Customer Reviews

Novint Falcon Game Controller (White)

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

First off, this thing is NOT a Wii type controller. What it is, is something completely new with enormous potential. The company is still in it's early stages in terms of games and "grips". The grip is the ball at the end of the 3 arms. There's a lot of development going on right now with creating new grips that are more ergonomic and useful, and there are about 40 games in development too (some of which look to be AWESOME btw).

The device does come with some mini games bundled, some are good, some aren't so good but really show off the Falcon's potential. My favorite is the snowboarding, the feedback and the gameplay in this one are awesome.

It comes with a tutorial, which will leave you giggling and your jaw on the floor. One part of the tutorial has a globe in the middle of the screen; you have a hand that you control with the Falcon and the Falcon won't move when the on-screen hand comes in contact with the edge of the globe. You can feel the contour of the globe, in THREE dimensions! The globe demo has about 8 or 9 different "textures"; one is "bumpy" where you can feel the hand bouncing over the bumps as you run it along the globe, another is "molasses" where you can put the hand through it and you feel the give...and it pops out the other end. Another is "magnetic", where you get your hand close to the globe and it pulls you toward it. It's completely realistic, you will NOT believe it until you try it. It also has a few other tutorials, like catching a baseball where you feel the ball from whichever direction you catch it from; swinging a ball around on a rubber band, the ball's momentum swings you around as it goes; and a slingshot where you feel the give as you pull it back.

One thing I was worried about when I saw a picture of this online was that it didn't look like it would hold up. There are motors in this thing, and most motors in electronic devices don't hold up very long. But, I gotta say, I'm impressed. This device is VERY sturdy. It looks cheesy, but the thing weighs about 30 pounds. It's built to last, don't worry about that.

PLUS, the customer service seems to be top of the heap. I had one minor problem with a game not working, and the CS rep asked to call ME to resolve the issue. Not only that, but the CEO of the company makes it a point to answer any question asked on the official Novint BBS.

Only a few gripes. First, the controller takes up a lot of space. It also needs more games and a better grip, but these ARE in development, so I'm excited to see how it plays out. There's a mod for Half Life 2, if you have this game; I don't, but heard it's amazing with the Falcon. The base is also a little bit of a concern because the Falcon can move due to the strength of the internal motors; again they're working on new bases to attach to the Falcon. The only other gripe, is that the games are download only; games have to be programmed to work with the Falcon due to it's revolutionary capabilities. Another thing that's in development now is a mod to use the Falcon as a mouse, so you could use it with anything that you would use a mouse for. Check out this device, you won't be sorry!

The FPS genre has been using essentially the same controls since the start. Flying games, driving games and so on have adapted and allowed gamers to approach an otherwise typical driving or flying game with new immersion with the advent of steering wheels and joysticks. After having played the Falcon with Half-Life 2 (called Haptics-Life 2, a mod of HL2) I truly feel that the FPS genre has found a legitament contender to replace the mouse. The force feedback his astounding. The first time you feel the recoil of your gun, or trying to drag a heavy object with the gravity gun just forces this big grin on your face. The overall feel is sturdy and durable, this baby weighs a solid 14 pounds. The foot print is approx. the same size you need for a mouse pad, so it fits perfectly where your mouse did. A great product that just needs some more games supported by it (there is a growing list of good games, and big announcements in the future are coming!)

The device itself is incredibly well designed, that much is clear from the first time you get to use it. It works beautifully, and while it takes a little bit of getting used to, its really changes the experience of any game you can use it in. The downsides currently - obviously its a pricy product for the current uses, tack on the cost of several new games and enthusiasts are the most likely to buy. Also its still in the early stages of game development support, but the Novint team does actively involve themselves and the community in their work, so its good to know progress is continually being made. I definitely enjoy mine, and have a blast showing it to family, friends - anyone really.

This is a very new product, but it is built very well and offers an experience that no other device can offer (not even the wii). While some of the software doesn't really use its full potential, there are titles out now that begin to showcase what this can do and I bet that even better software will be coming shortly. The company making this clearly believes in what they are doing and offer some of the best customer support you can find anywhere. The more people that get this the more support it will get and it deserves it, so what are you waiting for?

I'm a big fan of arcade shooters with a lot of recoil (operation wolf, LA machineguns, etc) The added recoil really adds immersion. The falcon is a great way to add that immersion to PC games. You could call it a force feedback device, but that doesn't really do it justice. It's definitely, as the maker says, a haptic device: able to generate several pounds of force. It can be used for all sorts of games, but I normally use it for FPS. Which is good that most of the upcoming haptic supported games will be shooters. This is a great peripheral and a ton of fun to play.

I received my Novint Falcon just about three weeks ago.

