When the Wireless Steering Wheel was announced last year, of course, it was originally aiming to launch alongside Forza Motorsport 2 - a racing game of supreme depth and one that's designed to showcase the Wheel's capabilities.
Dive into the bundled copy of Project Gotham Racing 3, and you'll discover that it behaves like one, too.
Then again, I'd counter that this is an expensive piece of kit - I thought it would be nice to note that it actually looks and feels like one. As for the pedals - the accelerator has a nice metallic appearance and a healthy surface area, while the brake requires a bit more force to depress, just as you'd expect.ĭescribing it all in this much detail is a bit of an indulgence, you might be thinking, especially with all the photos dotted around the page. You'll also find a little port down to the right of the wheel for attaching your headset mechanism, next to a button for synching the Wheel with the console, while the battery compartment is hidden behind a removable grey panel on the right side. The back, start and Guide buttons sit in the centre of the wheel. The d-pad and face buttons fall within easy thumbing distance, while the bumper buttons translate to a pair of paddles that make for easy gear changes with the fingers. Meanwhile, the steering wheel itself is rubberised around most of its circumference with a slick square bottom (a nod to the restrictions of the average race car - or perhaps a nod to the tummy of the average gamer), and all the Xbox pad buttons are located within easy reach of your thumbs and fingers as you grip the wheel. Force Feedback is diminished, but it's nice to have the option. What's more, if you have no tabletop, you can simply remove the top section and park the Wheel on your lap. It's definitely not coming loose, and it's quite liberating to realise just how much you can yank the wheel around without worrying. The bit that comes into actual contact with the table can be angled, the screw mechanism is firm, and there's a separate flip-clamp bit on the front that helps lever a bit more grip out of the device once you've tightened it. Not so the Wireless Steering Wheel, whose clamp design is a marvel of engineering. Most steering wheels screw themselves to your surface with as much thought and gusto as a jaded prostitute, and come loose the minute you start getting into a rhythm. So if you want the "with Force Feedback" bit, you'll still need to have it plugged into the wall socket at all times, and if you want to use it at all then you will need to run a little cable between the ports on the wheel and foot pedal units, so that they can talk to one another (sample dialogue: "Vrrrooom?" "Vrrrooom.")īut then of course the other characteristic of prima donnas, besides their egotism and irritability, is that you can't really be doing without them, and with this Wireless Steering Wheel, Microsoft's hardware designers have done all they can to ensure that the set-up rituals - while slightly more complicated than simply picking a pad up off the coffee table - are still more worth than they're trouble.Įven as you're setting it up, you're enjoying the sense that care and attention went into every aspect. The "wireless" bit of the name, you see, refers to the lack of direct connection between console and peripheral, not the unit overall. And, as everybody will delight in pointing out, it's not even wireless in the traditional sense of, you know, not having wires. Try scrawling that across your website without breaking anything (note to admins: try scrawling that across the website without breaking anything). It's called the "Xbox 360 Wireless Steering Wheel with Force Feedback". Microsoft's effort starts ticking these boxes before you've even taken it out of its own. Because you can't leave them out, or they constantly get in the way, and probably teach your budgie rude words when you leave the room. Awkward buggers, they park their clunky bottoms on tabletops where they immediately demand pampering: cables snaked all over the room, clamps tightened, options selected and then all of that done in reverse whenever they're to be put back in the cupboard. Console steering wheels are prima donnas.
0 kommentar(er)
