Second in this series of Massively Multiplayer Online gaming peripherals is the World of Warcraft Cataclysm (WoW) mouse. Produced by Steelseries and Blizzard Entertainment this mouse is designed to synergistically work with the game World of Warcraft more than any other mouse could. Out of the box the mouse has almost all of its 14 buttons mapped to specific in-game tasks, and each button can be re-mapped at the user's discretion. The mouse is designed to look like the scales of Deathwing, the killer dragon from the Cataclysm expansion, and its pulsing backlights give it a serious look. So the mouse looks great and has a ton of buttons, but is it any good? In short, yes it's pretty much awesome.

MadCatz are a leading manufacturer and provider of some of the coolest products on the market, with their main focus on the console and portable gaming scene, but they do also cater for the PC peripheral market, especially when it comes to suitable products for flight simulator fans and XBOX consumers wanting to bring a bit of game to the PC in the form of a gamepad controller that their used to.

Other products include specifically made for gaming keyboards, surfaces and mice which is where our journey takes us. This time they have taken the word unique to a whole new level with their revolutionary range of R.A.T. mice. There are several products in the R.A.T. range including the more basic features of the R.A.T 3 with its 3200 dpi laser and wired interface, all the way up to the R.A.T 9 that we're looking at today which boasts an amazing 5600 dpi gaming laser, mass amounts of programmable buttons and settings and a wireless interface.

Does the Cyborg R.A.T. 9 really show better performance and features than the top-selling, award-winning R.A.T. 7 or is it just a load of marketing hype? That's what we're here to find out.

When it comes to novelty gadgets, you could say that they come in two large and pretty vaguer categories: tasteful and tasteless. Sometimes a device is both tasteful and tasteless depending on the individuals point of view (just look at the Batman USB flash drives for examples of this as some consider them "cute" and some consider them "sacrilege"!). Sadly, while some skate the edge and some can even be considered stepping over the line and dropping into the tasteless zone... some not only are completely tasteless but actually rebel in it!

The company Roccat, have been producing some impressive products recently, although this is not one of their latest products we still expect it to be outstanding. Although there is now a successor to this mouse it was based entirely on this device and could quite possibly be just an expensive upgrads which tend to be a fairly typical ploy by many companies to get you to spend more money, as they entice you in with the entry model and then hope you like it enough to buy the more expensive model so they get you to buy 2 of their products. For this reason and others, we are taking a look at the original Roccat Kone – not the Roccat Kone +.

Roccat produce a variety of devices and are especially well known for their headset the Roccat Kave but they do produce a good 20 different products encompassing keyboards, mouse pads, mice headsets accessories and even a notebook to boot. Their products can now also be found in a long list of retailers in this country including high-street shops such as: PC World, WHSmith's and Curry's. This in itself does not constitute a successful brand but does show that they are becoming readily available and aren't just limited to the internet.

The Roccat Kone is one of those futuristic mice that still look as if it ought to be classed as a prototype. The list of technologies incorporated is quite impressive and in fact it has its own CPU that runs at a surprising 72 MHz which up till a year or two ago was more power than in most mobile phones.