I'll be honest - setting up this enormous piece of hardware can be a little difficult. Be prepared to research the Falcon Army forums, website, and wiki for exact, explicit instructions on how exactly you must install the requisite Falcon Drivers. Simply plugging your Falcon into your computer and letting Windows automatically download and install the latest drivers will NOT work. This was a little bit of a task for me - HOWEVER, the Falcon army community is EXTREMELY helpful and friendly, and within hours of me sending a question their way it was answered. The Falcon CEO, Tom, takes an enormous amount of time to personally answer questions and address concerns amongst his users, and it's this kind of family-style care that frankly I've never experienced before as a consumer. If only one tenth of the companies I purchased products from were like this!

But, as for the hardware itself - it's quite phenomenal. People used to complain about lack of game support, or express fear that the product itself was going to die out, but at this date, there is an ENORMOUS amount of absolutely free game support for the Falcon, and for the most part, it's fantastic. I've been playing Valve's Portal again with the Falcon, and to feel a slick recoil as your Portal Gun shoots out portals, or to feel the weight of your Companion Cube as you lug it around.. it adds and entirely new layer of realism to gaming, and makes them all that much more immersive.

To my knowledge, ALL of Valve's games now have Falcon HD support - that is to say, they have sophisticated, source-code enabled support for the Novint Falcon, enabling different recoil forces for each weapon, jump, explosion, and gunshot damage forces, and vehicular rumble forces. I used to play Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 on the Xbox 360, but I'm absolutely going to buy them again for the PC... there are scripts to mimic everything from the rumble of the chainsaw to the "sliminess" feeling after you've been slimed by a Boomer!

Furthermore, members in the community are constantly working on F-gen scripts for games. F-gen is their Falcon driver manager that enables you to use the Falcon literally for any game you want - just at varying levels of haptic feedback. I.e., even though there's no scripts out for Fallout 3 haptic feedback, you can still use the Falcon in Falcon 3 as a replacement for the mouse; just having to replace mouse point-and-click gunplay made this product a must-buy for me. And that's to say nothing of the advanced scripts for haptics feedback for everything from Mass Effect 2 to Call of Duty, MW2. Support for games like Bioshock are in progress - they're tuning the feeling of shooting lighting from your hands - but upon hearing that.. that's another game that I'll have to re-play with the Falcon.

My one complaint - and it's not a complaint about the hardware or the service of Falcon - is the dire, dire shortages of the Pistol Grip, a must-have if you're getting the Falcon for shooter games. I'm watching the forums like a hawk, and I will POUNCE when they announce that their next shipment of Pistol Grips is ready.

Oh, and for the competitive players out there - the Falcon has a steep learning curve, but with some time and practice you can easily reattain your mouse point-and-click abilities, and a Falcon community member reports that after several months of dedication, he's surpassed his mouse clicking abilities with the Falcon in his competitive Team Fortress 2 leagues. For those of you worried about the haptics feedback throwing your aim off - no worries, you can turn off the force feedback anytime you want. If you're afraid of gun recoil affecting your aim in a competitive match, it's effortless to turn if off, and turn the feedback back on when you want to play some immersive single player.

Long story short: If you're ready to take your PC Gaming to the next level, and you have some spare cash to drop on this magnificent piece of hardware, then join the Falcon community. Game support is already extensive, and will only expand from here out. You won't regret it.

Truth be told, I made a leap of faith when I purchased the Novint Falcon. After learning about the Falcon from the Steam forums I did a week of research. Never had touched or personally seen the device in action. I checked all the supported games, read reviews, and watched any videos I could find on it (I recommend this). I eventually decided that it was worth the risk and bought it.

So was/am I happy with my purchase? Yes I am. I have no regrets about getting the Falcon at all. There literally is nothing else out there like it for gaming. I have had the Falcon for several months and never get tired of it. The recoil and damage forces have breathed new life into the supported games. Speaking of support, now that Novint has released the beta drivers (as of this writing Beta2 is nearing completion) the Falcon can be used with any program and uses a scripting system to allow forces. There are plenty of plug-ins waiting in the wings to expand F-Gen's capabilities. So you can expect to see a number of Bronze, Silver, and Gold supported games through F-Gen fairly soon (FalconHD is integrated game support).

