The Real Zapper

One of the tasks video game designers have been working at for years is how to make the gaming experience more immersing for the gamer. As far back as the original NES there was the Zapper and the Power Pad. The Nintendo 64 brought rumble to the world. The Virtual Boy failed in its attempt to foray into the realm of 3-d and virtual reality with its headache inducing crimson goggles. The Wii and DS have conquered many with their simplistic, intuitive controls. A British company is taking a new approach to immersion. If you’re willing to pay the high price of $256 you’ll be given the privilege of attaching five adhesive pads to parts of your body (they helpfully give a diagram suggesting where they should and shouldn’t be placed) which will deliver “sensory feedback”. This feedback is delivered by electric shocks. That’s right. Get shot/crash/get kicked in the head/etc. and you get zapped. The unit works out of the box with the Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox, which tells you how in touch with the current state of the gaming industry the creators of this device are.