Review: GameSir's new Cyclone 2 controller arrives with great specs, performance, price

If you liked the sound of the Tarantula Pro in last week's head-to-head feature but are not quite a fan of controllers with PlayStation symmetrical stick layout, then the new Cyclone 2 may be right up your alley.

It offers the majority of the Tarantula Pro's features, including TMR sticks and excellent button remapping and customisation through the GameSir Connect software, and stores the changes directly onto one of the four profiles available on-board, meaning the software does not need to be running to recall your keyboard mappings and macros/shortcuts.

The Cyclone 2 comes in two variants and two colours; these are in Shadow Black and Phantom White, both of which are slightly translucent. Then we have a standard version and a version with a metal charging stand that passes through the USB dongle connection at the same time. This metal stand is sturdier than the one that comes with the Tarantula Pro, though sadly, they are not interchangeable since the pogo pins are in a different position.

The pricing is quite interesting at £56/$56 (with £5/$5 off if you buy direct from GameSir using the coupon code c2fans); it lands a bit cheaper than the Tarantula Pro and square between the eyes of all current competition that use hall-effect sticks and/or fewer customisation features and often lower overall performance.

Let's dig a little deeper and see what the Cyclone 2 is all about.

Construction & feel

The Cyclone 2 continues the recent trend by many controller makers in rigidity and premium quality plastics. In the past, controllers in this sort of price range tended to be a bit creaky or bendy when gripped hard, not so here.

This controller uses a mixture of plastic types, for example, the triggers are clear plastic, you can see some of the inner gubbins through them, whilst the shoulder buttons are matte textured. The housing is entirely translucent but in a tasteful way. Some may recall the Kaleid series when they came out, and I noted that the clear glossy finish on them was a dust and scratch magnet.

It's nice to see GameSir took note of community feedback and refined the finishing whilst keeping a good level of aesthetic appeal.

Whilst the high quality of the controller is not really a surprise, the stand was, and in a good way. Made of aluminium, it is very sturdy and feels like a premium piece of kit. The USB A port on the front is where the dongle plugs in, and on the back is a Type-C port for connection to a computer.

On the topic of the stand, just like on the Tarantula Pro, placing the Cyclone 2 on it switches it off and begins charging with a pleasing LED effect. These lights will continue through until the battery is charged and then all lights turn off.

It also one-ups the Tarantula Pro stand by coming with anti-slip pads on the bottom, whereas the plastic stand for the Tarantula Pro does not, which means you need to stick your own ones on like I did.

The backside houses a pair of remappable paddles, and unlike on the Tarantula Pro, these have no lockout switch. Their placement, though, is perfect for easy actuation.

One area where I feel the PB Tails Crush series wins is the trigger ergonomics. Out of all the controllers I have used to date, the Crush triggers are so snug under the fingers and how they are shaped that it just feels like a natural extension of my fingers. It helps that the entire Crush housing is so rounded that it moulds into the palm as well.

The same as on the Tarantula Pro, the sticks are removable and come with metal necks flanked by anti-friction rings on the housing.

The stick tops are easily removed by simply twisting them off. No spare tops are included in the package, but third-party tops may be compatible, or perhaps GameSir will sell them down the line.

Each grip has a subtle but effective nibbled texture which offers a nice grip. This texture carries on all the way around the grips.

It also seems GameSir didn't continue the trend they started a while back, where the USB port was recessed so deeply that only a handful of USB-C cables would fit into the hole, as shown on the Tarantula Pro on the left in the above photo. The other cutouts seen on the Cyclone 2 are for a phone mount, which is available as a third-party option.

Customisation & features

GameSir's Connect software for Windows (available in the Microsoft store) works the same way with the Cyclone 2 as it does with the Tarantula Pro. In fact, the software currently only supports these two controllers.

There is a smartphone app, too, which offers similar customisation, but the bulk of the additonal features are more for the desktop suite.

All changes are stored directly on the controller under one of four profiles, and this is quite convenient because it kind of works around the lack of additional buttons to configure, which the Tarantula Pro has by storing different configs on each profile which you can then switch at any time with a simple button combo:

It does require remembering what config you set for each profile, of course, but with a bit of repetition, this becomes muscle memory.

Several features can be toggled directly on the controller by holding the M button and actuating another; the manual I linked to in the specifications table earlier outlines all the functions available without having to use either app or software.

The software and app also serve to update both the dongle and controller firmware.

