Non-Force Feedback Race Wheel Roundup - PAGE 2

In a continuation of our look at the lighter side of computing, we decided to go all out and take a gab at race wheels as a followup to our roundup of Gamepads. In my early days of gaming, I wasn’t much of a race fanatic, but only because I never had the luxury of ripping through treacherous race courses with the aid of a sturdy wheel. Instead, I was relegated and resigned to the infinitely more mundane click fest that is known as… keyboard racing. Nowadays it is almost a curse to play driving titles with a keyboard… you can imagine how uninspiring it is to try and make it through the luscious courses in eye-popping titles like NFS5 and Breakneck while jabbing at small little buttons on a keyboard. It wasn’t until last year’s E3 that I had my first serious encounter with a race wheel. That’s what started my love of race wheels, and that’s why we’re here now, with this racin’ roundup.

The Magic of Racing

Games are all about immersion and fun. We don’t have the technology to go full VR, so we turn to the next best thing: immersion through ever more realistic graphics, better sounding effects and music, and realistic gaming peripherals that take us and put us literally in a position closer to that of the jet pilot or race jock. Race wheels take you just that one step closer to being there in the rollcage and roaring down the race track. If you haven’t tried your favourite game with a good race wheel, you haven’t really ever felt the added adrenaline rush and the heightened sense of control that these controllers give you. It makes for a totally different driving experience, and the difference of the experience from wheel to wheel can sometimes be so great that it could drive your race fever to whole new heights.

With that in mind, we set out to gather up a bunch of non-force feedback wheels and pit them in the ultimate race off. It wasn’t enough to get the leaders like Logitech, MadCatz, Thrustmaster, and Microsoft to participate, we rounded up a total of 7 wheels and put them to the test. And when you start to look at so many wheels at once, it all becomes a blur, but somehow, although all the wheels shared similarities, they each also had a different personality, a different feel. Some had very solid resistance, or amazing pedals. Others yet had a mass of buttons that crowded together and took up a majority of their surface. In the end, we came up with a few winners, because you can never really have a single winner when several products step up the challenge and deliver performances that made “the ones”. So which ones are the ones to look out for? Let’s find out.

Looking for that Perfect Wheel

What did we look for when reviewing these wheels? Mostly the physical aspects of the wheel, as they relate to the performance in games. Different people value different features in wheels, and we were most impressed by wheels that had solid resistance when turned, while maintaining high consistency in the smoothness of their turn. We also wanted to see how solid the wheel clamped to your desk; there’s nothing more annoying, or surprising, than having a wheel rip right off the desk or move dramatically out of position during the heat of a race. Shape, size, and placement of buttons are as important as the number of individual button functions – some manufacturers have wheels with many many buttons, but in truth only a handful of those buttons are independent. All current wheels also come with pedals, and the size, shape and length of throw and resistance of pedals all have a strong impact on the enjoyment of your game… sometimes the pedal system can make or break a system, as you will see.

So with all these in mind, let’s take a look at the 7 candidates and see how they fared.