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Darren Waters

Just shoot me

  • Darren Waters
  • 22 Feb 08, 23:43 GMT

Gaming's obsession with immersion is never ending. We've had HD, 3D, brain control and now you can strap on a jacket and helmet and feel the force of shots on your body and to your head.

FPS jacket and headset is a peripheral designed to get you closer to the action.

The vest was developed by a US surgeon, Dr Mark Ombrellaro, originally as a medical diagnostic tool for tele-health, to do heath checks remotely.

There are eight air pressure units in the jacket and four in the helmet. Each time you are shot, or damaged in the game, you feel it on the jacket.

It's most dramatic when you are hit in the head.

The jacket and headset works with a limited range of titles, including Half Life 2 and Doom 3, but there is an API for developers to adapt their games.

So... can you imagine strapping this on and playing?

Comments

I think this is a great ideas and long coming too. I mean you don't get the full atmosphere from a vibrating controller but this is something that will immerse you in the game even more. How long then will it be that we are standing in a screen covered sphere to give us a truly immense gaming experience.

  • 2.
  • At 07:12 PM on 23 Feb 2008,
  • JDEdward wrote:

I own a copy of Half Life 2 and very much enjoyed playing it. I found it quite an immersive experience on its own, and rank it highly along side other games like Bioshock. Although I would like to have a go with the jacket if it is demo-ed in my local video games store - I very much doubt I would want to own one.

There are two reasons, the first is that attaching devices to my torso and head to simulate the pain of my in game character might cause me real physical harm. I'm sure that they have thoroughly tested this suite but what about a malfunction?

I have already said that I find the games immersive on their own and would be a little worried that the devices may be a bit restricting. They may restrict my movement and also increasing the time that it takes me to start playing the game... I'm sure it would put a stop to my quick virtual shooting sprees between Uni lectures!!

One view on immersion is that the games must develop ever more sophisticated and realistic experiences that engage all our senses.

However, there is an older view (but one that still lives on in places), that good (although not necessarily complex) gameplay, can lead to a greater immersion even if restricted to lower technology in graphics etc.

That tactic has been quite successful with many games that become addictive and immersing, such as Tetris.

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