Novint Falcon Game Controller (White)

The Falcon itself works as advertised. Game support is generally poor, though they recently got Orange Box from Valve to use the controller so maybe that is the start of good things.If you live in New York they won't ship their pistol grip accessory to you. Without that the Falcon loses most of its appeal. I thought their weird default ball controller would cut it but I was wrong. The pistol grip bundle is a must to get this to be worth it!Even outside New York, you cannot purchase the pistol grip by itself, though Novint pretends you can. I've had mine for over 4 months and that accessory hasn't been in stock once! I called Novint and they politely told me I'm SOL. Grips are for bundles only I guess.Conclusion: Good product, very poor post-purchase experience, and if in New York make sure to ship to a friend in NJ or something!

When I recieved it, it was very exciting to experience the haptics controller. The movement was very smooth, the recoil fun to play with etc. I even enjoyed playing multiplayer games like Team Fortress 2 with it.However, it got old quickly, and could not replace my mouse. I still play better with the mouse; perhaps, if I took enough time with it, I would get better, but I feel that it's not really worth it. So, if I can't sell it for a profit, I will be returning it within the 30 day trial.Long Story Short: Good product, came in good condition, fun to play with, novel concept. However, gets old quick, at least for me.

Fun product but more of a novelty item to add a different twist to gaming. I don't see it replacing the standard FPS controls anytime soon.

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.

Its an interesting concept that may possibly catch on someday, but keep in mind it is not for everyone.When I first got it, I was excited to see that it worked well and felt interesting in the tutorial. But in actual games like Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike Source, it is difficult to play with due to the very high sensitivity and lack of precision. It is frustrating to use and to be honest, not that fun. Maybe if I practiced longer I could get good, but I did not want to put up with that.The haptic feedback is interesting but feels a bit gimmicky and does not sell the product. Another big problem I had with it is that I felt motion sickness within a few minutes of playing.So while this product may catch on someday with some improvement, and might very well be great for some people in its current form, it is not for everyone and I advise the consumer to consider this before purchasing.