TN Games News

IGN: 3rd Space Gaming Vest Review

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:00:00

3rd Space Gaming Vest Review

Force feedback that truly packs a punch. But is it necessary?

by Scott Lowe

November 18, 2008 - I'm not particularly adventurous when it comes to PC gaming accessories. I'll give anything a try, but in most cases I find myself calling upon a comfortable chair, a no-frills keyboard, and a reasonably responsive mouse with accurate tracking. I can understand and appreciate the need for some to utilize more extensively featured control devices, but I prefer to keep things simple. I've seen my fair share of gaming mice, keyboards, and headsets, but really, the industry standards for these product types have long since been established and the limitations are clear. On the other hand, this isn't to say that there is no room for advancement within the standard issue PC gaming peripheral realm; there is, as we've so clearly seen with the SteelSeries World of Warfcraft MMO Gaming Mouse. If you are looking for thrills beyond the mouse, keyboard, voice communication and audio realm, the particularly intriguing peripheral work is being done by the mad scientists of the world, or in this case, medical practitioners.

I am referring, of course, to the 3rd Space Gaming Vest from TN Games, which was invented by a licensed physician, Dr. Mark Ombrellaro. The 3rd Space Gaming Vest brings a new level of physical immersion to PC gaming through the use of repurposed medical technologies. The vest uses an advanced air compression system and eight pneumatic cells, four on each side, to give players an unparalleled force-feedback experience. In other words, the 3rd Space Vest allows players to physically feel the strikes, shots, and other effects being dealt to them in-game. The eight contact points can deliver up to five pounds of force and can be customized to fire at varying rates and duration. The vest receives its cues from game drivers for a variety of AAA titles, released by TN Games. So far, the 3rd Space Gaming Vest has been adopted for the following titles:

Call of Duty 2 and Call of Duty 4
Turning Point - Fall Of Liberty
You Are Empty
Blacksite
Bioshock
Frontlines: Fuel Of War
Rainbow Six Vegas 2
Turok
Mass Effect
F.E.A.R
Prey
TimeShift
Crysis
Unreal Tournament 3
Clive Barker's Jericho
Halflife 2: Episode 1 and 2
Medal Of Honor Airborne
Enemy Territory Quake Wars
Quake 4
Doom 3
Farcry 2
Mercenaries 2
Fable
World of Warcraft

As you can see, TN Games has been quite busy gaining game support for the 3rd Space Gaming Vest. Quality title support, or lack thereof, can make or break an innovative gaming peripheral like the 3rd Space Gaming Vest. Fortunately, TN Games has pretty much all of their bases covered with a firm hold on the FPS market. Support for FPS fan-favorites like Call of Duty 4 and Crysis will certainly attract a sizable amount of attention from intermediate and hardcore gamers, but the support for World of Warcraft and Fable will definitely garner the interest of the MMORPG community.

With all of TN Games' proverbial "ducks in a row" in terms of title support, the real question becomes how does the 3rd Space Gaming Vest perform? Well, a portion of the answer comes from the product itself and the other from your own willingness to try new and unconventional gaming accessories. The product itself performs just as you would imagine, assuming of course that you don't envision gasping for breath as you cradle your stomach in searing pain. The compressors provide a significant jolt, but not to the point of any discomfort or pain. I would most readily compare the sensation to being lightly-to-moderately poked, which is impressive considering that the system relies exclusively on air-compressors. One would think that the inflation and deflation would be somewhat gradual, but in reality the points of contact come and go quite quickly. The swift punch of the compressors is what truly makes this product unique. Unlike vibrating feedback or competing technologies, the 3rd Space Gaming Vest is fast and unrelenting. Each burst falls in perfect sync with in-game effects and gunfire.

One clear cut benefit of owning and using the 3rd Space Vest is for adversarial online play in FPS titles. Instead of relying on a subtle red tinge on one side of your screen, you can actually feel what direction the shots are being fired from. By adding touch to the existing and audible and visual sensory perception in gaming, users will find that they react faster and with better accuracy. While use of the 3rd Space Gaming Vest has not yet been authorized for moderated competitive play by the various gaming leagues, it will certainly give casual competitors a serious edge.

The build of the 3rd Space Gaming Vest itself is quite sound, made from durable 600D polyester and the zippers and straps are all made of the highest quality materials. The product's price of $169.99 sounds expensive at first, but once you get a feel for the vest and the components that come with, you start to wonder how they could afford to sell it at such a low price. With durable mesh and well-stitched zippers, straps, and compartments, the 3rd Space Vest feels as if it could be used in legitimate combat situations. When it first arrived to our offices, I was tempted to wear it at all times like 50 Cent or My Chemical Romance's Gerard Way. The only thing that stopped/stops me from parading around like the badass I am, is the several feet of tubing that connects to the independent compressor. Which brings me to the other crucial aspect of the vest—its setup.

Setting up and installing the vest and its software is effortless. Simply connect the external compressor to its dedicated power supply, the vest to the compressor via the aforementioned tubing, and to your PC via USB. While this sounds like a lot of work, there are a number of ways that the design could have been more complicated. For instance, the vest could have required a dedicated AC cord of its own, in addition to the one required for the air compressor. After setting up the hardware, a simple general driver install for you PC is all that the 3rd Space Gaming Vest requires. Once the initial install is completed, all that you have to do is fire up your favorite supported title and prepare to be physically immersed. There is an automatic update feature within the 3rd Space Vest's driver that ensures that you can play freshly supported titles as the updates become available.

