E3 2010: Accessories, Peripherals and WTF

While there were a lot of great games announced at E3, some of which I got to take a good look at, and some I even got to play, there were also lots of other awesome things on display. Peripherals, accesories, and other oddities scattered the show room floor, mostly on the outskirts of the convention. But if you were willing to look for them, it was possible to find a neat little something that you didn't even know existed. Other stuff, though, wasn't being featured for a reason.

iGugu Gamecore

First off, yeah, it does have a bit of a silly name, but the Gamecore is basically this: a little doodad that connects your PC to your big screen TV and an interesting little PC controller. Personally, I already have my PC hooked up to a 28" screen, so the whole idea of hooking up my PC to my TV is kind of pointless, and while I guess the service offers to let you do it wirelessly, I don't see why you couldn't just go out and get the necessary cables, as most TVs have a DVI plug in the back anyway.

Where the Gamecore gets really interesting, though, is in the controller that it comes with. built sort of like an Xbox 360 controller; it features a joystick, a D-Pad, and a trackball mouse, along with four shoulder buttons and a full QWERTY keyboard. It also features motion control much like Sony's six-axis controller. While this is an interesting feature, the model I tried out at E3 was pretty laggy, almost to the point of being impossible to play. This could differ in ideal at-home situations, though.

Overall, the controller's biggest flaw was its lack of buttons. For me it kind of felt like there were about four different ways to move your plan (I happened to be playing HAWX) and only a couple of buttons. This might be fine for a game where the only thing you need to do is fire missles, but in a more complex game, I could see how lack of buttons might be a bit of a hindrance.

Novint Falcon

The Novint Falcon was actually something that I had heard about before, and was quite interested in, so needless to say when I happened to stumble on their booth at E3, I was more than happy to give it a try. What you see up there is the Novint Falcon with the gun attachment. Basically what it does is when you pull the trigger, you fire the gun in the game (obviously), and those three arms will give you a little kick, essentially creating realistic recoil for whatever weapon you're using.

The arms can also give the player a sense of tension. For example, if you were pulling back on a slingshot, the further back you pulled, the harder it would be to keep pulling (they had a demo of this on display). The amount of force feedback can be scaled down or up, and they've even got it now where the controller can give you appropriate feedback for when you jump down from a high spot, or when you walk down stairs.

The only drawback to the peripheral is the somewhat steep price (though it is currently on sale for $149.99). However, for anyone who wants a real cool toy, and something that adds a nice bit of immersion to your PC games, this is a no-brainer. Also, it works with all Source games, which should make some people pretty happy.

Bullet Feedback Vest Thing

This is another one that I had heard of, but I didn't really have any interest in. I just happened to have a couple minutes to kill and decided to try it out. You strap on one of those vests up there, and everytime you get shot in the game, the vest gives you a little kick to let you know/ simulate getting shot. Yeah, that's why I wasn't very interested in trying out. I play video games so that I can get shot without actually getting hurt.

Luckily, getting hurt isn't really a worry with this. First off, I was a little too good at Gears of War (the game they happened to have this thing hooked up to) so I ended up having to just run out and let myself get shot. About 10-15 seconds after I got shot, there was a slight nudge coming from certain parts of the vest. Between the delay and the soft nature of the feedback, it felt more like a weird massage chair rather than something related to video games.

[Ed. Note: They're called Tacticle Gaming Vests, and can be purchased here... if you really want one.]

Rock Band 3

Yes, I realize that Rock Band 3 is the new game, and not a peripheral, and that it was in no way, "on the outskirts" of the convention, but I didn't really know where else to stick my opinions on this game. First off, the new keyboard peripheral. Um... neat? I guess it could be kind of cool, but honestly, how many people are really going to want to play the keyboard. It's nearly impossible to rock out on the keyboard. Second, the new Guitar peripheral that basically teaches you how to play guitar. Well, that I don't mind quite as much, but it does show a weird trend for the new Rock Band.

They're basically trying to teach you how to play instruments. It's a weird thing, because it seems like the final goal of this new Rock Band isn't to just have fun messing around with friends, like it was with the last two, but instead it's to actually teach people how to play instruments. Listen. If I wanted to learn how to play an instrument, I would go out and get an instrument and take lessons. If I just wanted to dick around and have a good time pretending to be a rock star, then I would get Rock Band 3. Don't try to mix the two. Also, there's new seven player mode (guitar, bass, drums, keyboard and triple vocal harmonies), which just makes your TV busy as hell.

I feel like I should be excited for some more Rock Band, but I just can't bring myself to care. The rhythm music game genre has been oversaturated at this point, and I don't think there's really any way to bring back to the mainstream, but if there was it's definitley not by adding more peripherals. I don't even want to think about how much the Rock Band 3 complete pack is going to end up costing.

Cyberbike

Well. It's a fitness bike. For the Wii. It comes with a game that has you racing through a track, picking up trash, and your bike in the game has a jetpack. There's also a helicopter bike and submarine bike, but I didn't get to try those. Look, this product is basically for women and kids who need to lose weight, but want to play video games too. I am none of thsoe things (except maybe "want to play video games"), but regardless I tried it out.

The bike itself was a little clunky. You would push the pedal down, and then it would kind of get stuck and it would be a little weird trying to get it to come back up. They did have a newer version of the bike that was in development that I tried out which was much smoother. So there's that. Anyway, Musashi got video of me looking ridiculous on the bike, so I'm sure that will be posted here soon.