LGR Oddware - Novint Falcon Haptic Controller from 2007
video description
Date: 2024-07-05
Related videos
Comments and reviews: 20
deliriumzer0
HOLY CRAP this is a blast from my past personally! I worked for Novint briefly in about 2007-2008 or so Half-Life 2 was genuinely so fun with this thing, I was really spoiled by it. It definitely needed a few more cycles of testing & adjustment but it really added so much to the gameplay experience. The texture demo (with the orb that changes material) was mind-blowing on its own, nevermind how much more fun shooters were with the proper kick from firing & impact from enemies. I wish Novint had had just a TINY bit more success, just enough for development to lead to something more usable, because the haptic precision was really something special. Combine these haptics with the feel of the Wii, you get something incredible tbh. (From what I could feel in 1-2-Switch, Nintendo has some incredible haptics in the Switch that have gone massively underutilized, but still nothing as bonkers as what was in the Falcon.
It's really no joke that to be sold on it you had to try it, because it was hard to get anyone to check it out at the mall kiosk where I worked, but everyone who tried it was really enthusiastic about it. shame the price & its physical size were both just too much for how little game support it had. The fact that I had to re-calibrate the particular test Falcon I had EVERY TIME I used it Hard to make me enthusiastic about selling it. (The later models were less problematic in this regard, but it tickled me to see you complain about the calibration because boy was that a common issue lol)
(In the end I was fired from Novint because I essentially gave up trying to sell devices at that kiosk and just socialized with other people working at that mall. Actually selling the thing successfully would have involved being dishonest and I just can't do that lol. I work in user experience now, so now I can help improve products rather than sugar-coating them, which is much more for me I think! Honestly I wish I'd been able to do user testing for them back then & get EXACTLY the sort of feedback you're giving in this video, it might have genuinely helped so much)
reply
HOLY CRAP this is a blast from my past personally! I worked for Novint briefly in about 2007-2008 or so Half-Life 2 was genuinely so fun with this thing, I was really spoiled by it. It definitely needed a few more cycles of testing & adjustment but it really added so much to the gameplay experience. The texture demo (with the orb that changes material) was mind-blowing on its own, nevermind how much more fun shooters were with the proper kick from firing & impact from enemies. I wish Novint had had just a TINY bit more success, just enough for development to lead to something more usable, because the haptic precision was really something special. Combine these haptics with the feel of the Wii, you get something incredible tbh. (From what I could feel in 1-2-Switch, Nintendo has some incredible haptics in the Switch that have gone massively underutilized, but still nothing as bonkers as what was in the Falcon.
It's really no joke that to be sold on it you had to try it, because it was hard to get anyone to check it out at the mall kiosk where I worked, but everyone who tried it was really enthusiastic about it. shame the price & its physical size were both just too much for how little game support it had. The fact that I had to re-calibrate the particular test Falcon I had EVERY TIME I used it Hard to make me enthusiastic about selling it. (The later models were less problematic in this regard, but it tickled me to see you complain about the calibration because boy was that a common issue lol)
(In the end I was fired from Novint because I essentially gave up trying to sell devices at that kiosk and just socialized with other people working at that mall. Actually selling the thing successfully would have involved being dishonest and I just can't do that lol. I work in user experience now, so now I can help improve products rather than sugar-coating them, which is much more for me I think! Honestly I wish I'd been able to do user testing for them back then & get EXACTLY the sort of feedback you're giving in this video, it might have genuinely helped so much)
reply
Yolligraphone
Hey Clint.
I still have my Falcon from 2008. Actually, that's not true. I originally purchased a white one, but after about six months, one of the servos stopped working properly. I contacted customer support and sent some log files, and they agreed to send me a new unit, so long as I destroyed the old one. When the new one came, it was black instead of white. I took my old unit out to my front porch and smashed it with a hammer, then sent them photos. They were shocked to see how much I'd destroyed it. The replacement is the one I still have.
Supposedly Novint gave Valve a whole bunch of Falcons to make native support for Source games happen, and they did make it happen, but those units were later discovered in a dumpster outside Valve HQ. So the legend goes.
