The Sims 4 Gaming Mouse by Steelseries is a specialised USB mouse specially designed for EA’s latest version of their life simulator. To appeal to fans of the long running series, a light in the shape of a plumbbob crystal has been set below the scroll wheel, and will change colour depending on their active Sim’s mood.

Inside the box, you find a set of printed instructions and the mouse itself with a cable tie to keep things neat. The software to customise additional functions of the mouse was only available online, but thankfully the particular drivers that the product would need to communicate with The Sims 4 were stored inside the mouse itself. This was a welcome decision on the part of Steelseries, as it could have been slightly awkward to install more drivers outside of the usual plug and play service provided by USB hardware.

The Sims 4 Gaming Mouse has an outer case made out of white reflective plastic, with light grey plastic forming its base, sharing the same colour scheme as the game it is endorsed by. Unlike some mice that are short and rounded, this model is 11.3cm long and 3.5cm high, with a 2m USB connection lead for easy accessibility, with a LED plumbob light and scroll wheel situated in the middle. Only two additional buttons are included, with their default function assigned to move back and forward through the speed settings for the mouse pointer.

Although the mouse does feel comfortable in your hand, the white plastic makes your hand feel warm quite quickly, which was slightly awkward when using it for long periods of time. Each of the buttons offers a resounding click, and were laid out in a sensible manner, but the scroll wheel felt slightly loose, making it harder to scroll to the options I needed to access. The light on the mouse is advertised to change colour when your active character in The Sims 4 has a mood swing, and after booting the game for myself, I changed my character’s emotional state several times, and each time it was altered, the light on the mouse corresponded with the colour chosen to represent that emotion. After completing these tests, I can confirm that this feature works without any apparent issues.

When used for day to day applications, The Sims 4 Gaming Mouse has no problems with lag or moving across any kind of mouse mat, but it definitely feels most at home on a cloth material that is used in the official product of the same range as it will offer the least resistance or damage to the underside of the mouse. Whether you are using the lowest or highest CPI setting, the precision offered in both games and other software cannot be faulted, with no visible lag adding to the smooth experience.

It was possible to change the scroll speeds and options through the usual operating system dialog boxes, but the real fun begins when you download Steelseries Engine 3 software from the official website. It is possible to make multiple profiles for various kinds of software, and share them through the cloud if you make an account on the Steelseries website. Every button on the mouse can be customised to perform specific actions, although you can stick with the default if this takes your fancy. If you want to program a set of custom actions, the built in Macro Editor makes it quick and simple to do so. As well as changing the CPI sensitivity and polling rate for dedicated applications, you can change the colour of the LED to whatever shade you want.

Overall, The Sims 4 Gaming Mouse is a very capable mouse with a solid design. Advertised for the gaming community, it does include some of the additional features that will attract the hardcore Sims 4 crowd. It won’t any awards for innovation, but the plumb bob light that is also present in the SteelSeries Sims 4 Gaming Headset tips the imagination factor in its favour. There are some issues with the material causing your hand to feel uncomfortable, but if you take regular breaks these shouldn’t prove too much of a problem.

If you are interested in seeing the other products in this range, be sure to check out The Sims 4 Gaming Headset and The Sims 4 Gaming Mousepad, also reviewed here on VGU.