Rumbling - Gimmick or Game Enhancer?

I like it.

I like it. It adds a great sense of impact to the moves in WWE WrestleMania XIX, and works wonders in showcasing what kinds of surfaces you're driving on in PGR.

I'd say force feedback is a nice feature. I never go out of my way to shut it off but it never bothers me if a game lacks it.

Psyvariar's Buzz system takes a whole new meaning when the damned controller is buzzing, too.

I'm desensitised to it. When I played Lylat Wars for the first time it was amazing, especially when you rort that train on Macbeth and it crashes into that facility and goes BOOM! rumblerumblerumblerumble BOOM!

Now the rumbling is all subconscious, just like ViciousJazz said.

Silent Hill used it quite well. Most often it's just thrown in for no real reason though.

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I dunno...most of the time I barely notice it. But if I turn it off, I definitely notice it's GONE. I guess it's one of those subconscious deals. Just another step towards the effect of "being there."

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Yeah. For racing games and similar things, I think its great. For fighting games and the like, not so much.

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Originally Posted by Zerodash

And don't forget the "Stone of Agony" (?) thing from Zelda OOT...it vibrated when hidden loot was near- very cool.

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Gimmick, and this is a perfect example of it.

I think it started off as a gimmick, and certainly some games continue to use it as nothing more (Maximo v. Army of Zin), but other certain games are better for it.

I voted game enhancer.

Now, if we're talking about vibration, it's good when it's used well, but it's not used well very often. Off the top of my head, I can only think of a few games that use it well: Final Fantasy games (during magic), MGS, Rez, and some driving games.

Now, if we flip that and we are talking about TRUE force feedback, it's fucking incredible. I mean, think of a good arcade racer with a force feedback steering wheel, it really makes a difference. Or playing something like Freespace with a good force feedback joystick, that game is unbelievable.

It all depends on the game, its often a gimmick, just turned on because they had that option in the dev kit, but on a game like my current addiction, PGR2 its done really really well, a great example is on some of the Florence tracks, you drive from pavement to cobblestones the handling of the car can change, and can feel the difference in just driving over them.