Cyborg Gaming Lights review

Cyborg’s gaming lights are the latest incarnation of amBX, a system designed to enhance your games and films by altering the ambient lighting of a room to match what’s happening on screen. A pair of multicolour LED lamps might not seem like a must-have upgrade for your gaming PC, but we were surprised just how effective they were.

By varying the brightness of the red, green and blue LEDs inside each lamp to project light onto the wall behind your PC monitor, the system has a potential palette of 16 million colours. Each lamp can change colour independently to reproduce multiple in-game light sources. Multiple sets can create a surround lighting effect, but you’ll need enough USB and mains sockets as each pair requires two USB ports and a mains plug.

In a dark room, the already atmospheric Dead Space 2 felt even more immersive, as did the dark dungeons of Oblivion, but not all games saw a huge benefit; the lights barely changed when playing FIFA 11. Not many games fully support amBX – most titles have basic light effects, with a slight delay as the lights follow colour changes on screen, but a few, such as Doom 3, have pre-programmed lighting patterns that illuminate when collecting pickups or casting spells. Check the list at http://www.ambx.com/wiki/List_of_compatible_games to see which games are fully supported.

Although we loved the effects they created, we still think £90 is a lot to pay for what is essentially a pair of LED mood lights. They certainly make an impact when used in the dark, but if your games aren’t supported the half second delay between colour changes could become irritating.