GGL Wire

Over my past few years as a tech journalist, I’ve come across the Novint Falcon many times and the same thought still sifts through my mind as I was faced with it here at DigitalLife: It’s a cool concept and fun to play around with, but for actual mainstream gaming use it’s useless. This mammoth motion-feedback controller is designed to make its users feel more immersed in the environment, but because it’s so free floating, trying to achieve a proper level of accuracy is impossible for the fickle PC gaming audience.

I had a chance to play some Half-Life 2 with the controller — the only real game I’ve ever seen demoed on the thing — and my feelings were reinforced yet again. While it is nice to feel some real kickback with your weapons, trying to accomplish a goal while doing so is certainly a lesson in frustration.

Is there still a future for this thing? Well, not in gaming, but I could certainly see how it would make sense for some real-world applications. It’s hard to imagine we’ll see more of the Novint Falcon controller in its current iteration for a videogame audience, but maybe these guys can come up with the right answer. Again, cool technology, just not very practical for its intended users — especially considering the price. The advertised bundle for the unit includes the controller, two custom-made game packs and that’s just about it for a hard-to-swallow $239. Are you buying?