I know a lot of you out there looking at the Falcon are gamers so let me answer two of the biggest questions for you:

1) Is the Falcon as accurate as a mouse? Absolutely. Control wise there is nothing a mouse can do that the Falcon cannot match. Because aiming and turning are separated (aiming being within a virtual box and turning outside that box) the Falcon is easily on par with a high DPI mouse. Box size, box stiffness, turn rate, aim sensitivity and can all be tweaked to how you like. Mind you there can be a steep learning curve but nothing that practice shouldn't alleviate. <<NOTE: I found aiming with the Falcon more natural than I did with the mouse. Having used it to the extent I have I much prefer using the Falcon over a mouse..>>

2) Do the forces mess up your aim? Maybe, I'll explain. This particular question really depends of how high you have the forces. Turning the forces all the way up makes it ridiculously impossible to aim but hilarious to watch. Finding the right levels is the real key. I personally have my forces about 1/4 of what is capable but still feel the immersion that the Falcon was designed to give. Master, damage, recoil, and environmental forces can all be turned up or down. <<NOTE: After getting used to aiming and the forces I found myself turning up each force slightly over time.>>

When I was looking into buying the Falcon for my son I was a little worried. We had seen the product on G4 TV and afterwards he wanted one for his birthday, but I knew nothing about the Falcon and the price seemed high. I went onto the Novint website to check things out for myself. I even called customer support and it was a return phone call by Eric that convinced me to take the chance.

When my son opened the box we were shocked to see how well built the Falcon was and after the easy setup, how well it really worked?? The Half Life 2 series in indescribable and now with F-gen drivers soon the Falcon will work with all games to various degrees.

Along with the Falcon you also get a community, friends and more. Tomnovint the CEO is a man with 100s of emails and yet he has taken the time to get to know my son and been supportive of my sons dreams in gaming design.Tom is in the forums daily to answer customer questions and do what is needed to make everyone happy with the product.

I try and look at the big picture, I knew when I bought the Falcon what I was getting. My keyboard, 24" display and Razor mouse don't define my gaming experience, they add to the experience, same with the Falcon. I try and see the value in things, I got the Falcon bundle for 200.Near the same time I got Fallout 3, GTA IV, and 2 other PC games,(total over 200 ) The Falcon's,(now own 2) has given us, countless hours of fun, a great community and much more. Those games now sit on a shelf gathering dust.

I cant imagine playing L4D, LFD 2 or TF2 without the Falcon. Its not all about how accurate the Falcon is compared to the mouse, its also about the forces, and added game play. The Falcon is an experience not just a controller. With L4D and the Falcon support, the shotgun kicks hard with every shot. You feel pinned down by the Hunter, and feel the heavy weight of caring a propane tank. The Falcon draws me into the experience. I suddenly feel I am Bill as I fight the zombies, not just moving a mouse. I just cant see playing PC games without this type of gaming experience.The Falcon is for the hardcore gamer and for the casual gamer. Novint has developed a large number of games for the family as well as the more serious gamer.

Hey guys, I am Devin. A MAJOR community supporter, not only spreading the word, but also providing servers for the community. Here's my basic review.

-The Novint Falcon-

The Novint Falcon is the NEXT BIG THING IN GAMING, period. Yes, you can roll with your Razor mouse, or you can get your little steering wheel, or a Xbox 360 controller and hook it up to the computer and feel the rumble, or you can get the Novint Falcon.

The Novint Falcon provides all new, never-before-seen action to a game.

Not only simulating recoil, it also simulates environmental forces and other event forces.

Things such as

-Shooting

-Reloading

-Getting shot

-Running into a wall

-Feeling the G force of a race car

-Feeling a engine start and run

-Feel the weight of items

Not only is this awesome for Video Games, it is also good for Professional Development and Rehabilitation projects.

-Medical uses such as

-Surgery

-Giving a shot

Without the need of a real patient.

-Professional uses such as

--Controlling a Robot

--Firing a missile (Army related)

--Creating 3D Objects

This thing is a MUST HAVE!

As the title says, this is a review from a hardcore gamer who has over 200 hours played in Modern Warfare 2 with the falcon, with nearly 2500 hours clocked playing the entire Call of Duty series.

The first time I used the falcon, I was a bit intimidated because it was difficult to control. After a few hours of gaming, I was more accurate with the falcon than I ever was with the mouse, which is extremely impressive. To use the falcon in an FPS, you turn around by pushing the grip against "springy" walls to turn around. This can make you very efficient at snapping from targets in front and behind you.

The immersion and force feedback that the falcon provides is simply amazing. To be honest, words can barely describe it, I can only tell you to just try it yourself.

I HIGHLY recommend getting the pistol grip with the falcon by purchasing the pistol grip bundle from Novint's website. It's well worth the price, and the pistol grip is much more comfortable to use than the ball grip for long periods of time. The cool factor doesn't hurt either ;) . Use the code FalconPreysMouse during checkout at Novint's website for big discount. It's really worth it!

Seriously, stop reading this review and go buy this awesome beast, you'll kick yourself for waiting to get one later.