OCZ Dominatrix – The Cyber Snipa Stinger’s Long Lost Twin?

While the Dominatrix might sound like the sort of service you’d see advertised in the back of a lad’s mag, it is in fact a 3200 DPI gaming mouse from OCZ Technology.

Looking at the OCZ Dominatrix, I was struck by a feeling of deja vu. Haven’t I seen that shape before? The position of the buttons seems familiar, the weight assembly identical to something I’ve seen on another mouse. Yes, the OCZ Dominatrix bears more than a striking resemblance to the Cyber Snipa Stinger. There’s a good reason for this, as OCZ have re-licensed the Stinger.

If you’re going to share the design of a mouse, you might as will pick a decent one and that’s exactly what OCZ have done. The Cyber Snipa Stinger is a very good mouse, and the Dominatrix takes most of its best points and packs them into a cheaper product.

So what do you get with the Dominatrix? Inside the box is the mouse, a box containing weights, an instruction manual and a CD containing the (essential) driver software. The mouse itself is a right-handed design and connects to your PC through a USB connection on the end of a six-foot cable. Nothing out of the oridinary so far.

Out of the box the Dominatrix’s laser sensor is only capable of 2000dpi, but once the driver software has been installed this can be increased to 3200dpi. That’s why the driver software is so important, but it does reduce the plug’n’play factor of the mouse if you want to use it at full DPI on someone else’s machine.

The DPI level can be adjusted on the fly using a button on the top of the mouse (under the scroll wheel) to cycle through four increments. The DPI settings for each of these increments can be adjusted through the OCZ software, and each setting changes the colour of the LED on top of the mouse to give you a visual clue as to which setting you’re on.

There’s a total of nine buttons on the mouse, two of which are programmable. The mouse wheel provides three (press, tilt left and tilt right) and below that you will find the DPI and mode buttons. On the left side of the mouse you will find the two programmable buttons, and finally you get the standard left and right buttons on top.

A word of warning at this point – make sure you have the latest version of the driver software (2.0.8 or above) or you may have trouble programming the side buttons. There are also issues with some games recognising the tilt action of the scroll wheel, so yu may not be able to take full advantage of the mouse’s actions in every game you play.

After a few rounds of Counterstrike with the Dominatrix set to full 3200dpi it didn’t seem to be quite as responsive as the Cyber Snipa, but it was still good. This is probably due to the lower polling rate which, at 500Hz, is half that of the Stinger.

As with the Stinger the shape is comfortable for right-handers and all the buttons are easy to reach, and the six programmable buttons make it easy to move common game functions from the keyboard to the mouse.

Overall the OCZ Dominatrix is a pretty good gaming mouse. The problem is it has so much in common with the Cyber Snipa Stinger and yet still falls a little short of that mouse’s capabilities. While the Dominatrix may be slightly cheaper, my choice would still be the excellent Stinger. However, if you like your mice blue and with a slightly questionable name then the OCZ Dominatrix could be the perfect mouse for you.