The power is certainly noticeable - a good example is when taking fall damage, at which point all four bottom jacket pistons squeeze your lower abdomen like a ripe tomato. Single shots taken from the vest, though, have a slightly lazy feel to them, like being slowly prodded by the tubby fat fingers of an obese man trying to get your attention.
Up top, though, is a different story. The helmet pistons wield some real kick, and while taking multiple shots to the brain might not exactly hurt, each impact is still strong enough to send you scurring into cover. Another colleague likened the experience to having a clumsy massage from someone who's learning the art as they go along.
Above: The 3rd Space vest needs a special driver to work - currently it supports Crysis, Half-Life 2 Episode One and Two, UT3and others. In future, developers will be able to code the 3rd Space drivers directly into their games
There's four versions planned -the FPS one we tried, a racing version, an RPG type (with 'sword slash' impacts) and a sports edition - and even further add-ons to cover the arms and legs. It's only a matter of time, surely, before a 'special' attachment brings us terrifyingly close to the sexy-sexy times demonstrated in virtuo-thriller The Lawnmower Man.
What really hurts, though, is the price. The FPS vest alone, which is out in the US right now, weighs in at a gut-punching $169 (in the UK it'll be around £100) while the helmet will be around $100 (£50ish) when it launches late this year. Even if devs start supporting the 3rd Space tech, we can't see many gamers beyond the curious, masochisticminority shelling out that sort of cash for an experience they might get on a packed tube train. One for us, then, please!
Check out our buddies at T3.com taking the 3rd Space vest testin video form, or hit the TNGames website for some truly hilariousUS TV news spots. "I'm hit in the boob!"
