Review: Novint Falcon!! [PC peripheral]
josh, 18-Dec-09 » Novint Falcon review, by Josh
The long awaited Novint Falcon!
After many months of playtime and numerous requests by Heals for the review... here it is; the long awaited Falcon review! I know it’s a bit late, but with a device as unique as this, we really wanted to get a full idea of it before telling our audience about it. The Novint Falcon, at its most basic level is a gaming peripheral that takes the place of your mouse. However, instead of the mouse’s horizontal movement, the falcon replicates the onscreen vertical and horizontal movements. Basically while a mouse only moves around on the desk, the falcon turns that movement 90 degrees into a vertical motion, and when it does your gaming experience will never be the same
.
The real draw for gamers out there will be the Falcon's FPS functionality, and Novint have already realized that and released the first of their interchangeable grips, the pistol grip.
We’ll start off the review with the primary reason why anyone would buy the falcon, the force feedback. Physically, the falcon is composed of three motors attached to three arms attached to your controller ball/pistol grip. This means that whenever something happens to your character in game, the falcon (with its included software) can move your controller depending on the forces that effect it. So if you turn to the left and are getting shot from the right, you can feel a force that is pushing you on the side that you’re being shot from. It’s a very weird feeling being able to instantly feel where you’re being shot from. The force feedback is not limited to just things that happen to you, but all actions that physically affect your character have some corresponding feeling while handling the falcon. If you run into a wall you feel a force pushing you back as though you actually did run into it. Driving around in a vehicle takes on a very different feeling when you can actually feel the rumble of the engine and are pressed back into your seat when you speed off. You’re probably thinking this all sounds well and good, but I’d like to see it in action. Well... we thought of that, but regrettably I don’t have video editing capabilities, so I’ll let Tom and the Novint team show you what the hell I’m talking about.
Tom from Novint explains the falcon in the only way that probably makes sense... in video!
Everything has a feedback that creates a very unique sensation of being more a part of the game than you’ve ever been. Running, jumping, and even changing directions cause a force to the player, and this brings me to a small issue that I have with the whole setup.
One of the problems that real soldiers experience in the field is an overload of information, and while I would not ever really compare a game to actual war experience, the introduction of a force feedback system such as the falcon to a typical gaming experience takes a hell of a long time to get used to, and even when you are used to it... it’s still bloody disorienting! I play Valve’s Team Fortress 2 quite a lot, and when you’re a soldier one of your key moves for getting around the map is rocket jumping. When using a mouse to rocket jump you swing the mouse to the right and towards you to flick shot a rocket immediately behind you, but with the Falcon, because of the joystick like turning mechanism (you push it all the way to the left or right against a sort of spring in order to turn then spring back to the middle for firing) making a rocket jump that moves you forward is nigh impossible without turning the turning sensitivity up to its highest point, and even if you do manage to execute a rocket jump, you still have to deal with the force feedback of the rocket hitting in close proximity to you throwing off your course just that little bit. Firing two shots at the same spot is easy with a mouse because unless you move your hand the cursor position will not change, but with the force feedback firing two shots at the exact same spot is a more difficult proposition.
The default ball grip is used here to show how you can even feel depth when playing with the falcon. The tutorial is so insanely cool because you can feel the texture on the spheres while you maneuver your cursor in 3d space.
Fortunately, the gentlemen at Novint have factored in some of the concerns we’ve raised, and have a very in depth editing program that allows you to tailor the force feedback function for each game, which is good considering the settings you’ll want for TF2 will be very different from the settings for Half Life 2: ep2. We’ve found that for the competitive scene where you’re going up against other human players turning the turning sensitivity up and the environmental feedback down results in a much more enjoyable experience than the default settings. Regardless, if you are really into competitive play, chances are you’ll stick to a mouse simply for the known results and the ease of performing actions like rocket jumps, but for the single player games you own such as the Half Life 2 series then I would recommend the default settings to fully experience what the games have to offer in terms of Falcon interaction, because it is great fun to play with all the forces active so long as you don’t have to worry about being killed :P.
The Falcon is not a small object as shown by this profile shot. It takes up quite a large section of my rather small desk, but if you've got space then it should fit nicely in with the rest of your gaming gear.
