I got unusual holiday present, something I haven't even heard of until I opened the box. Novint Falcon 3D force feedback controller, according to manufacturer, "The Mouse Killer". Device itself is fairly large, probably a size of child's head with 3 protruding "arms" with controller ball attached to the end of it. At a first glance device looks clean, solid and put reasonably well together with its unique asymmetrical style.
- Installation -
Full installation consisted of 3 separate programs, one is actual driver for the device, another F-Gen manager and third is N Vent portal/patcher/demo. I have no idea why driver and F-Gen are two separate programs, device doesn't work at all until you install both. I uploaded most recent versions of both F-Gen and drivers from manufacturer's website and installation went without problems, but still required some patching.
- Demos & Nvent -
NVeNT is nothing short of amateur hour, interface, graphics and sounds are throwback to 90s and something that you would expect out of government safety video and not fully fleshed product. Whole experience was probably designed by the same guys that came up with Win 3.1 commercials, well at least it felt that way. Every time you run NVeNT it nags you with checking for updates (you have to click Next and Finish every time!) and very intrusive registration nag-form that ask for your phone number, birthday and full address. With Nvent you are given couple of freebie games, with exception of Falcon Demo they are "Oh Dear Lord" bad, plus you are given option to buy more, from the looks of it equally bad, games. Overall Nvent is a low point of this device.
- Controller and Functionality -
From playing with texture demons - texture feel could be compared to touching things while wearing heavy rubber glove, while you don't get to feel finer texture elements, overall feeling is there and in the right ballpark. In this respect Falcon overall worked as advertised - it can provide 3-dimensional texture and force feedback and has "cool" factor.
Now as a controller it isn't that great - cursor precision, especially diagonal motion, is of very low resolution. As a competitive FPS gamer I would never consider using it for sniping. While it is better for aiming than console thumb controller, it is nowhere near resolution, response and precision of gaming optical mouse. Another problem - as control arm is getting closer to the base it becomes more difficult to perform elliptical motions, it is only possible to 'draw' a circle at full extension. Last but not least, buttons on round grip/attachment feel too small.
- Support of Existing Titles -
I haven't tried it yet, but Falcon supposedly supports force feedback for couple mainstream titles like CS, SC2 and others. I will play with it at a later time.
- Overall -
Its a novelty item that needs a lot of polish to be accepted as a 'niche' controller. In my opinion conventional mouse is not going to be replaced by Falcon anytime soon.
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