But despite the exceptional quality of the vest's performance and build, the value of the 3rd Space Gaming Vest really comes down to how adventurous of a FPS or WoW gamer you are. As I said, I'm not the type to use something like the 3rd Space Gaming Vest every time I play--but that's just my preference. Everything that the 3rd Space Gaming Vest could do to impress me, it did. There is little I could ask more of the 3rd Space Gaming Vest, and for the audience that is interested in immersive force feedback gaming, there is nothing currently on the market that can beat it.

IGN's Ratings for TN Games 3rd Space Gaming Vest

Rating	Description
out of 10
8.7	Performance Quick, immersive, and unrelenting bursts of force.
9.0	Build Quality We'd wear it as a tactical vest if we could.
8.8	Ease of Use Make a few connections, install the driver, and you are all set.
7.6	Value Seemingly steep, but ultimately reasonable for the quality of the build and performance.
7.3	Comfort Not exactly couch-potato caliber, but when you are getting bursts of force in your abdomen, who's going to be slouching?
8.3	OVERALL (out of 10 / not an average)

Read the full article on IGN’s site

GDC, San Fran

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 07:00:00

Game Devleopers Conference (GDC), San Francisco, CA 3/23-3/27/09

CES, Vegas

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 07:00:00

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Las Vegas, NV 1/8-1/11/09

America's Video Game Festival

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 07:00:00

America's Video Game Festival, Philadelphia PA 11/21- 11/23/08

Intel LAN Fest, CO

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 07:00:00

Intel LAN Fest, Colorado Springs CO
Date TBA

Toy Wishes Holiday Preview

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 07:00:00

Toy Wishes Holiday Preview show, Javits Convention Center, NYC, NY 10/6/08

Intel LAN Fest, WA

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 07:00:00

Intel LAN Fest, Tacoma WA 10/3-10/5/08

E for All

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 07:00:00

E for All, Los Angeles CA 10/3-10/5/08

TN Games™ will be demoing the 3rd Space™ Vest at E for All. Visit the E for All website for more information about the event www.eforallexpo.com

Compatible with World of Warcraft™

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:00:00

3rd Space™ Gaming Vest now is compatible with World of Warcraft™.

The Seattle Times - Vest that feels the Action

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 07:00:00

Bellevue surgeon designs vest that lets video gamers feel the action

By Brier Dudley
Seattle Times technology columnist

I love stories about tinkerers whose offbeat gadgets go from the garage to the big time.

That may be happening to Mark Ombrellaro, a Bellevue vascular surgeon who dreamed up a vest that thumps and prods you when you're playing video games.His "3rd Space" vest won't appeal to everyone, especially since it works only with a handful of games so far.

But the success of products like "Guitar Hero," "Rock Band" and "Wii Fit" show that people are willing to pay for expensive accessories that make games more realistic.

Accessory sales grew 52 percent last year, helping the overall video-game industry grow 43 percent to $18.8 billion, according to NPD Group research.

Ombrellaro's TN Games has a way to go, but it's been making waves since the vest was shown at game-developer conferences last year and the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

That led to national distribution deals, including sales through Costco.com, which will begin Tuesday, and Target.com, which begin today. When its software is meshed with games such as "Call of Duty," players actually feel the bullets and grenades hitting their characters. So far it works with about 16 PC games, including "Crysis" and "Quake 4," plus TN's own title, "Incursion."

Coming soon is a helmet in which players can feel head shots and a racing-game vest that simulates the g-forces felt by a Formula One driver.

Yet another model was created for military training. Ombrellaro said he's close to a deal with the Canadian military for units with wireless connections and gas cylinders that can be turned up high enough to leave bruises when soldiers are "hit" during training exercises.

The standard $169 vest includes a book-size air compressor and a USB cable. The compressor fills air bladders in the vest. When you start playing, it feels a little like getting a blood-pressure check, and the air drives eight quarter-sized actuators on the front, back and sides.

Hits are pretty gentle and don't sting. They have about 5 pounds of force, the equivalent of a roll of pennies dropped from about 6 inches above your stomach, Ombrellaro said.

But that's not enough for some early users, so TN developed an upgraded compressor with about 70 percent more pressure. It will sell for around $50 extra later this year.

The top priority for the company, however, is building relationships with game developers so that the vest activation codes are built into their games. It's also pushing hard to break into the console market.

"The goal is to have this as part of the core technology with all games," Ombrellaro said.
The vest began in the early 1990s, when Ombrellaro was doing research in Texas, trying to figure out a way for doctors to remotely examine prison inmates. He thought of a vest with air-powered actuators that would press different spots on the torso.

In 1996 he moved to Bellevue to take over a surgeon's practice, then started working on the vest in earnest around 2000. It got serious after he hired a programmer who had lost a contract position at Microsoft. Then he hired an aerospace engineer laid off from Boeing, and now he employs 10 people in an office down the street from Microsoft in Redmond.

While gearing up for U.S. Food and Drug Administration trials a few years ago, they came across an open-source shooting video game and figured out how to send signals from the game to the vest.

Ombrellaro then met with people on the Xbox peripherals team. They suggested he take the vest to trade shows to get exposure and start working with game developers to get the vest control signals into their games.

TN still doesn't have a deal with Xbox, but Ombrellaro hopes to be in the console market soon.

With several big deals in the works, Ombrellaro expects to sell 50,000 units by the end of the year. Most of them appear to be ready to ship, stacked floor to ceiling in boxes in the back of TN's office.

Ombrellaro, 46, funded the business mostly himself, then raised about $3 million from angel investors. He's starting to consider venture funding, if the deals come through and he needs to scale up quickly.

If it doesn't work out, there's always his day job.

Brier Dudley's column appears Mondays. Reach him at
206-515-5687
or .

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company