Performance - Measurements

First up, the circularity when raw mode is enabled:

11% is perfectly fine in raw mode, and as these are TMR sticks, the sensitivity, even with the default inner deadzone of 10% is excellent, even a slight touch results in measurement software detecting movement. I dropped the inner down to 5% as a matter of preference, but setting it to anything below that does result in the motion being measurable even when not touching the sticks.

Taking a closer look at Joystick Tester we can see that wireless polling is indeed up to 1000Hz:

Moving onto Xinputtest shows if there are any outliers for stick motion and jitter, do note that this is a synthetic test, so the figures may not be perfectly precise, but it's a good way to determine differences between controllers:

Out of multiple runs, between 0 and 6, outliers are averaged, whilst overall latency and jitter are extremely low.

Finally, Stick Analyzer shows us if the sticks have any excessive filtering/processing, which can lead to noticeable delay or unnatural on-screen movement:

Independent lines and stick movement represented nicely, a sign that the sticks have very little filtering, which means a 240fps slow-motion capture test should show very low stick latency...

... Which it does, and this reflects the performance of other TMR stick controllers such as the Tarantula Pro and the Crush Defender. This result is better compared to controllers with hall-effect sticks which result in a visible delay in the same test.

Performance - Gaming

I am currently playing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, a 1st person adventure, something I would never normally play with a controller, but this game works so well with one that it just made sense to do so:

The Cyclone 2 did a fantastic job; all the accessory buttons were positioned so that they were easy to press, and the sticks and triggers behaved as expected. My only gripe came about when it was time to put the triggers into hair-trigger mode by moving the physical switch on the side of each trigger.

The haptic feedback is via two asymmetrical motors, and these are strong enough to create a good level of rumble, whether large or subtle. The Tarantula Pro's HD rumble does a better job at granular haptics, though, whilst the Cyclone 2 is on par with the best of standard rumble found on many controllers these days.

People with longer nails will have no problem, but my short nails must dig into the side of the triggers to pull the switch. This action may even require pausing the game for some.

On the Tarantula Pro, the hair-trigger switch is on the underside of the housing, which makes it super easy and quick to toggle, whilst still playing. As I say, this may just be because of the shape and size of my nails; your mileage may vary.

The d-pad houses a micro switch set-up that feels and sounds as you would expect. It is fully fenced, so no accidental activation of another direction when holding and wiggling any single direction.

The ABXY buttons feel equally excellent; these are mechanical switches, which require low force to actuate, and the throw is short. The feel is much better than the mechs found on the recent BEITONG controller I covered.

A 6-axis gyro is present in the Cyclone 2 as well, and it works no differently than the motion sensing on the Tarantula Pro and other controllers. You can enable it with the press of a button without having to go into Nintendo Switch mode by configuring this in the Connect software.

Conclusion

You can see the family resemblance between both Tarantula Pro and Cyclone 2 for sure, but is one better over the other? They differ in price, yes, they differ in physical layout, yes, but neither really win nor lose dramatically enough to call one an outright winner.

My view after spending a lot of time with both controllers (along with plenty of others) is that if you prefer the PlayStation symmetrical stick layout, then the Tarantula Pro is the best controller currently available.

There are ultra-premium controllers out there, such as the Scuf Envision Pro or even the official Xbox Elite series. These controllers may exhibit more exotic materials, but I don't think they win on outright features and performance. They aren't TMR sticks, for starters, and they cost between £135 and £185 at the time of writing!

Are there more comfortable controllers than the Cyclone 2? Yes, I already mentioned one of them earlier, but that does not mean the Cyclone 2 is not comfortable; on the contrary, it is very comfortable, and I had no problem playing a long session taking Indiana through various tombs.

So here is where I stand: I think the Cyclone 2, at its current price, is one of the best Xbox layout controllers available. It is packed with the right specs and features, and the Connect software allows you to set up a configuration for each of the four profiles exactly how you want and then save them directly onto the controller. I don't know of any other controller currently available near this price that can do all that.

If the PlayStation layout is more to your liking, though, then there is only one option, no prizes for guessing what that might be if you've reached this far into the review 😅

The charging stand is genuinely excellent and adds convenience, you never have to plug it in, and unlike the £10 extra you pay for the stand version of the Tarantula Pro, this one is only £5 extra.

The Cyclone 2, then, is a winner with only a few quirks that may or may not affect some people. There is nothing I can slate it for. Genuinely, I could nitpick, but that would be doing a great controller a disservice.