The Novint Falcon has landed!

This week the new power supply finally arrived and now the Falcon works as intended so I can finally reveal my experiences of it so far.

I began with the tutorial which provides a few sections showcasing various demonstrations. There was one in particular that impressed me which displayed a texture wrapped around a sphere that I could feel as I moved my virtual hand around. The slippery nature of the ice, the stickiness of the honey and the rough texture of sandpaper are all reproduced with completely convincing accuracy. (Once the darkest corners of the internet get their hands on this god knows what they'll do.) In the next section, I was presented with a ball that had a length of string tethered to my hand. Moving my hand to the left or right, the ball moved accordingly whilst also tugging at my hand as the elastic of the string grew longer. Once it started moving, christ, it was hard to get the ball stable again as the controller exerts a huge amount of force sending your hand all over the place. It's hard to describe quite how it feels to be controlled by your computer through physical means. Frankly, I'm scared.

After the disturbing whilst simulatenously pleasant experience that was the demo, I decided to fire up TF2 which is by all means the true test of the Falcon's use within a 'real life' scenario. Valve seem to have supported the Falcon quite well as it was already working without any configuration due to my ability to navigate around the menu. When the Falcon is connected, a new tab appears in the option window allowing a varying degree of control over how it functions. There are 4 sliders; Force Master Scale, Recoil Forces, Damage Forces, and Environment Forces. All self-explanatory. On the other side and in a seperate box, there are another series of options which are, again, self-explanatory. I haven't messed with any of these settings (as recommended) apart from the 'Force Master Scale'. More on that later.

Once I had checked all these options out of curiosity, I decided to fire up a listen server to get the hang of things. As they say, you cannot run before you can walk. Or, as it was in my case, you can't walk or run because you can hardly even turn, fire, aim, or remain stationary without feeling completely disconnected from the game like somebody has dislocated your right arm. As you can probably tell my initial experience was disappointing. I knew it would be difficult at first but I didn't think it would be as hard as it was. Simply keeping the crosshair still was a challenge in itself, turning to navigate was the equivalent of attempting to drive a car using only your teeth, and the recoil from spinning up, say, the minigun was enough to shake you out of a coma. Hard, painful and not at all fun especially in comparison with the beloved mouse.

It was at this point that I realised that I wasn't going to be anywhere near the same level of skill that I was with the mouse so I decided I was being short-sighted and impatient so I did the logical thing by reducing the force feedback and starting out with the classes which require the least accuracy and that would help me ease into navigating around the maps. So I did the thing that was both a) good for me and b) good for my team which almost always leads to the Medic. Perfect. The medigun has such a lax area upon which you can latch onto patients that it was perfect for my still unhoned aim whilst following patients around would help me get more comfortable with navigation.

My decision couldn't have been better. Soon, after about an hour, I was doing great. In fact, I was having a blast. I began to realise subtleties such as feeling the low hum of the medigun as you heal patients, a small barely noticable jolt as you jump off the floor, the tremble of a nearby Demoman charging into a nearby wall, a Jarate leaving your hand, the swing of the Eyelander, the fear-inducing rumble of the minigun and tiny little shakes as you detonate each sticky.

It was at this point that I realised - yes, it may appear to be a gimmick and it might never be seen as a true alternative to the mouse - but it's offered me by far the most enjoyable TF2 experiences to date and, in time, I will become more skilled with the Falcon but for now I'm completely content with what is has to offer and I highly recommend that everyone gives it a try.

A lot of money? The plug adapters cost 85p a pop.