Let’s talk quickly about the physical aspect of the Falcon. It isn’t a small device as you can see from the packaging, and will take up a fair amount of desk space for those where that is a concern. The footprint is 27cm wide x 25cm deep and has a height of 22cm, and because of the way the falcon moves and the fact that it replaces the mouse means that it is going to have to sit right on the edge of the desk to get the full range of motion, especially when using the pistol grip. That’s another point that is really unique about the falcon. The default control grip that we received is a ball grip with all of the buttons on the top, but the one you want, especially if you’re playing FPS which the falcon does best, is the Pistol Grip. Basically the pistol grip is a right handed back half of a pistol with a trigger and three thumb buttons that you can bind to be whatever you’d like to. For example in TF2 I bound the trigger to primary fire and then the thumb buttons I changed to secondary fire, previous disguise, and change weapon. The pistol grip is comfortable and if you have an arm rest on your gaming chair then you can comfortably use the falcon for fairly long periods of time (a word of warning for those without arm rests, I tried this and my arm actually got tired quite quickly from resisting the forces while playing Half Life 2). A small gripe I have about the pistol grip is that, when holding the pistol as you would expect to hold a normal pistol your thumb is a bit outside of the position that they believe it should be, so you have to hold the grip a bit angled in order to access all three thumb buttons, but that’s just a tiny hiccup for what otherwise is a brilliant grip.
The pistol grip's trigger replaces mouse one, while the three easily accessible thumb buttons can be bound to anything from secondary fire to reload to suit your gaming style.
So, in conclusion, the Falcon is a great piece of hardware for those wishing to inject a bit of fun back into a game that might have gotten a bit stale, but with a price tag of ... brace yourself... $190 US! Or... and this is the better deal, you could purchase the bundle they have currently for $175 for the Falcon (white), Pistol Grip (normally $20), the Orange Box, and Penumbra: Overture Haptix Edition. Not a cheap piece of hardware for something that just allows force feedback I’ll admit, and while the price tag might scare off many if not all of the potential buyers, it is definitely a lot of fun and if you can get over the initial price it is in fact something you will enjoy and any gamer friends you have will definitely be itching to try this bad boy out.
Final Rating: 3/5 Good piece of hardware with a few quirks that are probably more related to how well it works than faults. Very pricey for something that basically just replaces a mouse. Probably a purchase best left for the hardcore gamer or the gamer with some cash to throw around.
The long awaited Novint Falcon!
After many months of playtime and numerous requests by Heals for the review... here it is; the long awaited Falcon review! I know it’s a bit late, but with a device as unique as this, we really wanted to get a full idea of it before telling our audience about it. The Novint Falcon, at its most basic level is a gaming peripheral that takes the place of your mouse. However, instead of the mouse’s horizontal movement, the falcon replicates the onscreen vertical and horizontal movements. Basically while a mouse only moves around on the desk, the falcon turns that movement 90 degrees into a vertical motion, and when it does your gaming experience will never be the same
.
The real draw for gamers out there will be the Falcon's FPS functionality, and Novint have already realized that and released the first of their interchangeable grips, the pistol grip.
We’ll start off the review with the primary reason why anyone would buy the falcon, the force feedback. Physically, the falcon is composed of three motors attached to three arms attached to your controller ball/pistol grip. This means that whenever something happens to your character in game, the falcon (with its included software) can move your controller depending on the forces that effect it. So if you turn to the left and are getting shot from the right, you can feel a force that is pushing you on the side that you’re being shot from. It’s a very weird feeling being able to instantly feel where you’re being shot from. The force feedback is not limited to just things that happen to you, but all actions that physically affect your character have some corresponding feeling while handling the falcon. If you run into a wall you feel a force pushing you back as though you actually did run into it. Driving around in a vehicle takes on a very different feeling when you can actually feel the rumble of the engine and are pressed back into your seat when you speed off. You’re probably thinking this all sounds well and good, but I’d like to see it in action. Well... we thought of that, but regrettably I don’t have video editing capabilities, so I’ll let Tom and the Novint team show you what the hell I’m talking about.
Tom from Novint explains the falcon in the only way that probably makes sense... in video!
Everything has a feedback that creates a very unique sensation of being more a part of the game than you’ve ever been. Running, jumping, and even changing directions cause a force to the player, and this brings me to a small issue that I have with the whole setup.
