Just a little update on the wheel. Make your own decisions.
Logitech G25
PC race fans - throw down your horrid gamepads and embrace the very zenith of steering wheel design
Married racing fans avert your eyes, for this may be the undoing of your union. Arrive home with one of these bad boys tucked under your arm and steel yourself for the disapproving look, the weary sigh and the distant rustle of divorce papers. This is the ultimate luxury for a driving game aficionado – the most convincing recreation of a vehicle cockpit outside of flight training school, and one of the sturdiest peripherals ever to endure the PCF Ham-Fistedness Test (patent pending). This is not for the frivolous, though, as only those who regularly rumble around virtual circuits will be able to justify the outlay.
MATERIALISTIC DESIRE
Still, the wheel couldn’t arrive at a better time. With GTR2 recently wowing even casual racing fans, there’s real weight behind the driving sim movement, and nothing enriches the racing game experience more than using a realistic steering wheel.
The first thing that strikes you when you haul this USB behemoth out of the box is just how rugged the entire setup is. The wheel itself is a sturdy hunk of metal and leather with pleasingly tactile paddle shifters; the pedals have fat cylinders surrounding the three shafts and the six-speed gated shifter (a first for a wheel of this price) makes satisfying clicks as it snaps your recalcitrant E-Type into a new gear.
The other big news is that this has 900 degree rotation – that’s two and a half full turns of the wheel – but can be tweaked in the drivers to any value in between. While a road-going BMW might require the full 900 for realistic handling, an F1 car may only use half that.
The only criticism we have is that the gear gate is a touch too small, meaning lazy shifts can leave the car floundering, though the option to switch to a sequential box is there.
This is the most faithful representation of a racing cockpit you can get for under £500 – the kit is robust, the force feedback is strong, without a hint of buzz from the motors, and there’s varied resistance to the pedals. If you’ve never tried a PC steering wheel before, rest assured the G25 transforms just about any driving game it’s plugged into.
Mike Channell
Price: £180
Verdict
If you’re a simhead, this is an expensive but essential purchase.
