Crytek and Novint

Crysis Movie

ATI's booth was running Far Cry on their systems but they also showed off a quick movie showing off Crysis, the upcoming first-person shooter from developer Crytek and publisher Electronic Arts. The movie mostly showed off the graphical features of the new Cryengine 2, with some impressive cloud effects and especially the deep tropical forest that makes the original Far Cry foliage look like a simple brush. The final part of the movie showed off a War of the Worlds like mechanical alien coming out of a fire and roaring loudly. The final message was that Crysis will be playable at E3 in May. I can't wait.

More on Novint Falcon

Yesterday we chatted with a rep from Novint who discussed their Falcon touch-sensitive PC controller. At the Novint booth during GDC we actually got a chance to try the Falcon in action. The device is actually bigger than we imagined, which is a little bit smaller than a soccer ball. The "ball" has three flat strips that come out of the top and two sides and connects to a central ball with some console controller like buttons. With the Falcon we actually felt how a simulated ball on a PC screen can be made to feel like different textures, from molasses, to ice, to sandpaper. We also fired a bow and arrow into the target and "felt" the tension in the bow as we pulled it back on screen. Finally we "caught" a simulated baseball with a glove and felt the impact. It's clear that the Falcon is still early in development but it certainly has some potential, especially in arcade style games.


That's it for the third and final part of my GDC 2006 reporters notebook but that's not all the coverage we will have from GDC. I got to play a number of upcoming games in detail and will be giving my thoughts on them next week along with my review of the Video Games Live music concert.