I played Penumbra with it. I think the installer was linked in an email after I registered the product. It was a specific installer for the HaptX version of the game, which is why your versions didn't work. I'm sure it's available somewhere in an archive. It was one of the most immersive games available, because your hand was represented in 3D space, and you could move it around, similar to how you moved it around in the ball demo. This allowed you to feel the walls, open doors, and do a number of other things with your virtual hand. It was pretty cool.
I got fairly good with the Falcon in TF2, and really enjoyed it for what it was, as I played on my crappy Windows 7 laptop with a dual-core CPU, integrated graphics and 4 gigs of RAM.
You'd think VR would be great with this, but as you said earlier, the problem is that it's not a 6 DOF device. In VR, you want to be able to move your hand(s) freely and in any direction, and the Falcon doesn't allow you to do that. In fact, it's extra weird, because the Falcon would control your head. Imagine you're in VR, and to look around, you have to move your entire arm, and you can't exactly look in any direction. I think it would lead to major motion sickness.
reply
Hey Clint.
I still have my Falcon from 2008. Actually, that's not true. I originally purchased a white one, but after about six months, one of the servos stopped working properly. I contacted customer support and sent some log files, and they agreed to send me a new unit, so long as I destroyed the old one. When the new one came, it was black instead of white. I took my old unit out to my front porch and smashed it with a hammer, then sent them photos. They were shocked to see how much I'd destroyed it. The replacement is the one I still have.
Supposedly Novint gave Valve a whole bunch of Falcons to make native support for Source games happen, and they did make it happen, but those units were later discovered in a dumpster outside Valve HQ. So the legend goes.
I played Penumbra with it. I think the installer was linked in an email after I registered the product. It was a specific installer for the HaptX version of the game, which is why your versions didn't work. I'm sure it's available somewhere in an archive. It was one of the most immersive games available, because your hand was represented in 3D space, and you could move it around, similar to how you moved it around in the ball demo. This allowed you to feel the walls, open doors, and do a number of other things with your virtual hand. It was pretty cool.
I got fairly good with the Falcon in TF2, and really enjoyed it for what it was, as I played on my crappy Windows 7 laptop with a dual-core CPU, integrated graphics and 4 gigs of RAM.
You'd think VR would be great with this, but as you said earlier, the problem is that it's not a 6 DOF device. In VR, you want to be able to move your hand(s) freely and in any direction, and the Falcon doesn't allow you to do that. In fact, it's extra weird, because the Falcon would control your head. Imagine you're in VR, and to look around, you have to move your entire arm, and you can't exactly look in any direction. I think it would lead to major motion sickness.
reply
VanBurenPhilips
Still got mine somewhere. I only wanted it to play the Penumbra horror games. I read a review that said it was an amazing experience - finding your way in the dark by feeling the walls, the weight of carrying a lantern, truly gross-feeling rotten corpses (apparently there's some incentive to inspect corpses, I dunno why, I still haven't played. I heard from the community that these games were probably the best showcase for the Falcon.
It took me ages to find one in the UK, and when I finally got one and tried to buy the games, the Falcon versions couldn't be bought any more. I emailed them about it and the first reply was literally just it's been like that for months (yep, question mark and all) like, duh me for not knowing. No attempt at a solution, or even acknowledgement this was a problem. I think the CEO must've seen this pathetic CS because (without any further contact from me) he emailed me shortly afterwards. He explained they had an issue with their store & couldn't generate Penumbra keys any more. He was very polite and apologetic, but didn't actually do anything about it.
I checked back occasionally over the next 5yrs until I gave up. They never solved it (I don't think they were trying, and as pointed out in the video there was no patch for 'regular' Penumbra, you HAD to buy the version from Novint's store. So, if you hadn't already bought before the store broke, you never could. This whole time, they continued to show Penumbra as one of the key 3rd party games in their promo material.
Cool gadget, but sadly my experience with it was terrible.
reply
Still got mine somewhere. I only wanted it to play the Penumbra horror games. I read a review that said it was an amazing experience - finding your way in the dark by feeling the walls, the weight of carrying a lantern, truly gross-feeling rotten corpses (apparently there's some incentive to inspect corpses, I dunno why, I still haven't played. I heard from the community that these games were probably the best showcase for the Falcon.
