Prophecy Keyboard Cover Review

Here's my review of the Prophecy Keyboard Cover by Cockpit Collection. It retails for $15 US and we're still waiting on finding a cheap shipping rate to Europe through simw.com.

When I opened the shipping box it seemed rather frail and asked to be handled gently. But it survived being bent in two for shipping really well and didn't have a mark when you layed it out, so it actually seems rather durable on closer inspection. All the main keys fit great on both my and Celina's keyboards. The function keys can vary in position, so they're the only ones that aren't a tight fit. Although it's not really necessary, if you're going to use the Cover to play, you should probably use the adhesives they provide and tuck the edges under the board. Not only does the Cover stay in place better, you feel more confident about pushing on the keys. Naturally the keys wont be as smooth covered as uncovered at first, but the effect is worth it. That's probably my biggest concern. You have to get used to pushing through a thin plastic to get to your keys. Controls where you have to hold a key (Tab/Ctrl/Alt) will feel a bit funny because you wont want to put much strain on the Cover, and this might slow you down a bit. But this would be the case for just about any new keyboard or joystick that you were unaccustomed to.

The computer circuitry background is different. Maybe a sleek blue would have been nice, but I suppose Cockpit Collections has to get a bit imaginative or else all their Covers would end up having pretty similar generic "cockpit backgrounds." There's some nice color coding that works well with the background too. Thruster related things have their distinctive colors, things that require the Control or Alt keys are appropriately color bracketed, weapon related functions are marked in bright red and so on. The Print Screen key is even detailed. There's only about a dozen keys off a "104 key" keyboard that don't have a designated function. For newbies, they even have small boxes in the bottom and upper right for Nav Map and Wingman Comms information.

Even if you play with a joystick the Cover is a nice item to have. You'll never have all your keys mapped to your stick, so you'll have your keyboard there anyway.

It really adds to the feel of the game to play with the Cover and adds to the feel of the room to have such memorabilia nearby. I'm thinking about digging up an old keyboard and leaving it set up on that as a display when I'm not playing.