I’ve been saving this article for a rainy day, and since the weather was pretty cruddy yesterday, here it is, er, now, on this gloriously sunny day… Yeah yeah, be quiet.
A while ago Kotaku published this short opinion piece on rumble/force feedback in games, which in turn was a reaction to a piece from Edge.
Go and take a look at Kotaku and see what you make of it: Kotaku article.
Wrong Rumble. Just don't let Michael Bay get his hands on this one...
All done? Good. I found myself agreeing with the Kotaku writer – and it doesn’t do anything to increase my (already low) enthusiasm for Kinect. I like having rumble. Feeling the ‘kick’ of a gun as you pull the trigger, feeling the impact of every punch and kick in Street Fighter, feeling the clunk of a gear change in GRiD and everything else the rumble motors in a controller have been used for (the Psycho Mantis encounter in Metal Gear Solid being my personal favourite).
Playing certain Wii games with the classic controller or a Wavebird Gamecube controller often feel strange to me now – hitting a wall at top speed in Mario Kart just doesn’t feel right (literally).
Of course, both articles quote Kudo Tsunoda (general manager of Microsoft Game Studios) as saying that “rumble is such a rudimentary form of haptic feedback” – he then goes on to extol the virtues of Kinect and the world peace changes to the way we play games that it’s going to bring – all marketing and PR spin, I would assume (well, he’s hardly going to talk down his company’s latest product, is he?).
I for one, lament the day that rumble is phased out of our controllers. Here’s hoping Kinect is merely used as an add-on and not a replacement for the controller.
Leeman
Andrew Giddings
adaptuk0
Elliot
riotgirl86
