A Queen’s University study confirms that video-gamers feel more immersed and have more fun in virtual environments when they play with commercial eye tracking technology.

These “new controls” replace the mouse click as a means to allow players to interact more naturally with their digital environments.

"Eye tracking technology allows us to build interfaces that respond to users' intentions rather than just their actions. This makes computers feel more natural than ever before," says the study’s co-author David Smith a PhD candidate with Queen’s School of Computing.

First developed in the late 1960s the technology, already used by people with limited mobility, pilots, and market researchers, is increasingly attracting the interest of video-game companies.

This study, also authored by the School of Computing’s Associate Professor Nicholas Graham, showed that players enjoyed the way eye tracking enhanced their involvement in the role-playing game Neverwinter Nights. However, players still preferred to use the mouse to control games like Quake 2, a first-person shooter game, and Lunar Command, an action/arcade game.

Players overwhelmingly indicated an increased feeling of immersion in the gaming world when they played with the eye tracker – 83 percent of those playing Quake 2, 83 percent playing Neverwinter Nights, and 92 percent playing Lunar Command. Smith and Graham suggest this is due to an increased level of feedback, which is given even when the user makes subconscious eye movements.

In this ever evolving world of hyper-realism and high-definition hoo-hah, you can always rely on Ridge Racer to take things back to basics. Flying in the face of Gran Turismo's beneath-the-bonnet tinkering and the over-the-top mud bath that is MotorStorm, this latest installment of Namco's arcade racing series is high-speed rubber-burning at its purest and most simple. In fact, cosmetic details aside, playing it is more like stepping back in time rather than embracing the next generation and there isn't a great deal to separate Ridge Racer 7 from the original game that ushered in the PlayStation back in 1995.
Thing is, Ridge purists wouldn't want it any other way and, after playing ever-more complex racers swamped with unnecessary options and modes, playing something that's so straightforward, so - dare we say it - old school, actually makes for a refreshing change.
That's not to say Ridge Racer 7 doesn't offer anything new. Take the Ridge State Grand Prix for example. It's a fleshed-out career mode that serves as the main event in the game, a sprawling racing season where players start out with… well, nothing, not even a car. Before you can make a name for yourself out on the circuit you have to earn the right to compete with the best, by driving in a trial race. Win - which, to be honest, is a complete breeze - and you're awarded a car and are free to steer your racing career in any direction you wish.