It took me ages to find one in the UK, and when I finally got one and tried to buy the games, the Falcon versions couldn't be bought any more. I emailed them about it and the first reply was literally just it's been like that for months (yep, question mark and all) like, duh me for not knowing. No attempt at a solution, or even acknowledgement this was a problem. I think the CEO must've seen this pathetic CS because (without any further contact from me) he emailed me shortly afterwards. He explained they had an issue with their store & couldn't generate Penumbra keys any more. He was very polite and apologetic, but didn't actually do anything about it.
I checked back occasionally over the next 5yrs until I gave up. They never solved it (I don't think they were trying, and as pointed out in the video there was no patch for 'regular' Penumbra, you HAD to buy the version from Novint's store. So, if you hadn't already bought before the store broke, you never could. This whole time, they continued to show Penumbra as one of the key 3rd party games in their promo material.
Cool gadget, but sadly my experience with it was terrible.
reply
barrag3463
The reason there is no rotation is because of the three-arm design. The machine uses the three arms to input feedback to the end-effector (which is a technical term) and does something kind of similar to vector math, where every arm is a component in the math problem, inputting different amounts of movement between the three arms to move the effector in whatever direction is needed to approximate touch feedback in one combined movement.
It's a very cheap and easy way to do it without needing a very complicated (and expensive) robot arm, which was the goal of this thing; this sort of system is used for other things in robotics (the example I'm familiar with are Delta 3D printers. Trouble is, this means that the arms can't rotate. You could do something with the effector, but then you'd need to boost the motors or their power to compensate for the added weight on the effector (which is why the effectors control wise are relatively simple. You could also maybe make the base the arms attach to rotate, but again that adds more complexity and cost.
The obvious bigger issue with this thing is that the device needs whatever program it's being used with to be able to tell it what the feedback is, and preferably also how to achieve the feedback (as in how each individual arm is supposed to move, for every single thing that'd require feedback. That's not exactly something you can really expect everyone to be willing to do for their programs and games, which is why they had the ability for you to program feedback yourself as a noted feature.
reply
The reason there is no rotation is because of the three-arm design. The machine uses the three arms to input feedback to the end-effector (which is a technical term) and does something kind of similar to vector math, where every arm is a component in the math problem, inputting different amounts of movement between the three arms to move the effector in whatever direction is needed to approximate touch feedback in one combined movement.
It's a very cheap and easy way to do it without needing a very complicated (and expensive) robot arm, which was the goal of this thing; this sort of system is used for other things in robotics (the example I'm familiar with are Delta 3D printers. Trouble is, this means that the arms can't rotate. You could do something with the effector, but then you'd need to boost the motors or their power to compensate for the added weight on the effector (which is why the effectors control wise are relatively simple. You could also maybe make the base the arms attach to rotate, but again that adds more complexity and cost.
The obvious bigger issue with this thing is that the device needs whatever program it's being used with to be able to tell it what the feedback is, and preferably also how to achieve the feedback (as in how each individual arm is supposed to move, for every single thing that'd require feedback. That's not exactly something you can really expect everyone to be willing to do for their programs and games, which is why they had the ability for you to program feedback yourself as a noted feature.
reply
StoneCresent
While designed with first-person perspective gaming in mind, I can see the limitations that prevented it from seeing mass use. It needed to be secured to a surface for optimal operation, especially at high feedback levels. Long gaming sessions could induce fatigue or pain in the user as another commenter already noted. Adding haptics to a PC game that takes full advantage of this controller was likely seen as a poor return on investment as it would add development work for something only a minuscule fraction of potential players would have. Maybe this controller could have seen use as part of an arcade machine, but it might be too delicate and unable to absorb abuse.
reply
While designed with first-person perspective gaming in mind, I can see the limitations that prevented it from seeing mass use. It needed to be secured to a surface for optimal operation, especially at high feedback levels. Long gaming sessions could induce fatigue or pain in the user as another commenter already noted. Adding haptics to a PC game that takes full advantage of this controller was likely seen as a poor return on investment as it would add development work for something only a minuscule fraction of potential players would have. Maybe this controller could have seen use as part of an arcade machine, but it might be too delicate and unable to absorb abuse.
