Subjective Game Study: Interesting Use of Haptics

The objective game study so far shows that use of rumble as a information channel is very conventional - few games stray outside of the low-level haptic feedback indicating firing a weapon or getting hit by fire. The only games included in the study that use rumble to convey slightly more sophisticated information are Turok, indicating that the bow is strained to the max level, and Conflict: Denied Ops, providing vibrations in pace with a bomb countdown.

The games that contain interesting and in my opinion noteworthy uses of rumble that we've found so far, resides in other genres.

As far as location-bound information is concerned, Ocarina of Time and Maximo vs Army of Zin both uses vibrations to indicate that the player is, respectively, above or near a hidden treasure. There's also a Xbox Live community game named In the Pit entirely without graphics, using rumble to convey where enemies are in relation to the player.

Another take on spatial information is Rockstar's Table Tennis, using rumble to give the player a feeling of how close to the edge of the table that the ball will end up (more intense vibrations = closer to the edge of the table).

Silent Hill uses heart beat-paced vibrations to convey level of health.

There's also some more experimental uses of controller haptics, such as the boss Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid demonstrating his psychic abilities in a cut-scene by vibrations, or the Rez trance vibrator add-on.