XBOX racing wheels? (1 Viewer)

[Daren Welsh]

Have any of you tried any of the XBOX racing wheels? I kinda want to get one of these to play PGR and RSC with, but it's not worth it unless it's got some sort of force-feedback and good pedals. Also, if it has a rumble-pack and I attach it to my coffee table, is it going to rumble the whole table? ... that would be bad.

 

[Daren Welsh]

Jigga bump?

 

[Dean Cooper]

Funny you should bump this today, I'm picking up the Madcatz one today so I'll be able to give you my impressions. I can answer some of your questions already though. None of the wheels available for the Xbox has true force feedback, just the rumble feature.

The Madcatz wheel is pretty much the best wheel out there so far for the box and it has 3 suction cups to hold it to a coffee table or a couple leg braces to hold it to your lap. The peddles consist of a gas and brake, no clutch, but there is a nice flat spot for you to place your left foot on the peddle system to help hold it in place. Another nice feature is the shifter even though its just an A/X button clicker. I like that there is a calibration setting for this wheel so that I can adjust it to my driving style, should come in very handy.

The down falls that I can see with this wheel so far are:

A) No true force feedback (I really can't understand the lack of this when MS has been supporting FF on the PC for what? 4 years now) Even if the wheel did support it the games don't. All I can say is WTF?

B) None of the buttons are programmable on the wheel. So if your trying to use the wheel for say Spy Hunter, you'll be using the peddles to fire your weapons and the shifter for gas and brake. Not good.

Once I pick up my wheel today I'll give you my impressions with PG and RSC, hopefully Burnout too if the store has it in stock.

Dean

 

[Shawn O]

B) None of the buttons are programmable on the wheel. So if your trying to use the wheel for say Spy Hunter, you'll be using the peddles to fire your weapons and the shifter for gas and brake. Not good

LMAO,not good indeed. :frowning:

 

[Dan B]

I'd suggest you wait for an E3 announcement. It's not far off, anyway...& hopefully some more choices will be announced.

-Dan

 

[Dean Cooper]

Well after a day with my new Madcatz MC2 here are my initial impressions.
First off I'll point out where I got it, Futureshop (Bestbuy for the Canuks) on sale right now for $69.99 Canadian. Not bad at all.
When you take this wheel out of the box the first thing that you notice is the wheel angle. It's a little high for an average coffee table in front of the couch, almost like a wheel you would find in a truck. It's a little weird because I'm used to wheels that where meant to attach to your computer desk while this one is more aimed at sitting on your lap which is very comfortable at this angle. All and all I think I only spent about 10 minutes trying the different ways to sit this wheel before I got to what I found the most comfortable.
Build quality is quite good for a wheel in this price range, its no Act-labs RS system but very good. The spring resistance is nice and strong and the rubber grip around the entire back of the wheel ensures a good grip even with sweaty hands. I don't like where the peddle leads attach on to the wheel, its sticks out on the right side of the base like a 9 pin mouse connector. Another thing that I noticed is that there are 4 little pads on the bottom of the peddles themselves that are pretty fragile and I've broken one off already. I'm not too worried about it though as they don't really do anything anyway but I thought I'd put it out there.
I love the calibration system that this wheel has. Basically you can set the Deadband and turning radius to accent anyone’s driving preference. The only catch is that it doesn't remember your setting after you turn off the Xbox. It only takes a few seconds to do so I'm not too put off by it.
Both Project Gotham and Rally Sport challenge play perfectly with this wheel. The rumble effects are a very nice touch but if you're used to using a true force feedback wheel your going to be a bit disappointed. I also put in Nascar Thunder and wow, what a night and day difference. If you play this game you need this wheel hands down.
To sum up I recommend this wheel to anyone that wants to get a wheel for the Xbox. For 20 bucks more than a controller there isn't much to complain about. It’s a great wheel that doesn't feel cheap, has some flashy lights and calibration settings.
Dean

 

[Daren Welsh]

Thx for the review, Dean. I think I may wait a couple months to buy a wheel and some more games, but if the playing field doesn't grow before then, I'll consider this wheel.

A question -- do you play with the wheel on your table or on your lap? If you use the table, does the rumbling shake your table? The reason I ask is that my table has a glass top and I don't think it'd be good to rumble that too much :p

 

[Dean Cooper]

Daren

I found that its more comfortable to use it on my lap. The rumble feature doesn't shake the table at all though. One thing to watch for is an Xbox cart for the Act-Labs RS system, but it might be a long wait seeing that they haven't finished the PS2 one yet.

Dean

 

[Jay Mitchosky]

I'll throw in my $0.02. Picked up the MadCatz wheel today wanting to see how it felt. It's a decent enough system, apparently well made, but I can't get past its single biggest shortcoming: lack of force feedback. This really takes away from the realism that a wheel should otherwise provide. That aside the other nagging problem is that it doesn't remember your calibration settings as Dean mentions above. It's easy enough to tune but nevertheless when you get it just right it would be nice if it stayed (a great feature nevertheless). Finally the lack of programability I think is more of an issue with the individual games. So long as a title offers different controller configurations (or better yet lets you customize everything) the wheel doesn't need it.

Overall the feel of the wheel and controls is good, although the pedals are a little squishy for my taste and the rumble is pretty anemic. Dean mentions the plug for the pedal and I have to agree it's in a very odd location. No reason why it couldn't come out the back. There is a memory card slot on top that I assume will also receive the Xbox Communicator for online gaming so you're covered there. The wheel itself is comfortable to hold and the other other controls are well positioned.

Were it to have force feedback I would likely keep this wheel. The overall design is good, aesthetically it's quite attractive, and it's nice that you have the option of using a stick or butterfly buttons for manual shifting (I prefer the latter, but everyone gets what they want in this case). And the price is certainly right - roughly what you would pay for a game (in Canadian dollars at least). But all that aside I plan to return it and wait to see what comes next, either from Microsoft, Logitech, or elsewhere.

 

[Scott Van Dyke]

Can someone please explain force-feedback? Thank you in advance...

 

[Jay Mitchosky]

Force feedback has the wheel respond to vehicle movements, the road, etc. You feel the car pull on you, sometimes having to fight it. It's incredibly effective. Playing Gran Turismo with Logitech's wheel I was stunned to actually feel myself coming out of a turn with my ass drifting out and then grabbing onto the street and pressing forward.