Logic 3 PC Rumble Pad game pad

I have been a PC gamer for several years now, but I've mostly stuck to playing fps titles with the customary keyboard+mouse combo, so I've never really found it necessary to own a gamepad controller. However I recently got into an oldish driving game called Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 and having found it fun. I wanted to play it using a more suitable controller than my keyboard (I tried using a force feedback joystick I own, but I don't find it ...
...was on the lookout for a reasonably inexpensive gamepad to buy. I found this Logic3 one (model JP-274) online for £9.99 delivered, which seemed like a good deal all things considered (I didn't have much to spend, this being around Christmas!). Now, I wasn't expecting to find a rumble capable gamepad for this price, so this was a nice bonus, as was the similarity to the Playstation controller as I'm used to the layout and shape.


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I have been a PC gamer for several years now, but I've mostly stuck to playing fps titles with the customary keyboard+mouse combo, so I've never really found it necessary to own a gamepad controller. However I recently got into an oldish driving game called Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 and having found it fun. I wanted to play it using a more suitable controller than my keyboard (I tried using a force feedback joystick I own, but I don't find it suitable for the game).

So I was on the lookout for a reasonably inexpensive gamepad to buy. I found this Logic3 one (model JP-274) online for £9.99 delivered, which seemed like a good deal all things considered (I didn't have much to spend, this being around Christmas!). Now, I wasn't expecting to find a rumble capable gamepad for this price, so this was a nice bonus, as was the similarity to the Playstation controller as I'm used to the layout and shape.

Packaging:

The gamepad comes in a basic cardboard box, with a driver CD and a manual booklet. The minimum requirements state that Windows 98 or later is required, along with a Pentium processor or equivalent and a usb port. which covers just about any pc bought or put together in the last 7 or 8 years I would imagine Interestingly, the box art depicts the controller as being of a bluish colour, as do other pictures I've seen on the web (including the product picture here at ciao), but the actual gamepad I received is black. The manual is very basic, with multiple languages included, but each consisting of only two pages of (small typeface) text describing the buttons and the installation of the driver.

Installation:

The instructions say to install the driver before connecting the gamepad to the usb port, so I put the CD into the drive; at which point autorun launches straight into the driver setup/installer program. From there it's just a case of clicking next a few times and that's it.
Once the driver is installed, you plug in the gamepad and test it from "Game Controllers" in the windows control panel. (I am using Windows XP SP2)
I checked out the drivers available online, as these are often more up to date than the ones included on the CDs. But in this case, the drivers available on the logic3 website turned out to be older than the ones on the CD. The drivers are dated December 2003, so it has been quite some time since they were updated. They work fine in the games I have though.

Drivers:

Put simply, the drivers are very basic. There is nothing installed that allows you map buttons to keyboard keys, or to set up macros or anything like that. From the "Game Controllers" control panel applet, you can click on properties, which brings up the testing screen. From here you can test all the buttons and check the analog sticks and the d-pad. There's another "Effects" tab, on which there are 5 buttons for testing out the different rumble effects: one general button labelled "vibration" which just seems to activate both motors on full, and 4 others labelled , "bump", "earthquake", "engine" and "gravel". You must activate each of these effects by clicking the button, and I can't help but feel that a small improvement in this driver would be to allow the user to activate the effects by pressing buttons on the gamepad itself. There is also a slider that allows you to adjust the force/power of the rumble effects from 0 to 100%, and a check box to turn off vibration altogether.
And that's pretty much that.

Physical description:

The game pad has 12 different buttons. 4 in a diamond layout on the right hand side, 4 shoulder buttons at the top (two on each side), 2 buttons in the middle and finally the 2 analog sticks can be pushed in to activate the last 2. And of course there is the 8-way directional pad. All of the buttons are clearly labelled with their numbers, except the 2 which are part of the analog sticks.

There is a green led in the bottom center, related to a third button in the middle, which is not part of the standard game usable buttons. Rather it is labelled "mode" and what it does is alter the function of the directional pad so that it can act as a POV-hat switch (led on), or just as a normal directional pad (led off). I normally just use the left analog stick for directional tasks, so I leave it in hat switch mode (this is the default mode).

The gamepad is matt black plastic all over and is generally unadorned and plain in style, apart from a small Logic3 logo in the middle. A label on the back tells me it's made in China :)
The cable is somewhere between a 1.5 to 2 metres in length, which is more than long enough for me. The analog sticks are auto-calibrating and auto-centering, and the gamepad has 2 internal motors to produce the rumble effects.

Using the gamepad:

I was pleased to find that the gamepad does not feel at all "cheap". It is solid, sturdy and feels well made, with what I consider to be an ideal weight: it doesn't feel too lightweight nor too heavy. The buttons are solid, with none feeling too "clicky" as I have experienced on cheap joysticks in the past.
While no part of the gamepad is in any way "padded" as on other controllers, it never feels uncomfortable in the hands. My hands fall naturally in place when I hold it, with left thumb over the d-pad/left-analog stick , right thumb over buttons 1-4, and my forefingers of both hands over the shoulder buttons. I don't have to strain my hand to reach any of the buttons except maybe the 2 buttons in the middle (9 and 10), which are rubber, and are very slightly out of convenient reach for me: their positioning would suggest that they are mostly intended to serve as pause buttons and the like.

The buttons actually feel quite soft under the fingers, so much so that I'm able to use the gamepad for extended playing times without any discomfort.
The analog stick top surfaces are of a rougher finish to give more grip under the thumb, and again feel very comfortable to use, with just the right amount of resistance to avoid being too wobbly. Both analog sticks are placed easily within reach of my thumbs, although its rather easy to accidentally press the stick to activate the clicky buttons also built into them, during a particularly frantic gaming moment.

All of the controls and buttons are responsive in game, although I did find myself occasionally finding that the shoulder buttons sometimes didn't respond correctly, but this was fairly rare.

As for the rumble effects, they are certainly powerful enough. I wouldn't perhaps call them the most subtle effects ever but they are definitely easily felt as the whole gamepad shakes in your hands. When I tried the gamepad in Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, the game initially gave me a warning that the gamepad was not explicitly recognised by the game, but nevertheless it worked perfectly, rumble and all. And I have to admit it does add a new dimension to playing the game. The motors built in to produce the rumble are slightly noisy, but not distractingly so, especially with game sounds on also. If playing with headphones on, the noise might annoy people who happen to be in the immediate vicinity, but I don't honestly think it's that much of a problem.

Conclusions:

I ended up enjoying playing the game so much with the gamepad, that I eventually went ahead and got the new game, Need For Speed: Most Wanted. The Logic3 Rumble Pad works well in that game too, although I actually think that the rumble effects feel slightly better in the older game for some reason. But that's not so much a criticism of the gamepad, as it is a criticism of the game itself.

I did however have a problem with the pad. I tried to use it on my older pc that I have (built around 2000), only to find that while the gamepad works insofar as the controls work, the rumble effects will not work at all, even from the rumble test tab. At first I thought it was a driver issue, but subsequent re-installs of it had no effect. Both PCs are running WinXP and both work fine otherwise, so I'm not sure what the problem is.

UPDATE:
I emailed the manufacturer about the problem, and they sent me an updated version of the drivers by email. ( v1.15) Newer than both CD supplied drivers and the ones on the website as far as I can tell.
These new drivers work perfectly on my older pc and I now get all the rumble effects.

I am well pleased with my decision to buy this gamepad. There are plenty of buttons, it's responsive, it's comfortable and overall it is excellent value for money.  

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