Call of Duty Cable Guys Review

One of the great things about the last couple of console generations is the wide-scale adoption of wireless controllers. The downside to this however, is how easy it is to lose the things now they’re no longer permanently tethered to your system. There’s also the need to charge them, as there’s nothing more annoying than being in the final few minutes of an epic deathmatch, only to have a controller die on you just as you were about to get the winning kill. Over the years, plenty of solutions to the storage and charging problem have been created, but most of them are just black pieces of plastic, hardly something that you want to show off on your shiny new entertainment centre. That’s where Cable Guys step in, with a range of figurines that also double up as cradles to hold your device while charging.

We got sent three models of cable guy, each in fully branded Call of Duty packaging, two full size models and one miniature. Two were similar designs, with a large and small version of the same figurine, labelled as a WWII private and WWII Officer respectively, as well as Simon Riley, aka ‘Ghost’ from numerous CoD titles. If you’re not a Call of Duty fan, there will be other options soon, including Street Fighter, Star Wars and Sonic the Hedgehog. Keep an eye on their website for designs coming soon.

The first thing that I noticed when getting these guys out of the box was the weight. They’re proper sturdy. They’re made of plastic, but it’s a nice solid-feeling plastic, you certainly wouldn't be worried about them falling over. They have their hands out in a carrying gesture, and it’s in those hands where your controller balances. I tested them with a variety of controllers, as well as my phone and tablet, and all seemed pretty sturdy. If you’re worried about your Switch falling over during a vigorous Mario Kart session, then it should be able to stop that too.

The charging function is provided by way of an included cable. It’s a really nice long cable too (two metres), so you could feasibly use it to charge the controller while in use as well as while it’s being neatly cradled by the hands of your plastic pal. What I thought was a nice touch was the fact that it’s got both a lightning connector and a micro USB in the same cable, which means that you can charge iPhones, iPads, and many Android phones/tablets as well as your PS4 or Xbox One controller. I’d have liked to see USB-C as well, but that’s still not as ubiquitous as micro USB yet so I can see why it got left out.

I’ve had these in use for a few weeks now and they really do exactly what they say on the box. They’re pretty, and they serve a functional purpose: both things that I wish applied to me a bit more. The Call of Duty models are available now, with more franchises to follow during 2018.