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The Power Glove Lives! - Alternate Game Control Schemes
Thanks to Armchair Arcade for its article discussing alternate videogame control schemes from the '80s to the present day, particularly concentrating on "a consumer VR glove called the P5", which takes a cue from "the legendary [Nintendo] Power Glove." However, the author comments "One thing you will quickly notice when playing [P5-compatible] games is how tired they make your arm... When I was in elementary school, I had a teacher who would punish students by making them stand with their arm over their head for five minutes. At the end of the ordeal, your hands are cold from lack of circulation and your muscles are fatigued. It's the same thing here." Armchair Arcade also has a number of other new articles online, including a look at intellectual property and videogame history, and a discussion of FPS games vs. 2D platformers.
So, where are we with decent 3D goggles or helmets these days? Donimo
I recently bought a P5 off of ebay and was pretty excited to start playing with it. It's fun to mess with, but doesn't work nearly as well as they claim. It's by far not accurate enough to play a serious FPS with and very touchy. If you get off center with your hand it's hard to get it back to where it's usable since it just keeps tracking your hand no matter where it is, and it's very difficult to turn completely around with the thing because then your hand it way off to the side somewhere. After about 10 minutes I just put it down in frustration and started using the mouse again, and now it's just sitting on my desk like a neglected toy.
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The FogScreen (previously mentioned on /., if I recall correctly) might be an idea for large arcades or ehibitions (like anime cons)... can you imagine someone playing DDR right under the arrows, essentially replacing the ingame dancers?
right, but then the teacher moves on to more effective torture techniques, like hot pokers or the rack.
I was think of getting a P5 after I heard that Black & White supported it. Since you only have a hand to control the world with (no menus) being able to do it with your real hand would be cool. Couple that with a VR helmet and it would be totally immersive.
Unfortunatly the actual gameplay of B&W wasn't that good but it had some great ideas and I'm looking forward to the sequel.
A friend of mine picked a P5 up on a whim (and for a very reasonable $20!). Being a sharp and sprightly lad he created a Virtools BB that exposed the various variables the P5 outputs, for to tinker with: http://devlab.flashbangstudios.biz/article.php?sto ry=20031104014626613#comments -scroll down a bit for the exact post.
Unfortunately, his prognosis was that while the finger bending data was simple enough and had the fidelity to be applicable, the positional data is unusable garbage. Because the desktop P5 positional sensor looks at a series of reflectors on the top of the glove to determine 3d position, the 'actual' position of the glove (as far as the sensor is concerned) leaps around in the most annoying manner imaginable if even one if the sensors becomes obscured. If you've seen the glove, you can see how easily that might happen while trying to play a game with it.
For my part, I played with it for awhile and found it to be well-designed and aesthetically pleasing, if not practical.
For $20 it would make a good centerpiece for a Halloween costume ;).
For any peripheral to be a success especially on a console, it MUST come with the system. NES zapper made it because people didn't have to shell out $$ for it. If this glove comes with a PS3 or something, it too will have a good chance.
More like "legendarily crappy Power Glove." The P5 people should've learned a lesson from that debacle.
Rob
How bad does Lucas think it is?
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http://www.virtusphere.com/ It's basicaly a human sized version of those small plastic spheres you could put your hampster in to let them run around on the floor. The virtusphere apears to sit on top of some wheels. This is where we need to go with VR. I want a game that lets me: 1) walk/run to control character movement 2) Move my head to control view point and 3) Move a gun or other pointer device to control reticle movement. I want to be able to run forward while looking left and at the same time, shoot behind me. Imagine arcades with, say, six of these virtusphere things as well as modded versions of Battlefield 1942 or Counterstrike hooked up to them.
i just got a p5 off of ebay, and I found an LCD helmet called the VU-ID thats pretty cheap. i wanna build a wearable computer with augmented reality and all that good stuff. i like these kind of input devices because they are different
In my days of school instead of just holding up your hands above your head for 5min they made us stand outside with a bucket full of water above our heads for an entire class. In the long run it did help us to not get so out of hand plus it helped to build up muscle so I guess cannot complain too much about it :p
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from the article:
Future editions of the P5 will be compatible with popular game consoles such as PS2 and Xbox.
I dont know about ps2, but the xbox uses a proprietary USB plug, a few minutes with USB extension cable, a connector from an xbox controller cable, and a soldering iron could easily make this xbox compliant. Having done it I can honestly say it takes maybe 5 mins. Now, finding games to play with it might be a little harder....
If there are any linux games that use it though you can linux your xbox (xbox-linux.org) and then use it. Though in that case I guess you could just plug it into your reg computer..... It is cool though... anyways,
Just a comment.
--Aaron
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
Another wild and crazy- but fun as hell, at least for a while- NES perephrial is the Nintendo Uforce. You waved your hand over a pad to control the game- be it SMB using the general control scheme, or Punch Out by punching into the space. In a lot of ways similar to the Power Glove- except it worked on a completely different method of tracking your hand. Instead of having a glove you put on, you had this clamshell thingy that could open up like a laptop at 90 deg, or flat at 180.
Totally fun. Anyone else ever have a UForce?
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
For gaming, I use something called a SpeedPad. Its not really a glove, just an abreviated gaming keyboard. After an adjustment period of about 2-3 weeks, its much better than an old/long keyboard. Its a great time to learn a new keyboard while most FPS players are waiting on the big upcoming games.
With all the focus on computer hardware for games, Im suprised that more gamers dont use these things already.
Its called "Belkin Nostromo N52 Speed Pad"
Back when I was a crazy Dance Dance Revolution freak (okay, maybe I still am, shut up), I tried playing other games with my pads. Final Fantasy and such menu-based games worked fairly well, though the whole idea was innately absurd. But fun.