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AimTrak: First Impressions
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Epyx:

--- Quote ---The only issue I see is playing at night. I mean arcades were dark and all, but who wants to stand in a dark room lit only by arcade marquees just to play a game? I guess I'll get a dimmer.

I turn on my neon clock behind my cab at night.
--- End quote ---

I turn on my cabs cathode blue and like it dark in the basement other than the glow from the screen and blue cathode ;)
Neverending Project:
Second impression: this thing is incredible. I just spent about an hour playing some lightgun games that I have never played before, and some that I have. I calibrated the AimTrak once on the windows desktop before I launched my front end, and not again for the rest of the evening. I turned off the crosshairs and was able to hit most of my shots right on. I really got the feeling that the calibration was rock solid. The biggest pain was MAME really. Some games require two buttons, and I don't have the second hooked up on my Act Labs gun yet. Some I could not get reloading to work, but I'm sure trial and error will get those kinks worked out.

I was sitting on a stool about 3 or 4 feet back from the screen (the gun tip, that is) and I was shooting from my somewhere around my chin. It sounds funny now that I think about it, but when I was playing it seemed to give me the most accuracy, without needing to look down the gun sight.

I plan on making some video showing the tracking of the gun/mouse, and how the calibration changes slightly when you move the gun to different positions. But I will tell you that in a real gaming situation that doesn't really matter. You adjust your gun based on the feedback and seeing where the shots land. So if you fire and miss by a quarter inch, you move the gun and keep shooting. You never even know if where you shoot is just slightly off from where the gun is aimed. And if you use the crosshairs, then it's a no-brainer.

Hopefully some video will show what I mean. I'll put something together soon.


--- Quote from: crzywolf on October 09, 2009, 08:12:47 pm ---How close to the tip of the gun is your Aimtrak mounted ?

--- End quote ---

Very close. The camera lens on the PCB is just behind the opening of the gun barrel. If you look sideways you can't see the camera, but just barely.
RandyT:

--- Quote from: Neverending Project on October 10, 2009, 01:42:02 am ---You adjust your gun based on the feedback and seeing where the shots land. So if you fire and miss by a quarter inch, you move the gun and keep shooting. You never even know if where you shoot is just slightly off from where the gun is aimed. And if you use the crosshairs, then it's a no-brainer.

--- End quote ---

While this sounds like it might make for a fun game, it sounds very counterintuitive to those who actually have used real guns and look at shooting games as a way to re-produce that experience.  Shooting enthusiasts make the gun a natural extension of their arm and typically don't (read: can't) always see where shots land in reality.  IMHO, this is the bar that needs to be reached, for a gun solution to be "incredible". 

It sounds like the product makes the games playable with some limitations, but in all honesty, if my shots don't land where I think they are supposed to, or are negatively affected by moving the gun too far out of the "calibrated area", then it will probably fall short of what I was hoping for.  That is, unless these limitations are being overstated and others aren't seeing them (which I would love to be the case.)

RandyT

Neverending Project:
I have used real guns, and it is not counterintuitive in the least. We're talking about popping ghosts, shooting zombies and hitting animated people here. Or in some cases I suppose video game animals as well. These are video games, and we are standing 3 feet from the screen. I am sure this device is far more accurate than you are wanting to believe. In fact, I would be willing to bet that in some games it is more accurate than the original video game. Although not knowing the optics and programming for most of the games, this is just a guess. What games are you referring to that you can't see your shots hit and adjust accordingly? I'll fire it up and check it out.

As I was testing my rig (which is an Act Labs, BTW, with a barrel that would shoot the equivalent of a 25mm bullet, BTW - and as an aside I prefer the arcadey feel over the real gun for my video games) I attached a laser pointer to the gunsight, as a poor-mans laser sight. I watched in windows as the mouse cursor tracked my laser pointer very well. There were cases on some corners of the screen where my laser pointer dot was maybe a quarter of an inch away from the mouse, and there were areas where it was right on.

There were no crosshairs in the original video games, so it would be highly subjective to compare gameplay from the original to this device. I can compare it to the Wii, which as we know has poor at tracking. I can compare it to Act Labs, which was very inaccurate. I can compare it to video games I played in arcades, and in almost all cases I would say this is a superior experience. Especially when you factor in the miscalibration you usually see in video games in arcades. And I can compare it to when I used to shoot a 9mm beretta with real bullets at a room sized kevlar movie screen which played a DVD scene-like game which responded to where your bullets hit the screen. They are entirely different experiences. No recoil. No loud explosion. No smell of gun powder. No rush of adrenaline. But I hit more targets at home.  ;)

It's a $40 video game device, and for that it rocks (once you get past the hiccups of a brand new product). Extend your arm and look down the sight (and stand that much farther from the screen). You'll see (or not see) those virtual bullets hit (or miss) however you want. But in the end it sounds like you're trying to downplay a competitor's product that you haven't seen for yourself in action. Buy one, Randy, and then post your honest HO.  ;)
Beretta:
while it's great the solution is working for you randy makes a valid point here.

surely no one is silly enough to expect a video game to reproduce firing of an actual firearm in it's entirety.. it is not at all unreasonable to expect the shots to land where you're aiming.

the spray and pray approach is strictly for button mashers.. some of us actually like hitting what we're aiming at with 1 shot.

so i gotta go with randy on this one.
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