One of the problems that real soldiers experience in the field is an overload of information, and while I would not ever really compare a game to actual war experience, the introduction of a force feedback system such as the falcon to a typical gaming experience takes a hell of a long time to get used to, and even when you are used to it... it’s still bloody disorienting! I play Valve’s Team Fortress 2 quite a lot, and when you’re a soldier one of your key moves for getting around the map is rocket jumping. When using a mouse to rocket jump you swing the mouse to the right and towards you to flick shot a rocket immediately behind you, but with the Falcon, because of the joystick like turning mechanism (you push it all the way to the left or right against a sort of spring in order to turn then spring back to the middle for firing) making a rocket jump that moves you forward is nigh impossible without turning the turning sensitivity up to its highest point, and even if you do manage to execute a rocket jump, you still have to deal with the force feedback of the rocket hitting in close proximity to you throwing off your course just that little bit. Firing two shots at the same spot is easy with a mouse because unless you move your hand the cursor position will not change, but with the force feedback firing two shots at the exact same spot is a more difficult proposition.
The default ball grip is used here to show how you can even feel depth when playing with the falcon. The tutorial is so insanely cool because you can feel the texture on the spheres while you maneuver your cursor in 3d space.
Fortunately, the gentlemen at Novint have factored in some of the concerns we’ve raised, and have a very in depth editing program that allows you to tailor the force feedback function for each game, which is good considering the settings you’ll want for TF2 will be very different from the settings for Half Life 2: ep2. We’ve found that for the competitive scene where you’re going up against other human players turning the turning sensitivity up and the environmental feedback down results in a much more enjoyable experience than the default settings. Regardless, if you are really into competitive play, chances are you’ll stick to a mouse simply for the known results and the ease of performing actions like rocket jumps, but for the single player games you own such as the Half Life 2 series then I would recommend the default settings to fully experience what the games have to offer in terms of Falcon interaction, because it is great fun to play with all the forces active so long as you don’t have to worry about being killed :P.
The Falcon is not a small object as shown by this profile shot. It takes up quite a large section of my rather small desk, but if you've got space then it should fit nicely in with the rest of your gaming gear.
Let’s talk quickly about the physical aspect of the Falcon. It isn’t a small device as you can see from the packaging, and will take up a fair amount of desk space for those where that is a concern. The footprint is 27cm wide x 25cm deep and has a height of 22cm, and because of the way the falcon moves and the fact that it replaces the mouse means that it is going to have to sit right on the edge of the desk to get the full range of motion, especially when using the pistol grip. That’s another point that is really unique about the falcon. The default control grip that we received is a ball grip with all of the buttons on the top, but the one you want, especially if you’re playing FPS which the falcon does best, is the Pistol Grip. Basically the pistol grip is a right handed back half of a pistol with a trigger and three thumb buttons that you can bind to be whatever you’d like to. For example in TF2 I bound the trigger to primary fire and then the thumb buttons I changed to secondary fire, previous disguise, and change weapon. The pistol grip is comfortable and if you have an arm rest on your gaming chair then you can comfortably use the falcon for fairly long periods of time (a word of warning for those without arm rests, I tried this and my arm actually got tired quite quickly from resisting the forces while playing Half Life 2). A small gripe I have about the pistol grip is that, when holding the pistol as you would expect to hold a normal pistol your thumb is a bit outside of the position that they believe it should be, so you have to hold the grip a bit angled in order to access all three thumb buttons, but that’s just a tiny hiccup for what otherwise is a brilliant grip.
The pistol grip's trigger replaces mouse one, while the three easily accessible thumb buttons can be bound to anything from secondary fire to reload to suit your gaming style.
So, in conclusion, the Falcon is a great piece of hardware for those wishing to inject a bit of fun back into a game that might have gotten a bit stale, but with a price tag of ... brace yourself... $190 US! Or... and this is the better deal, you could purchase the bundle they have currently for $175 for the Falcon (white), Pistol Grip (normally $20), the Orange Box, and Penumbra: Overture Haptix Edition. Not a cheap piece of hardware for something that just allows force feedback I’ll admit, and while the price tag might scare off many if not all of the potential buyers, it is definitely a lot of fun and if you can get over the initial price it is in fact something you will enjoy and any gamer friends you have will definitely be itching to try this bad boy out.
Final Rating: 3/5 Good piece of hardware with a few quirks that are probably more related to how well it works than faults. Very pricey for something that basically just replaces a mouse. Probably a purchase best left for the hardcore gamer or the gamer with some cash to throw around.
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Article Stats
| Category: | Hardware Reviews |
| Posted: | 18-Dec-09 3:40:59 pm |
| Author: | josh |