Gone are the days when you only had computer games that appealed to only your sense of sight and sound. Yes, with haptic technology or what is otherwise known as haptics the sense of touch is being added to virtual reality systems. But what exactly is haptic technology?
This is actually a tactile feedback or somato sensory system feedback that takes advantage of the body's sense of touch by applying forces, motions or vibrations to the user. It involves the use of mechanical stimulation, which may be employed to help in creating virtual objects in a computer simulation, in order to control these virtual objects, as well as to improve the remote control of machines including devices.
To explain haptic technology further you see when making use of our hands in exploring the world that is around us, we will receive two kinds of feedback- tactile and kinesthetic. This in a sense explains the use of the term force feedback, which is usually used to describe kinesthetic and/or tactile feedback. Now, if a person is going to feel any virtual object, it is force feedback that is the type of information that such individual must receive.
Haptic or force feedback has been used in arcade games, especially racing video games. Alright as far back as 1976, Moto-Cross; a motorbike game from Sega, which was also known as Fonz, made use of haptic feedback and this resulted in the vibration of the handlebars whenever there was a collision with another vehicle. Now this was the very first time any game employed the use of this technology. Common simple haptic devices usually include joy sticks, steering wheels and game controllers.
Okay early implementations were made possible via optional components, like the Rumble Pak of the Nintendo 64 controller. Also, several of the controllers as well as joysticks of the newer generation console equally had built-in feedback devices. This includes Sony's DualShock technology. For instance, regarding this the steering wheel controllers of some automobiles are programmed in such a way that they allow for one to "feel" the road. And, so when a user accelerates or makes a turn, such steering wheels respond by preventing these turns or slipping out of hand.
What to expect with force feedback games
The effects that one feels with respect to these games are programmed in the software of the games in question. And, various effects are created by the game's software in response to the situation of the game. This is then sent to the force feedback device. Therefore, because of this one will discover a lot of differences regarding the quality and style of the implementation of force feedback. While some games do create effects when it comes to collisions experienced, some others will not.
How to make force feedback work
Generally speaking force feedback is usually implemented in space simulator, racing type games among others. It is hardly implemented in games involving sports, strategy, etc. Now just because the game you bought or have is a force feedback type game doesn't mean it is. If the developer of the game didn't program this in the game, then this will be absent in that particular game. So in order to find out what the situation is with your game you should go through the documentation of the game in question or even visit the website of the game.
Finally, here are some PC games with force feedback support. This includes action/adventure games like Allegiance, Creature Isle, and Driver. Education/puzzles/strategy games like Gruntz, Braid and ToonTalk. Flight/space simulation games like Air Warrior II, Air Warrior III and FreeSpace 2 among others.
Author Bio: Michael Clark has written this article for the site Car Games 365. This site contains all the famous car games and you will really enjoy playing them. He has also written other articles on technology and online gaming.