No really, it does work, honest!
Perhaps one of the most innovative products we’ve seen at CES 2007 has to be the 3D force feedback ‘mouse’ from Novint Technologies and probably one of the weirdest things about it is that it doesn’t look like a mouse at all…
The Falcon is the first three dimensional interactive touch device for the home PC, allowing users to feel weight, shape, texture, dimension, dynamics, 3D motion and force effects when playing enabled games.
Click for larger imageAs odd as it may look, this thing is actually pretty intuitive to use and works very well. We were taken through various demos showing off the Falcon’s abilities, from simulating a rough surfaced globe with ruts and pits which reminded me all too much of my acne riddled teens, through globs of molasses which felt thick and gooey, sheets of sandpaper and even a globe of ice… which felt hard and slippery.
So it was obvious that the Falcon had the force feedback and spatial sensing down pat… it just, well, worked and worked bloody well.
But my real interest was in gaming applications and to this end I was treated to a session in Half Life 2, for which a set of drivers had been specially written. Now, you might be wondering how a force feedback mouse would be any good or have any value in a shooter like HL2 and I’d have to agree that it very likely won’t give you a competitive edge but for the immersion factor the Falcon has the potential to be unbeatable.
Click for larger imageHalf Life 2 is a very physics heavy game, as we all know… well now all those objects you can move around, from tin cans to bricks and barrels all have weight and inertia. Pick up a can and it feels like you’re not really holding anything… but pick up a drum of fuel and it feels heavy… swing it around and inertia kicks in, making the drum try to carry on swinging around unless you counteract it… it feels simply brilliant.
But then you get onto the weapons. The pistol kicks just like it should (and I should know, I spent an afternoon firing off a Berretta 9mm only a few days ago) and the machine gun feels just as realistic (yes, I emptied a few clips from an MP5 too). In fact, from an immersion point of view, the Falcon is superb.
However, even after my brief playtest, I did have a couple of minor gripes. First, the supplied ball grip is far too small but I’m assured that a pistol grip is on the way for shooters, which would be great. Second, when you reach the edge of the screen with the cursor, the screen just scrolls which is a problem traditional mouse gamers get past by lifting the mouse up and recentering. You can’t do tis with the Falcon, so some sort of adjustable sensitivity for edge of the screen scrolling needs to be implemented. And finally, the Falcon just doesn’t grip the table well enough… some sort of sucker or clamp system is needed as frantic movements with the Falcon’s limited range of travel see you pushing the whole thing across the desk.
That said, my comments were taken on board by the dev team present and they acknowledged that there was still work to do. Novint are now taking pre-orders for the Falcon and are expecting a launch around June 2007. At a price point of $189 on pre-order or $239 off the shelf, the Falcon is well up into the luxury accessory range but I recommend having a play on one first before you make a decision…
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