Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsLooks nice and seems well made, but dissapointed with it in action
Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2011
Waiting for this to finally be available after several delays, got it delivered today.
Opened the box and was impressed with how the wheel looked...however it does feel pretty flimsy. Has some nice rubberized grips and the shift paddles are metal and have a nice chunky clunk when you shift them. The pedals and base are a little awkward...unless you have a lot of weight resting on the pad they tend to lift off the ground under heavy brake or accelerator application. The clamping mechanism works pretty well, it stayed securely attached to my table for the 10 minutes I could stomach using it.
In terms of actually in-game use, I'm incredibly dissapointed. I guess part of it is my fault...I knew this wheel had no ForceFeedback but I assumed no one would build a controller without rumble. In the first few moments I realized I shouldn't have assumed this. There is ZERO feedback from games. If you play Forza 4 or F1 2011 in simulation mode, you know how critical it is to have feedback from the tires even if there's no official "Force Feedback". I found myself actually being significantly slower than I am with a regular controller, which is a pretty sad statement. Force Feedback adds a lot of cost to a unit, but for the gains in playability vs cost I can't understand why this doesn't have a rumble feature.
Another huge drawback is the motion of the wheel itself. It has some kind of spring or elastic material that increases tension as you increase steering angle. Right around the middle there is probably a 30 degree "dead zone" where the wheel just effortlessly floats back and forth. Trying to keep a car stable going down the straight at Silverstone on approach to Stowe is essentially impossible...approaches to most corners end up getting you unstable in braking and ruin your turn in. Incredibly frustrating.
If you play Forza or F1 in arcade mode, you'll probably have fun...same with the more arcade-y games like Test Drive/ NFS / etc. If you enjoy the more simulation style games stay far, far away.
