Interlude

Novint’s Falcon controller of the future is one of the craziest pieces of technology available today. If you aren’t familiar with it, the controller basically lets you feel the actions taking place in a game in hyper-realistic ways, sometimes by replicating the physical make-up of objects, thereby creating the proper amount of resistance whenever you interact with those objects. It also has a pistol attachment for first-person shooters that not only provides realistic kickback, but it also vibrates according to where enemy bullets are hitting your body. I remember when the controller was demoed here in the offices a while back, and the whole place was giddy for several weeks afterwards. It’s that cool.

Anyway, Valve has just released an update via Steam that adds support for the Novint Falcon to its critically acclaimed . Valve says that it also plans to add support for , and sometime soon. The partnership between Novint and Valve was first announced almost a year ago to the day that this update showed up on Steam, so it's been a long time coming. However, for anyone who loves mind-blowing game controllers and Valve games, it seems it was well worth the wait.
Novint CEO Tom Anderson said via press release:
"We're very excited to partner with a company so dominant in the PC game industry. Their sustained excellence, best-selling games, enormous user base, and forward looking vision make them standard bearers for the industry. We feel Falcon support for their online games in particular could be our first real killer app, which is an exciting milestone."

For a limited time, Novint is selling a Falcon/Pistol Grip/Orange Box bundle for $149, which is quite the bargain considering the controller itself is usually $189.99. If you have the means, I highly recommend looking into picking one up.
Anyone out there have a Novint Falcon, or at least tried one out?

__________________