Lather rinse repeat.  As a gameplay formula it doesn't sound all that enticing when you write it like that but that's to entirely miss the point.  I'm of course talking about Diablo III, the forthcoming latest version in the venerable series which exhibits all the compulsive tendencies that you remember.  It's been a while since I last played Diablo II (ooooh, about a decade) but there have been plenty of games in the meantime which embodied the same action RPG, loot-'em-up style to tide us over.  Everything from Titan Quest, to last year's Bastion owe more than a small amount of debt to the original Diablo - even Borderlands, which might seem to be a different game thanks to its FPS styling, had that same enticing gameplay mechanic of killing hordes of monsters and then collecting the loot which was left behind: every click of the mouse leading you on to what could be a new weapon or piece of armour which is better than the one you currently have.

Having been lucky enough to get a beta key for Diablo III recently I was intrigued to see if Blizzard had retained that same compulsive gameplay magic; I fired it up, thinking I'd spend half an hour just getting into it.  6 hours later my conclusion would have to be: yes, it's got all the magic and more that I remember from the first two games in the series.  To put it another way May 15th can't come soon enough, but for those of you lucky enough to be on the beta, I've put together a profile for all R.A.T. and M.M.O.7 owners and added it to the RPG Profile Pack on the downloads page.  Keep on clicking/looting!

UPDATE: The software has been released as a full version which can be downloaded from the software links on the download page.

We thought we'd just drop a quick note here to you let you know the current situation for the Mac software for R.A.T..

We have just uploaded a public beta version of the software which will solve the issue for those of you having trouble getting your new version R.A.T.s recognised.  It works with all versions of the R.A.T. released so far and you can get it from the following link:

LINK REMOVED - see update note above

It should be problem free but we know that some of you have been waiting for this so we wanted to get it to you now rather than keep you waiting.  If you get any issues then just let us know.

UPDATE 24th April

Okay, a new beta version is available for you to test.  Usual provisos apply - it's beta and therefore we recommend that you back up your system before installing in case anything untoward happens.  Here's the link:

ftp://ftp.saitek.com/pub/software/beta/CyborgRAT-1.1.30-BETA.zip

Let us know if it helps solve the precision aim problem and any other issues that you might have been having.

A new product announcement always gives us a bit of a charge here at Mad Catz.  It's great to see something you've been working on for so long actually unveiled to those who are going to benefit the most from our work - you, our loyal customers.  The F.R.E.Q. is the second part of that holy triumvirate of PC gaming (otherwise known as the mouse, headset and keyboard) that many of you have been expecting from us for a while now and, well, we think it's a little bit special.

The first thing you're going to notice is the design - we think you'll agree it fits in totally with the R.A.T. and yes, those pivot hinges are made from metal, continuing the theme we started with that award-winning product: this is built to look amazing, but also to last. 

Most importantly though, it sounds stunning.  50mm drivers (most PC gaming headsets up to now have settled for 40mm) provide an incredibly detailed audio performance that really will have you noticing things in your games, music and movies that you might not have noticed before.  Play Battlefield 3 with the F.R.E.Q. and you'll never need wonder why DICE keep winning awards for their audio - you really can tell the subtle differences in the sounds that your feet make when running over each ground surface in the game; something that might have eluded you previously on other gaming audio products. 

The microphone performance won't let you down either.  We've been testing the F.R.E.Q. for quite a while now; it's that great situation where you get to take your work home with you and give it a proper "field test" and everytime we go online we get people asking which microphone we're using because they're so impressed with the clarity of it.  We've even made it compatible with your MP3 player or smartphone - you can also take phone calls using the microphone if you've got an iPhone, HTC or Blackberry handset (for other handsets you may need a 3.5mm TRRS adapter due to the different pin-outs used on the headphone jack).

You can get more details (and pictures) at this page on our site.

Right, that’s it, stick a fork in us: we’re done.  We’re coming to the end of another year; one that flew by pretty quickly for us whilst we worked on various new delights for you (more on that soon).  Gaming-wise we were spoilt silly by the sheer level of humour displayed by Portal 2 in April (still the funniest thing in gaming, cinema and T.V. this year) and then basically waited, breathless with anticipation, for Battlefield 3 and Skyrim.  Yes, we dabbled with various games in the meantime but they meant nothing to us (except for our unhealthy addiction to Left 4 Dead 2 at lunchtimes).

