Hey there, sweet thang. Howza 'bout you take off them glasses and let a gamer show you how to up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start?

When I was at PAX this year, I kept walking back and forth in front of the GUNNAR Optiks booth, thinking that I should drop some coin on a good pair of glasses to maybe reduce some of the 10-12 hours of eye strain I put myself through every day.  I never did, because the prices I saw inadvertently caused my testicles to pull into my body cavity.

Low and behold, a few months later, their PR folks contacted me to see if I was interested in trying out a pair of their $160 glasses.

So, is the premium price tag worth the hype?  Hit me after the jump.

An important note: the key word here is trying.  Where I’m starting to get accustomed to developers sending out copies of games and not asking for them back, the GUNNAR Optiks (yes, that is how it is spelled, I’m not doing that on purpose; all capital letters and then Optiks misspelled on purpose to be hip) folks sent me a handy dandy return envelope to send back their glasses a week after trying them.

Okay, a little tacky,  but I decided to play ball.

In the Fed Ex box that arrived at my house, I got my GUNNAR Optiks package, which came with several forests worth of marketing materials going into great detail to tell me why I needed these glasses.  The detailed explanation of how it uses “advanced computer algorithms to mimic nature by focusing light” and its “oleophobic coating protecting from smudging and fingerprints” had my head spinning.  Holy ba-jesus, I’m a gamer, I’m no connoisseur of high-end glasses: what kind of gamer benefits from this kind of agonizing detail?

Did you know, fair reader, that as “teh hardcorz gamrz”, you most likely suffer from DEF and/or CVS? What is that, you ask?  Well, apparently, if you’re reading this, you along with 90% of Americans have “Digital Eye Fatigue” and “Computer Vision Syndrome”.  I had no idea I was suffering from a disease I’d never heard of before!  Well, it’s a good thing I’m borrowing a pair of shiny new glasses to remedy the situation.  Thank you, GUNNAR Optiks!

The package also came with a DVD which I didn’t bother to put in.  Having researched their site, www.gunnars.com, I had a feeling that it would be a series of video testimonials from a bunch of 17-year old Major League Gaming pogues telling me just how their GUNNAR Optiks helped them make better headshots and more clicks-per-minute.

The proof is in the pudding, as it goes, so I threw them on and sat down for a good old fashioned game-a-thon with Modern Warfare 2.  After about ten minutes, it dawned on me that I was wearing nothing more than a very sexy and comfortable pair of marksman glasses.  Marksman or shooter’s glasses are glasses that you wear on a range, typically tinted yellow to block out blue light to sharpen lines at a distance.  Hell, I have of a pair of crap wrap-around marksman glasses in my kit bag with my Glock 21 downstairs in the basement, and those were like $15 at the range.

Also, there’s the obvious hitch with the pair I got: the lenses are tinted amber.  I have a high definition monitor for the express purpose of getting the best graphical experience that money can buy.  When I’m wearing my pair of Oakleys outside during a sunny day, I’m not trying to look directly at the sun; I don’t care what the sun looks like.  While I’m staring at my monitor, however, I’m trying to see every single texture and pixel.  While the amber lenses sharpen your lines and help bring your picture into focus, it takes all your beautiful 1080p graphics and washes them with a urine-stained yellow.  Eww.  It may sound dumb, but at $160…

The lenses seem to do almost everything they promise: relieve dry eyes, reduce eye strain and improve contrast.  But in the overbearing literature sent with the glasses, it talks about giving me “an immediate and profound visual advantage”, and I can’t really agree there.  In their defense, they have a range of prices ranging from $79-$169, but those plastic thumbstick doohickies Doc had me try out from KontrolFreek?  Now those were an immediate and profound advantage…and those are ten bucks.

Overall, a lot of hype, fancy window-dressing and pretentiousness for not a lot to show for.  This whole affair felt like it was a thugged-out rapper throwing a six-figure record release party, trying to show you how much bling they have and how many deep they roll, but then charging you a fee to get into the door and then asking you to bring your own bitches and Courvoisier.

As a middle-aged white man, I hope that makes sense.

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