ambidextrous nature of older style trackballs, but the upside is that these trackballs are 90% regular mice, with just one small change.
I’ve been using the Logitech MX Ergo S for a few days at this point, and while I thought it would be a huge adjustment as someone who uses a mouse 12 hours a day, the design of these new trackballs means it takes less than a day to get comfortable with them.
The Logitech Ergo Is Like a Joystick Fused With a Mouse
The whole reason I even considered trying to play video games with this trackball is that, while I was using it, it occured to me that moving a ball with my thumb like that isn’t that different from using an analog stick on a gamepad. In fact, if you think about it, this design combines the best aspects of both mouse and stick. I can do the smooth, thumb-based movement of a stick and also perform those fast flicking movements that allow mouse players to snap to a target and keep it locked on without the need for annoying aim-assist.
The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Of course, if you’re going to play something like Age of Empires or Civilization, obviously a trackball is going to be of no detriment to these types of games, so what’s the real test? How about boomer shooters?
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Boomer Shooters Are No Issue
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I reckoned if I could do a serviceable job of playing these games with this trackball, then it would be viable for most mouse-based games. I tried it in a few titles, but decided to record a short demo clip using Quake.
To be clear, this is not my actual gaming setup, it was just convenient to fit this all into a single video frame. Though I do play some PC games with a mouse and keyboard on my handheld PC.
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It’s not the most impressive gameplay, but this is after just a short bit of time trying, and I wasn’t exactly struggling. With a little practice and fine-tuning of the sensitivity, I really feel I could play games like these without much trouble.
Quake
- Released
-
May 22, 1996
- ESRB
-
M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Violence
- Developer(s)
-
id Software
- Publisher(s)
-
Bethesda, GT Interactive
- Engine
-
Quake Engine
- Multiplayer
-
Online Multiplayer
It’s an Adjustment, but a Fast One
The most surprising thing to me is just how quickly I was able to start playing well enough to progress in these games. I struggled a little for the first hour or two, but after that I felt that I was good enough to keep improving and playing more. I was still significantly worse than playing with my usual gaming mouse, but I feel like I could close the gap if I put in the time.
Keep in mind, this wasn’t just a learning curve for playing games with a trackball, I had only been using a trackball like that for any purpose at for a few days at that point.
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But, Are There Any Benefits?
OK, so I’m satisfied that it’s possible to play games with this trackball and play them well with a bit of practice, but is there actually any point? For someone who plays competitively, I’d say the answer is probably “no”. However, as someone who plays just for fun, I can actually see myself using this method in a few situations.
While it’s not as good as a normal mouse, it’s far better than a controller and the trackball has the huge benefit of not needing a surface to use it on. That means it might be a better companion for laptop gaming when traveling. Most importantly, I’m thinking of using it with my PlayStation 5 or Switch 2, where I could easily control mouse-supporting games from my couch or bed using this mouse. After all, it comes with a USB dongle, not just Bluetooth support.
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I always love exploring different ways to control games, and most of the time it doesn’t lead anywhere, but this time I think the humble ergonomic trackball might just become part of my overall gaming toolkit. It might not always be the first choice, but I’m willing to bet in a lot of cases it will be the suitable one.
