NGR - What was the inspiration behind the Cyberman 3: Force Feedback project?

Lee - As most game developers know, the original Cyberman fell short our expectations, and this sent our designers back to the drawing board, yeilding the Cyberman 2. The Cyberman 2 was designed to enhance the 'Descent' gaming experience, which it did with resounding success. Selling nearly 250 units in 1997 alone. Yet even with the widespread success of Cyberman 2, we couldn't help but think that something was missing from the 'Descent' experience. We looked at the current round of game controllers on the market, and it was obvious what we were missing, Force Feedback. By combining 6 degrees of movement with Force Feedback support, the Cyberman 3 will be the world's first game controller with 6 degrees of Force Feedback.

NGR - Some of the complaints of the Cyberman 2 were that the controls were sloppy when the player attempted do two things at once, say walk forward and turn at the same time. How will adding Force Feedback affect the precision of the controls needed for competitive play, which was a problem in the past?

Lee - You are right, there were some complaints about the Cyberman 2. We encorporated end user feedback into the final desing. We listened to Cyberman 2 users who complained that they had difficulty playing 3D-action games, but were relatively pleased with the way it performed with Descent. We decided that the best application of our time and effort would be to focus on making the controller support Descent exclusively. It is even possible that we will release a patch that will allow users to play Descent II, but that is still under negotiations with the development team.

Some other feedback we got was a lack of hat switches in the Cyberman 2. To address this complaint, we decided that rather than having each of the buttons work as standard buttons, we have changed each of the eight buttons into hat switches. Each of these is an 8-way hat switch, thus in effect we have 64 possible programmable buttons! While this fell short of our goal of 101 programmable buttons, which would have matched the power of a standard keyboard, we were satisfied that with 6 degrees of movement and eight 8-way hat switches, we could now offer the Descent experience that our customers deserve. Other feedback we incorporated was to take the neon-green look and feel and change it to a neon-pink look and feel, which seems to be better received in our marketing tests. NGR - In doing research for this interview, we looked at the Logitech web site. There is no mention of the Cyberman 2, and even no mention of the Cyberman 3. What gives?

Lee - It is my understanding that the marketing department pulled he Cyberman 2 from our to make room for the Cyberman 3, yet they did not want to put any information about the Cyberman 3 on the site until after this years GDC.

NGR - In doing further research, we found that in fact the Cyberman 2 is no longer available from major software chains, and is only available from Egghead's Surplus web site for $14.99. What are you doing to assure that the Cyberman 3 will not suffer the same fate as the Cyberman 2?

Lee - We think that the explanation of the Cyberman 2's demise can be traced to the marketing. Obviously there are enough Descent players out there to carry our sales into the millions, yet there is an awareness problem that we will be addressing at this years Game Developer's Conference in San Jose.

NGR - Really, what will you be doing to raise people's awareness?

Lee - In the past, Logitech has opened the Game Developer's Conference with a party that showcases their newest product. In 1996 the Wingman Warrior was showcased, and in 1997 the Cyberman 2 was showcased. The 1997 party was less successful, so at the 1999 conference we are going to reintroduce the formula we used for showcasing the Wingman Warrior in 1996. This proven formula is hire a heavyweight power lifter to dress up as the Norse God Thor, and to take a giant Sledgehammer and smash keyboards while hundreds of drunken game developers taunt him and spray beer on him. While this worked in the past, this year we have gone even farther, and plan on smashing not only keyboards, but a few mice and even a few dozen Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback Pro Joysticks. Our ultimate goal is to get everyone really drunk then have them play the most intense multiplayer Descent game of their lives, of course using the Cyberman 3.

NGR - Smashing Microsoft Joysticks, isn't it a bit expensive for Logitech to be smashing $150 joysticks?

Lee - Actually, the funny thing is, it won't cost us a penny. Representatives from Logitech acquired over 40 of Microsoft's Force Feedback Precision Pro joysticks at last year's Game Developer's conference for free during the promotion that Microsoft put on. We can't really be seen using the Force Feedback Pro around the office, it might get us fired. So we decided that having Thor smash the controllers to bits would make a statement to Microsoft and the rest of the gaming community that we mean business.

NGR - It is our understanding that Microsoft's promotion was supposed to limit the number of free joysticks to one per conference attendee. How did you manage to acquire over 40? Lee - Actually it was easy, I had one of our interns take a stack of the cards that needed to be stamped at six individual booths. Rather than go through the bother of actually going to each booth, we simply took one of the red 'star' markers and completely stamped over 40 cards that way. When we handed them to the Microsoft people, they were happy to give them away, regardless of how many times we went back to the booth! Now we get to use to Joysticks in our promotion of the Cyberman 3 at this year's conference.

NGR - I look forward to attending the spectacle in San Jose. Is there anything else that you'll be doing to promote the Cyberman 3?

Lee- There is one final thing that we will be doing, and National Game Review is the first to hear of this: we will be teaming with the DWANGO team to introduce the ultimate Descent tournament using the Cyberman 3. Representatives from DWANGO and Logitech have teamed together, and have managed to find 8 professional gamers that use the Cyberman 2 as their preferred game controller when playing Descent. Although the highest ranking any of them has attained in the Professional Gamers' League is 5,632 we expect that they will have little difficulty adapting to the Cyberman 3. With this high caliber talent and unprecedented controller functionality, we expect a gaming spectacle like none that has been seen before.