reply
metacob
This kept happening all through the 90s and 00s: Someone comes up with a weird peripheral device that's interesting enough to make it into some news shows and magazines. Some early adopter types buy it. The device, at best, works okay with the supplied demo software and maybe one or two games whose developers agreed to add support for it, however it's an afterthought at best. And that's it. If it's a really good idea, the technology gets bought and integrated into something that has nothing to do with the PC enthusiast market.
reply
This kept happening all through the 90s and 00s: Someone comes up with a weird peripheral device that's interesting enough to make it into some news shows and magazines. Some early adopter types buy it. The device, at best, works okay with the supplied demo software and maybe one or two games whose developers agreed to add support for it, however it's an afterthought at best. And that's it. If it's a really good idea, the technology gets bought and integrated into something that has nothing to do with the PC enthusiast market.
reply
bobpowers9862
This product is an excellent example of allowing the marketing wonks too much leeway. The demo games were obviously written by Fred, on his lunch hour, but only every other Friday. For a week. I suspect those things is what killed this device. If they'd have talked to the developer's of Steam I bet they could have included either Portal or Half-Life, right in the box, fully integrated. and we'd still have this thing on the market.
reply
This product is an excellent example of allowing the marketing wonks too much leeway. The demo games were obviously written by Fred, on his lunch hour, but only every other Friday. For a week. I suspect those things is what killed this device. If they'd have talked to the developer's of Steam I bet they could have included either Portal or Half-Life, right in the box, fully integrated. and we'd still have this thing on the market.
reply
Braskus
I think a way to get this effect in VR(Due to the controller not being attached to anything. Might be 'realistic blowback' airsoft/gel blasters. The co2 and green gas powered pistols have recoil without firing anything. Which is a thing with pistols irl aswell. A good mount of recoil and sound comes from the slide smashing back. Would be cool to see that kind of function attached to the sort of pistol attachments you can put vr controllers in.
reply
I think a way to get this effect in VR(Due to the controller not being attached to anything. Might be 'realistic blowback' airsoft/gel blasters. The co2 and green gas powered pistols have recoil without firing anything. Which is a thing with pistols irl aswell. A good mount of recoil and sound comes from the slide smashing back. Would be cool to see that kind of function attached to the sort of pistol attachments you can put vr controllers in.
reply
dwarftoad
Why are all the demo games sports rather than, say, an old WW1 airplane or spaceship (flight of the navigator) game with a simple kind of control stick with some basic forces sent back to you Or a really basic version of a typical adventure/explore/shooter game (like portal) where you need to use the haptic controller in specific situations e. g to manipulate puzzles or objects
reply
Why are all the demo games sports rather than, say, an old WW1 airplane or spaceship (flight of the navigator) game with a simple kind of control stick with some basic forces sent back to you Or a really basic version of a typical adventure/explore/shooter game (like portal) where you need to use the haptic controller in specific situations e. g to manipulate puzzles or objects
reply
dwarftoad
Could it not emulate joystick inputs by mapping the position (x/y/z) into the appropriate angular joystick inputs (with adjustments to tune it to work best) I guess you wouldn't get good feedback. You could use some canned resistance based on how far you move it or something. I suppose that's what the plugin/script that you show at 34: 45 is doing
reply
Could it not emulate joystick inputs by mapping the position (x/y/z) into the appropriate angular joystick inputs (with adjustments to tune it to work best) I guess you wouldn't get good feedback. You could use some canned resistance based on how far you move it or something. I suppose that's what the plugin/script that you show at 34: 45 is doing
reply
TheRealColBosch
I had this, and I hated it. I was fresh out of the Army when it came out. While I never wanted to fire a gun in anger again, I thought it'd be fun for FPS games, giving me a bit of realism. NOPE! It felt game-y and cheap. I could never get the damn thing to sit steady. It's neat, I'll grant that, but useless.
reply
I had this, and I hated it. I was fresh out of the Army when it came out. While I never wanted to fire a gun in anger again, I thought it'd be fun for FPS games, giving me a bit of realism. NOPE! It felt game-y and cheap. I could never get the damn thing to sit steady. It's neat, I'll grant that, but useless.
reply
claycook9475
Penumbra came with my Falcon, it's a first person survival horror game by the makers of Amnesia. It's mostly pitch black and you have to use the Falcon to feel around in the darkness to find things and figure out what you're touching. Was super cool and one of the best haptic experiences outside of FPS games.
reply
Penumbra came with my Falcon, it's a first person survival horror game by the makers of Amnesia. It's mostly pitch black and you have to use the Falcon to feel around in the darkness to find things and figure out what you're touching. Was super cool and one of the best haptic experiences outside of FPS games.
reply
elvissteinjr
Despite introducing Steam, current releases of Half-Life 2 (and Portal) don't have any DRM when running the executable directly. These games could potentially still run on XP if you copy the files over.
