The topic of the gaming mouse is a hotly contested one. Many gamers swear by their simple 3-button mouse from yesteryear. Others call upon newer gaming mice that feature a button count in the double digits, custom DPI settings, adjustable weights, and user-defined profiles. Regardless of the preference, mice are the most-used component in a PC gamer’s arsenal, and are arguably the most important as a result. Comfort and functionality should never be compromised.
The Cyborg M.M.O. 7 Gaming Mouse falls into the upper echelon of gaming mice. This is a mouse that looks like it will cut you just by touching it wrong. It carries about it an air of confusion, precision, and wonderment. Most first time users won’t even know how to hold the darn thing, while long time users will attribute success to it. It shatters the mouse design paradigm, and it will rock you to your core. One look at it and you’ll know—the M.M.O. 7 is on a different level. But for all of its risk taking and bold design, would you believe me if I told you this thing came from Mad Catz?
Every gamer knows Mad Catz, and probably for the wrong reasons. How may times have you gone to a friend’s house for some 2-player console gaming, just to get stuck with the annoying and awkward Mad Catz controller? How often did you buy a Mad Catz memory card to save some cash, just to have it fail and corrupt all of your save games? Over the years, gamers have found the name Mad Catz to be synonymous with cheap—the peripherals you buy when you don’t have the cash to pay out for the official stuff. It isn’t fair to suggest that Mad Catz have nothing but cheap products (especially when it comes to their awesome fight sticks), but when gamers are considering their options for top shelf gaming peripherals for their new build, Mad Catz isn’t necessarily high on their list.
That’s where the Cyborg brand of products come in. Mad Catz developed Cyborg in 2010 as an outlet for creating unique, high-quality gaming products. Under the Cyborg brand, Mad Catz have released mice, mouse surfaces, keyboards, headsets, and more. These products have met positive response from press and gamers alike. Mad Catz has recently expanded their roster with a strong entry in the M.M.O. 7 Gaming Mouse.
The M.M.O. 7 is a little brother of sorts to the fabled Cyborg R.A.T. mouse. The R.A.T. gained notoriety for being completely ridiculous and unique, with swappable and adjustable parts and more buttons than you can shake a keyboard at. While the R.A.T. was aimed at FPS gamers, the M.M.O. 7 comes designed as a mouse for the hardcore MMO players. That being said, don’t count out the M.M.O. 7 if you don’t play MMOs. There are plenty of features here that will please PC gamers of all types.
Careful, this thing might cut you
Cyborg M.M.O. 7 Gaming Mouse Specifications:
- 13 Buttons
- 78 Programmable commands
- DPI Range: 25-6400
- Dynamic polling rate up to 1000Hz
- PTFE “Slick” Pads
- Braided cable
- Adjustable weights (up to 30g)
- Adjustable thumb area
- Adjustable length palm rest
- Interchangable pinky and palm rests
- Customizable RGB LED lighting
- $129 MSRP
You know the second that you see this mouse that it is anything but ordinary. I can assure you that it is much simpler than it looks, but it does take a bit of getting used to. The real genius of this mouse is that it is completely customizable to fit your hand and play style. The palm rest can be slid forward or backward with about an inch of motion. Beyond the forward/backward adjustments, the palm rest can be swapped out entirely for one of three included rests. There are two plastic rests—one normally sized with the rest of the mouse, and one that sits a few centimeters high for large hands such as mine. The third sits as low as the normal plastic piece, but it has a grippy rubber coating rather than the smooth plastic.
The pinky rest on the right side of the mouse is also swappable. The unit ships with three pinky rests, similar to the palm rests. There are two pinky rests that are flush to the side of the mouse, one in smooth plastic and the other in the aforementioned rubber grip. The third pinky rest extends out away from the right of the mouse and runs flat to the surface, giving your pinky a place to rest upon without coming into contact with the mousing surface. These rests are removed by inserting a hex tool (stored in the back of the mouse) into a bolt and unscrewing it.
Finally, the thumb rest on the left side can also be adjusted. Though this piece cannot be completely removed as the others, it can be ratcheted forward and backward by using the hex tool to turn a bolt at the back of the mouse. This function is one of the most important bits of customization on the mouse, as the thumb rest houses six buttons. Each user can side the rest to line up perfectly with your thumb, no matter the size of your hands.
The M.M.O. 7 with swappable parts removed
After much tinkering, I ended up configuring the M.M.O. 7 with the flat rubber pinky grip, the tall palm rest pushed all the way back, and the thumb rest pushed nearly all the way back. The fit is surprisingly comfortable, more so than most mice which struggle to adhere to my large hands. Despite the fit, it isn’t the most comfortable mouse I’ve ever used, and my setup is quite uncomfortable to users that don’t have massive hands. A few Icrontic members tried using this mouse with my settings, and not a single one of them found it comfortable. I can’t blame them, they don’t know what it’s like to be giant.
So there are a lot of buttons on this thing. 13 total, which can be overwhelming to new users. On the thumb are six buttons. Two at the top act as forward/backward buttons (typical in most modern mice). Below that are two more larger buttons, plus a small button in the center that acts as both a 4-way directional pad, and a press-in button that activates precision aim (more on that in a bit.) Finally, along the edge of the thumb rest is a third button. All of these buttons are easily reached from your thumb’s resting position.
