Microsoft Official Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel

Author's product rating:   

Look & Feel	Good
Robustness & durability	Good
Value For Money	Good value

Advantages:	Realistic, Responsive, There really are too many to list !
Disadvantages:	Too expensive for everybody to own

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I bought the official microsoft xbox 360 wireless steering wheel after much research on the internet, i have been playing games consoles for many years and my expiriences with steering wheels for them was generally poor. But after much deliberation i decided to take the plunge and shell out 75 of my hard earned pounds to try and enhance my gaming expirience.

From the box......
From the moment you lay your eyes on the product on the selving at your local store, you get an immediate impression that this was a very special piece of equipment. The box is quite bulky as well as being rather heavy. I must admit i had slight difficulty getting it home, as i do not drive i had to carry it on my shoulder. Opening the box itself is a task, the product is extremely well packaged and almost every single part of it is secured to the box. Whilst this is fantastic in keeping the product safe and secure during shipping and transit, it did provide me a problem when i tried to re-assemble the empty box to put in the loft in case of a faulty product (more like a rubicks cube than a box!). The product consists of four parts...

1x Xbox360 Steering Wheel
1x Xbox360 Pedal Unit
1x Xbox360 Table Clamp
1x Xbox360 Project Gotham 3 Game Inc Instruction Manuals.

They do look rather impressive once they are sat on the table before you ready to be connected up. Now i was ready to connect it all to my xbox360.

Setting up the steering wheel......
The setup is simple. There is one cable that runs from the steering wheel unit to the pedals, this cable is more than long enough to run around almost any size of table or chair that you may have in normal operation. I know that the wheel is advertised as "wireless" but this cable would be almost impossible to replace with a wireless link without having a huge implication on the cost, and anyway the wire provides a much more responsive performance than any wireless connection could. The second cable that is included is the power cable, this is optional. If you dont use the power cable and plug your steering wheel into the mains, then the unit can run on a standard battery pack that is included (and can be found on a wireless xbox 360 control pad). Personally i always use the power cable, with the amout of force feeback that the wheel produces, batteries dont really last for much more than 2-3 hours of continuous play.
The wheel can be used on the players knee or by attaching the table clamp. You simply sit the clamp on the table, tighten the grip and close the tightening handle to firmly attach the clamp to a table. The wheel clips in and can then easily be released by pressing a quick release button.
Once the wheel is connected up together, you simply press the xbox power button that is located in the center of the wheel, this is a good feature as it is consistant with all the other xbox controllers, once the wheel is on, your ready to play!

Look and Feel......
The product feels excellent when in use, its stylish rubber grip allows the player to easily use the wheel even with sweaty hands. The product is made almost totally of plastic and the the clamp does look like it will not be sufficiant, but this is incorrect as once you actually feel the product you can tell the it is all extremely well made an up to the task.

Responsiveness......
I have a total of three racing games (hardly an extensive collection i know) but all three of them work fantasticly well with this wheel. in the past wheels for consoles were notouriously unresponsive and difficult to control, this is certainly not the case with this wheel, it is easy to correct yourself after making a miscalculation with both oversteer and understeer. The controls really do feel like a real car, and remind me very much of the arcade racing games in terms of feel, control and force feedback, i really cannot express how good this wheel is!

Durability......
The product is made out of heavy duty plastic throughout and this allows the product to withstand many knocks as well as general wear and tear. I own several official microsoft xbox360 products and they are always nothing short of excellent, this wheel appears to be no exception.

Features......
The wheel does not provide much in the way of extra features, however it does provide many features that are already included on a standard controller. The wheel includes the ring of light, this allows theplayer to see what player they are and also diagnose problems by the sequences that it flashes. The unit also contains a socket to attach an xbox live headset to allow you to talk to the other drivers whilst racing over the internet.

Instruction manual......
Microsoft spend millions of pounds researching what mistakes users of thier products make and this is reflected with the manual. The instructions are clear and uncomplicated and it includes a good faq section to help people with errors in setup before having to call an expensive technical support line.

Value for money......

Overall......
This unit is excellent in every way, i have knocked seconds off my laptimes whilst using it, it is robust, responsive and a joy to use. At the beginning of my review i said that i wanted this product to enhance my gaming expirience, and it certainly has done! It really does feel like you are in a real car! I would recommend this prodduct to everyone and it is just a slight shame that the unit costs so much, as it would be great if every racing game fan could afford one.

Thanks for reading this review.