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LOS ANGELES -- Want to actually throw a punch the next time you fight in your favorite video game?

Today's PCs and game consoles have the computing power to make video games look amazingly realistic, but unfortunately most of us are still playing those games through a mouse, keyboard, or game controller. A handful of companies here at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) hope to change that.

Reach for a Magic Glove

One of the more interesting input devices on display here is the glove-like P5 from Essential Reality. Slip this space-age puppy onto your hand, and control is quite literally at your fingertips. Sensors in the glove let you enter typical mouse movements by moving your fingers and hand into different, natural positions.

The company expects to start shipping the P5 this fall bundled with several games and priced at $129.

"Games have reached the ultimate in graphics. Now it's time to add another dimension," says David Devor, chief operating officer of Essential Reality.

You connect the P5 to your PC or console via a Universal Serial Bus port. You don't need special drivers to run it with your favorite games and programs, Devor says. Out of the box, it will work with everything from the hit Black & White (which features a so-called hand-of-God interface) to a standard word processing program.

Duck That Body Blow

If gracefully manipulating your on-screen characters with subtle hand movements isn't your style, maybe you'd like to kick your opponent in the head? A new setup from Thrustmaster called the Fighting Arena lets you get a bit more physical when it's time to play.

The Fighting Arena consists of a touch-sensitive floor mat and two adjustable-height poles that create an infrared beam system in front of the mat. Connect the whole contraption to your Sony PlayStation 2, and you're ready to rumble. You step on certain points of the mat for some controls, but the real fun is when you throw a high punch that breaks the infrared plane--because your on-screen character does the same. Kick high or low, and after a slight delay, so does your doppelganger.

Thrustmaster expects to announce pricing upon shipping Fighting Arena this September.

Move Your Head, Not Your Mouse

Some companies here are looking for more cerebral ways to let you control your games--notably, by moving your head. Maui Innovative Peripherals is demonstrating a product called the Cymouse 3D Navigator, which is a headset and USB-based monitor sensor combination that uses infrared beams.

By turning your head one direction, you cause your character in your favorite PC shooting game to look the same way. It's an intuitive process, and it frees your hands for other keyboard tasks, such as typing smack talk to your opponents, says James Witcomb, chief executive officer of Maui.

Maui plans to ship the package this September and estimates a price of $179.

Witcomb says the cool thing about the Cymouse is it offers up another dimension, literally. "With the mouse you have X and Y [coordinates]. With Cymouse you have X and Y and Z," he says.

Most importantly, the Cymouse can do more than play games, he says, and the company is planning a version that will make it easier for disabled people to use computers and the Internet.

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