Well, it's also good that an old OS isn't necessary for the controller on the other hand.
reply
Despite introducing Steam, current releases of Half-Life 2 (and Portal) don't have any DRM when running the executable directly. These games could potentially still run on XP if you copy the files over.
Well, it's also good that an old OS isn't necessary for the controller on the other hand.
reply
Zarnubius
bro completely sold me on a 20 year old piece of obscure hardware, I love that HL2 has always been the medium for groundbreaking hardware. The first proto-VR controls, 3D and haptic tech all used HL2 as a showcase. What a wonderful game and wonderful time. We had no idea how good we had it.
reply
bro completely sold me on a 20 year old piece of obscure hardware, I love that HL2 has always been the medium for groundbreaking hardware. The first proto-VR controls, 3D and haptic tech all used HL2 as a showcase. What a wonderful game and wonderful time. We had no idea how good we had it.
reply
MuscarV2
I was so interested in this back then, it seemed incredible and I was so sure stuff like this would become the norm in a few years time. I did try one some time ago and I still think it's pretty cool, would be cool to see this brought back with all the new possibilities we have now.
reply
I was so interested in this back then, it seemed incredible and I was so sure stuff like this would become the norm in a few years time. I did try one some time ago and I still think it's pretty cool, would be cool to see this brought back with all the new possibilities we have now.
reply
tch0rt579
I still have one of these I think. Really cool idea and the haptics were awesome but it wasn't easy to play with. It hurt your wrist and arms very quickly and it would never stay on the desk. It really needed a clamp or mounting system. Ahead of it's time but seriously flawed.
reply
I still have one of these I think. Really cool idea and the haptics were awesome but it wasn't easy to play with. It hurt your wrist and arms very quickly and it would never stay on the desk. It really needed a clamp or mounting system. Ahead of it's time but seriously flawed.
reply
pyratehyena1312
that caressing bowling balls game isn't a failure, it just wasn't developed for conventional gamers. imagine playing any duke nukem game and just caressing balls of steel. now there's your market, not a big one, definitely not a profitable one, but still a market.
reply
that caressing bowling balls game isn't a failure, it just wasn't developed for conventional gamers. imagine playing any duke nukem game and just caressing balls of steel. now there's your market, not a big one, definitely not a profitable one, but still a market.
reply
awesomeferret
Is this a re-upload I can't find the other video that was either the original of this one or one very close to it that you reviewed a few months ago (by now it may have been a year ago. I'm shocked that you didn't mention that you had done this before in the intro.
reply
Is this a re-upload I can't find the other video that was either the original of this one or one very close to it that you reviewed a few months ago (by now it may have been a year ago. I'm shocked that you didn't mention that you had done this before in the intro.
reply
Bobo0451
You know it's funny because I found this after watching another hardware episode where I was looking into just a weird controllers. I immediately thought of the PlayStation 5 controller it's obviously a much different concept but I love how technology trickles down
reply
You know it's funny because I found this after watching another hardware episode where I was looking into just a weird controllers. I immediately thought of the PlayStation 5 controller it's obviously a much different concept but I love how technology trickles down
reply
valliantsteed
Hey Clint, play Infra with this, it's based on portal 2's version of the source engine. It is a first person adeventure game from 2015/16 made by finnish developers. It's theme is urbax, abandones places, tech-y puzzles and cold war cloak and dagger stuff.
reply
Hey Clint, play Infra with this, it's based on portal 2's version of the source engine. It is a first person adeventure game from 2015/16 made by finnish developers. It's theme is urbax, abandones places, tech-y puzzles and cold war cloak and dagger stuff.
reply
Add a review, comment
Other channel videos
