For all you gamers out there
From Wired News, available online at:
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,52855,00.html
Game Controls Fit Like a Glove
By Brad King
2:00 a.m. May 31, 2002 PDT
Enemy planes circle overhead, looking to take out satellite
installations at your base. Your defense system consists of a 360-degree gun turret armed with heat-seeking missiles and machine guns, which you control by a virtual targeting system that follows the movement of your hand.
In theory, it's the game player's dream. A video game controlled by
the mere wave of a hand, the twitch of a finger.
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With the new P5 glove controller, an updated answer to Nintendo's
Power Glove, players do just that. It has a plastic shell that slips over your fingers. The movement of your hand, the signal of which is captured electronically by a base station, controls the movement of the character on the screen.
Different finger movements serve as specific commands. To switch guns,
twitch the index finger. To fire weapons, twitch the middle finger.
This is the latest is the long line of super-geek controls that blend
reality with fantasy. Last week, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, companies seeded the four showroom floors with new gadgets and gizmos that shave milliseconds off player-character response time, ease game play and enable new actions.
The P5 still has some kinks. The controller works best with flight
simulators and role-playing games, which are games best suited for the PC. However, even on the computer, the base station sometimes loses track of your hand, causing the gun to lock, and forcing you to reset it by pointing your hand away from the screen.
To make the controls work more smoothly, game developers need to
include the P5's software architecture into their products. That's a problem right now, since there are only a handful of games being developed to coincide with its launch this September.
But Essential Reality, the company behind the glove, hopes its deal
with Lionhead Studios will show other developers what the controller can do. Lionhead distributes the Black and White games, which have a "hand of god" icon that manipulates character movements.
"The game pad hasn't been able to manipulate the role-playing games
properly, but now you can use this P5 to transport the mouse to the home console," said David Devor, Essential's vice president of marketing.
If the glove takes off, it could open the door for other wireless and
wearable controllers such as Maui's Cymouse, a headset that allows characters to manipulate game play through a combination of head movements, mouse slides and keystrokes. Everquest and CounterStrike players are already using the device.
Fiddling with the "hand of god" and head twitching might be OK for
home gamers, but when it comes to the high-octane tournament play of first-person shooters such as Quake, the wireless motion controllers are a bit clunky.
That leaves the mouse and keyboard for the action-oriented gamers.
However, the keyboard leaves something to be desired since its size makes it difficult to use with one hand.
But come up with a problem and some intrepid gamer will also supply
the answer, especially since there is big money at stake. Players are demanding more speed and control, in no small part because the first professional gaming league is poised to expand after receiving $45 million in funding.
Pros can rest easy, now that they have Belkin's Nostromon50 Speed Pad,
a palm-sized keypad with a mouse. It comes with software that allows players to customize their keypad to best match their playing style. The mouse controls the turning of your player left or right, while the keypad's arrow keys control the movement.
"We were very in tune to keep this intuitive with the use of a
keyboard," said Tim North, game product manager.
Many of the latest controller innovations are for the PC, since
players are already accustomed to the XBox, Game Cube or Playstation II devices. People are so used to their own controllers, major structural shifts can cause a backlash. So instead of transforming the handheld, NYKO's design team decided to add a helpful -- if slightly frivolous -- addition.
The Air Flo is a self-cooled controller that comes with a built-in
fan, much like an air hockey system, to keep players from getting sweaty palms, the bane of existence for anyone who's ever sat down and battled monsters and demons for hours at a time.
"We've gotten to a point where, other than changing the actual bowl,
there wasn't much else to do," said Joe Kim, NYKO's marketing director. "As gaming gets tougher and more involved, sweat becomes a problem for game players."
Maybe it's a bit of overkill, because the tradition of finishing a
level and then quickly wiping your hands on your pants before the next stage starts has worked for years. But to these gamers, if the Air Flo can keep just one person from losing a game of Madden 2003 because of a fateful slip, it might be worth the investment.
For the arcade game lover, maybe the best new toy on the market is the
X-Arcade, a full on, dual-joystick mounted board with 16 action buttons to accommodate sports, fighting and adventure games.
Cheers,
cgkanchi