The precision aim button is a feature that really sets this mouse apart. When pressed and held, the mouse’s DPI drops down to a user-defined level. For example, I have precision aim set to 15% of the current setting. So as I’m using the mouse at 5000 DPI, when holding in the Precision Aim button, the mouse responds at 750 DPI. This button is fantastic for sniping situations in shooters, allowing you to quickly fine-tune your aim on the fly without having to change your grip on the mouse or look away from the screen. This feature is one of my favorites on the M.M.O. 7, and has actually improved my play in Team Fortress 2 and Battlefield 3.
The top of the mouse houses plenty more buttons and secrets. Just to the right of the thumb rest is a spinning knob. I have the knob configured to function as tilting a mouse wheel left or right would—that is scrolling windows left or right, or leaning in FPS. The knob is easily rolled with your thumb while hardly changing your grip. Toward the front of the mouse are the two large left and right buttons, which are quite spacious and very comfortable for clicking. A mode button sits to the side of the left click button, allowing you to change programming modes quickly with only a slight shift of your pointer finger. A beefy non-tilting scroll wheel sits in the middle, with the DPI select button (which can be configured to any four DPI settings between 25 and 6400 in software) placed right behind it.
Another outstanding feature of the M.M.O. 7 are the two buttons that are nestled inside of the left and right click buttons. These small rectangular buttons, named ActionLock buttons, can individually toggle the left and right buttons in a locked position. For instance, if you press the left ActionLock button, the LED color of the left mouse button changes to indicate ActionLock mode is enabled, but not active. Once you click the left mouse button, the LED color changes again to indicate that the button is now locked. The mouse will now function as if the button is being held without the need to do so. I have found this wonderfully useful in TF2 while playing the heavy. I’ll ActionLock the right mouse button to keep the barrel of the minigun spinning, so that I may fire immediately on press of the left click. It does wonders for the strain on your hands while playing games that require lots of mouse button holding.
The LEDs cast light onto the surface ahead of the mouse
Just off the edge of the mouse tucked below the right mouse button is the Mode Shift button. This button, pressed with your ring finger, is what really knocks the functionality of the M.M.O. 7 up a notch. The Mode button previously mentioned holds three custom setups for each button on the mouse. While the Mode Shift button is pressed and held, a secondary setup for each mode is then enabled, meaning you can have a total of six programing modes for a ludicrous total of 78 user-defined commands across all of the buttons, all accessible on the fly. The sheer amount of configurations with this mouse is mind numbing, and if done correctly, can practically negate the need for using a keyboard at all in games. With so many custom input options, it’s easy to see how MMO players would benefit from the M.M.O. 7.
All of these fancy buttons are backed by Mad Catz’s Smart Technology software. The settings page is very straightforward and handles all of the DPI and LED color customization. DPI settings are easy to adjust by selecting one of the four modes and pushing a slider up and down. The X and Y DPI settings of the mouse can also be adjusted individually on each mode, if you choose to do such a thing. Adjusting the decrease percentage for Precision Aim is also done easily with a slider. LED color can be customized to any color within the RGB specturm (picked either in a color gamut swatch or by inputting RGB values). The LED color can be customized individually for the left and right buttons, and for the normal, ActionLock off and ActionLock on modes.
The profile programming page is extremely simple. A visual of the mouse is shown with each button clearly labeled. You simply click on a button either via the image of the mouse, or the labeled boxes on the left (which are clearly connected to their respective buttons to keep confusion low), to set a macro or function to the button. The mouse image can be rotated to observe and configure the thumb buttons as well.
The macro programming page is very easy to use
Macros can be set to every button, with the exception of the mode buttons and left/right click buttons. Not only can these buttons be programmed to function as any one key on the keyboard, but entire macros can be recorded and assigned to individual buttons. Have a 5-key sequence that you use fequently? Simple—record it in the profiler and fire it off with a single button. Macros, once configured, can be saved with a custom name, so they can be quickly referenced in other use cases. Advanced macros can be configured that not only record keyboard up, down, and held states (included the duration for how long they’ve been held), but will also record mouse activity in a similar fashion. The amount of macro customization in this mouse is tremendous, and it bests most gaming keyboards in functionality. All of this in a mouse!
Multiple profiles can be created and saved, and are quickly activated or switched with a single click via the software’s tray icon. There is also a handy test tool built into the software that displays all of the input/output from the mouse’s buttons, allowing you to check that your macros are all in working condition before employing them in a game environment.
The M.M.O. 7 has a lot going for it, but it isn’t without fault. The ActionLock buttons, as awesome as they are, do tend to be pressed accidentally on occasion. With their close proximity to the left and right buttons, it’s easy to punch them on in the middle of a high-intensity gaming situation. This can totally screw you in a game if the situation is right. Though not as bad of an issue, the software offers no options to load a profile at boot, requiring the user to hit the tray icon and select a profile before doing anything. If forgotten, this can leave you in a game with almost no functionality in the mouse’s buttons. Finally, the M.M.O. 7 comes at a hefty price with an MSRP of $129.
The setbacks aren’t enough to ruin the experience, though. The Cyborg M.M.O. 7’s incredible features far outweigh those small issues. The massive macro possibilities alone put this mouse in a league of its own. The price may be steep, but I can assure you that every penny of that price is well spent. The M.M.O. 7 is an absolutely fantastic mouse. It’s a no-brainer to award the Mad Catz Cyborg M.M.O. 7 our Silver award for outstanding products.
The Mad Catz Cyborg M.M.O. 7 is available on Amazon, Newegg, and other retailers.
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