Walking through a press event at CES 2014, the Hip Shot Dot display caught my eye. Some folks were playing Battlefield 4 with a red glowing dot in the center of the screen, but they weren’t using a red dot sight on their in-game gun.
Hip Shot Dot is a powered accessory with a USB plug on one end and a bright LED dot on the other end of a thin cable. The cable physically attaches to your TV with suction cups and gives you a permanent red dot sight for most FPS games. It works with Xbox, Playstation, Wii or PC games.
I’ve been playing with the Hip Shot Dot over the past few nights and have to say that I am impressed. I’m a very average FPS gamer so I need all the help I can get.
Playing Halo 4, I almost immediately grabbed a couple more kills each round that I wouldn’t otherwise have gotten without the Hip Shot Dot. I generally lay low and take my shots sparingly in SWAT mode (no shields with semi-auto weapons only) so that I can keep my own kill/death ratio down. I played SWAT with the Hip Shot Dot for the first time tonight and got several kills that were Hip Shot kills.
I hate getting busted by all the 12-year-olds out there, and I feel like the Hip Shot helps give a little more edge to my 30-something eyes and reflexes. So, yeah, I’m sold on it and definitely recommend picking it up if you are in similar shoes to me.
A few other advantages to the Hip Shot Dot is that it makes it much easier to no-scope kill with sniper rifles and other guns that require you to shoulder it in order to get sighted in on your target. You can move and kill with more precision, which is something that I am terrible at, but I’ve gotten a few kills on the move this week where I would usually get demolished.
You can see the Hip Shot Dot promo video below to get a better idea of how it works.
Of course, if you completely suck, this device isn’t going to make you awesome. I’m still pretty average with the Hip Shot Dot, but I’m probably a kill or two better per round than I was before.
Additionally, there are a few areas where the Hip Shot Dot isn’t perfect. First, when you transition to a vehicle (in Halo 4 at least), the plane that your reticle is on changes so the Hip Shot won’t be lined up if you have it situated for your handheld weapon. Second, it takes a few seconds to get it situated at the beginning of your first match, which is time you are usually spending getting weapons or moving to an advantageous position. Finally, in Halo 4, when you are scoped in on someone’s head, you get a tiny dot confirmation for a headshot in the center of your reticule, which the Hip Shot Dot covers up when on your screen. None of these are deal killers, but something to be aware of as a direct effect of mounting a physical device on your TV screen.
Finally, I’ll over one troubleshooting tip that I’ve ran into. After playing with the Hip Shot Dot for a session, I put it away and then got it out the next night. The suction cups kept falling off the screen and I was very disappointed. After cleaning the cups off with my t-shirt and fogging them up a bit with my breath, they stayed on fine for an hour or so after that.
All in all, the Hip Shot Dot is a very cool gaming accessory that I wish I had found 5 years ago. If you can live with the caveats mentioned above, then considered it a solid recommendation. You can find the Hip Shot Dot here at Amazon.com.
