Roccat has never been ones to keep it simple. Their ‘futuristic’ looking designs make these gaming mice extremely unique to the market, with the exception of the R.A.T range as well as some more unknown brands. But still, for a top-tier brand designing their mice outside of what seems to be contemporary norms, they do a bloomin’ good job of it.

The Roccat Kova is an ambidextrous mouse meaning it can be used with either your right or left hand. This is rare for a gaming mouse in this day and age. Most manufacturers including some in Roccat’s line up are usually dedicated to either hand. This opens up the Kova to a much bigger audience.We were sent a grey with black accents version reminding me of their older generation Naval Storm designs. It has two LED areas which are around the scroll wheel and a bar at the back of the mouse. These can be customised using the RGB palette within the Roccat Swarm software.

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The mouse is equally as comfortable to use in both hands. There is a symmetry to it giving you the same layout on both sides. Present are 10 buttons: a left and right click, six side buttons, three on each side with two of them resting against the main click buttons, a scroll and tilt wheel as well as a button to switch between customisable DPI sets. f you’re a right handed player then you can straight away discard two of the right hand side buttons as your little finger probably won’t be able to comfortably stretch to them but that’s okay.

The maximum fake DPI, bear with me, is 7000 with the lowest being around the 400 mark. I say fake because Roccat has actually used a sensor capable of hitting the 3,500 mark. They’ve opted for some software black magic to gain the higher DPI settings. The DPI can be set to equal intervals to fit your play style. I;m not a huge gamer so this didn’t bother me at all really, but for you accuracy bunnies out there, you may want to opt for a mouse with higher true DPI sensors.

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The Kova can be used either with a palm or claw grip. For the former, there is no worry of pressing the side buttons on the opposite side as these are a little stiffer than the primary left and right clicks. There is some great spring action though so you can detect you have actually pressed the button. This may not suit some gamer’s taste as I do know that tiny clicks are prefered in faster paced games.

Using the mouse I was impressed with how responsive it was to the action I was performing on-screen. The adjustable DPI just makes it simpler to get into certain roles. For example, if I’m sniping I much prefer a low DPI. For run and gun action I need a high DPI to turn quickly incase an enemy is behind me. What’s nice about the front side buttons I mentioned earlier is the fact I can slide my fingers to either one of them with ease giving me much more functionality on the mouse rather than me stretching my fingers across a keyboard. This style of side button layout may prove popular with more MMO type players.

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Most of the functionality of the Roccat Kova is done within the Swarm software, and my God, it’s clumbsy. This is a feature I’ve not liked about Roccat for a long time now. Options aren’t where you think they would be, and just getting something to happen can be a challenge itself. Saying that, there are literally millions of macros that can be assigned to the mouse using Swarm. Roccat has also included the use of their EasyShift[+] system to get another 22 functions out of it which is more than enough for most gamers out there.

The Roccat Kova I would say is a good middle ground gaming mouse between MMO and first person shooter players. There are enough buttons on there to bind actions to, without spreading too much out from your WASD on the keyboard. Roccat has done a good job all round with the Kova. I can’t think of any specifications of the mouse being particularly troubling, and for around £35, this is a real bargain. You can find more information on the Roccat website.