So we’ve created profiles for those last two (not for Portal 2 though – seriously, you only need WASD, E, Space and your R.A.T.!) and also added a bunch of M.M.O. profiles in anticipation of the M.M.O.7.  Whilst we were at it we thought we’d reorganise how we deal with our profile packs and add support for the M.M.O.7 back into all the previously released profiles, so here you go (click the name ofd the pack you want to start the download):

FPS Profile Pack
ARMA 2, Aliens Vs. Predator, Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3, Bioshock, Bloody Good Time, Borderlands, Brink, Bulletstorm, Call of Duty (all of them – they haven’t changed the controls yet!), Crysis, Crysis 2, Counterstrike: Source, Duke Nukem Forever, Day of Defeat: Source, Front Mission Evolved, Half Life 2, Homefront, Left 4 Dead 2, Metro 2033, Medal of Honour, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, Section 8 Prejudice, Shattered Horizon, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Team Fortress 2

Action Profile Pack
Assassin’s Creed, Batman Arkham Asylum, Dead Rising 2, Dead Space 2, Just Cause 2 Lost Planet 2, Mafia II, Red Faction Armageddon, Space Marine, Transformers: War For Cybertron

M.M.O. Profile Pack
Age Of Conan, Aion, D&D Online, DC Universe Online, Entropia Universe, EVE Online, Everquest 2, Final Fantasy XIV, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online, Rift, Runescape, Star Trek Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Tera, Warhammer Online, World Of Tanks, World Of Warcraft, World of Warcraft profile for M.M.O.7 Plug-in

RPG Profile pack
Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Fallout 3, Mass Effect 2, Minecraft, Mount & Blade, Witcher 2

Strategy Profile Pack
Civilisation V, Command & Conquer, Company of Heroes, Dawn Of War, Empire: Total War, Homeworld 2, League of Legends, Napoleon: Total War, Shogun 2: Total War, Sins of a Solar Empire, Starcraft 2, Supreme Commander,  Supreme Commander 2

Non-Gaming Profile Pack
CS5 After Effects, CS5 Dreamweaver, CS5 Flash, CS5 Illustrator, CS5 InDesign, CS5 Photoshop, CS5 Premiere, Firefox, Google Chrome, Google Earth, Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Powerpoint, Microsoft Word, Solidworks, Visual Studio, Windows 7.

You'll need to open the zip file and then copy the folder within to your C:\Users\Public\Documents\Saitek SD6 Profiles directory (or <user's home directory>Library/Application Support/Smart Technology/RAT for Mac).  The profiles will then appear in the pop-up list you get when you right click the R.A.T. icon next to your clock.

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!

The R.A.T.7 Albino has been a popular version of the Guiness award-winning "world's most configurable mouse" however, those of you who live outside of the U.S., Canada, Germany, France and the UK were unable to get one.  We do listen to you though so we have now released the R.A.T. Contagion and this one has gone much wider, as befits its name.  The guys at Apple loved this mouse so much that they've listed it on many of their online stores across Europe (and in the U.S. too) and they're live right now - so if you've been holding out for a white R.A.T. (and, judging by our emails, there's been a lot of people in Hungary who do) then check out the links below:

Netherland: http://store.apple.com/nl/product/H7359ZM/A/cyborg-rat-7-contagion-gaming-mouse

France : http://store.apple.com/fr/product/H7359ZM/A/souris-de-jeu-rat-7-contagion-de-cyborg

Belgium french : http://store.apple.com/be-fr/product/H7359ZM/A/souris-de-jeu-rat-7-contagion-de-cyborg

Belgium Dutch: http://store.apple.com/be-nl/product/H7359ZM/A/cyborg-rat-7-contagion-gaming-mouse

Swiss french: http://store.apple.com/ch-fr/product/H7359ZM/A/souris-de-jeu-rat-7-contagion-de-cyborg

Swiss German: http://store.apple.com/ch-de/product/H7359ZM/A/cyborg-rat-7-contagion-gaming-mouse

Finland: http://store.apple.com/fi/product/H7359ZM/A/cyborg-rat-7-contagion-gaming-mouse

Hungary: http://store.apple.com/hu/product/H7359ZM/A/cyborg-rat-7-contagion-j%C3%A1t%C3%A9koseg%C3%A9r

Norway: http://store.apple.com/no/product/H7359ZM/A/cyborg-rat-7-contagion-gaming-mouse

Sweden: http://store.apple.com/se/product/H7359ZM/A/cyborg-rat-7-contagion-gaming-mouse

Austria: http://store.apple.com/at/product/H7359ZM/A/cyborg-rat-7-contagion-gaming-mouse

Ireland : http://store.apple.com/ie/product/H7359ZM/A/cyborg-rat-7-contagion-gaming-mouse

Czech : http://store.apple.com/cz/product/H7359ZM/A/cyborg-rat-7-contagion-gaming-mouse

Italia: http://store.apple.com/it/product/H7359ZM/A/cyborg-rat-7-contagion-gaming-mouse

Poland : http://store.apple.com/pl/product/H7359ZM/A/cyborg-rat-7-contagion-gaming-mouse

Portugal: http://store.apple.com/pt/product/H7359ZM/A/cyborg-rat-7-contagion-gaming-mouse

UK : http://store.apple.com/uk/product/H7359ZM/A/cyborg-rat-7-contagion-gaming-mouse

Denmark : http://store.apple.com/dk/product/H7359ZM/A/cyborg-rat-7-contagion-gaming-mouse

Luxembourg: http://store.apple.com/lu/product/H7359ZM/A/souris-de-jeu-rat-7-contagion-de-cyborg

Germany: http://store.apple.com/de/product/H7359ZM/A/cyborg-rat-7-contagion-gaming-mouse

Spain : http://store.apple.com/es/product/H7359ZM/A/rat%C3%B3n-para-jugar-cyborg-rat-7-contagion