The Novint Falcon is a device which gives haptic or touch feedback to users. It consists of a grip the size of a ping-pong ball connected to a conical housing structure attached to supports. The standard grip can be replaced by others such as a pistol grip for shooting games. The Novint Falcon is a completely new type of interface when it comes to PC gaming.
Now Valve announces that the company has released Novint Falcon support for some of its hugely successful games. An update released through Steam adds Novint Falcon compatibility to Portal, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and Team Fortress 2, all games included in The Orange Box. Valve also plans to release support for this device for other games in the future, including the games Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Left 4 Dead.
“We’re very excited to partner with a company so dominant in the PC game industry,” Novint CEO, Tom Anderson stated. “Their sustained excellence, best-selling games, enormous user base, and forward looking vision make them standard bearers for the industry. We feel Falcon support for their online games in particular could be our first real killer app, which is an exciting milestone.”
With the Falcon, players get to experience precise weapon recoil, vehicle movements and attacks from enemies. Players can even interact with their environments in ways not possible earlier. Novint has also released its Pistol Grip accessory which takes the place of the standard Falcon grip and gives a much more immersive experience when playing FPS games.
In celebration of the support from Valve, Novint is offering an Orange Box bundle for one week only. The bundle can be purchased for about USD 149 (approx. Rs. 7,200) and comes with a Novint Falcon, a copy of The Orange Box and a pistol grip, plus more than USD 150 (approx. Rs. 7,250) of additional software.