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I just got this wheel today from Best Buy. In fact, I had to drive an hour and 1/2 just to pick it up because we didn't have one where I live. Anyway, as everyone knows the Microsoft Wireless Wheel for the XBOX 360 is not made anymore so this is pretty much all there is for a 'reasonable' price. That being said, here are my observations.The wheel and base are quite large. I'm a small guy, 5'7 and the base rests heavily on my lap and is about 19" across. It's fairly solid and definitely not light weight. I find it bulky and uncomfortable. Not only that, but the wheel itself seems to tilt too far forward and down for my comfort but its acceptable. The Green A button and Red B buttons are on the LEFT as compared to the XBOX controller where the buttons are on the right so that took some getting use to. The foot pedals are fine but the pedals themselves are fairly hard to press down. Especially the brake pedal. I guess Madcatz was going for realism in that department. I have them on carpet so they don't slide.
The pros: Works with every game I've tried, Burnout, Dirt, NFS Hot Pursuit/Shift, Grid, Forza and Test Drive Unlimited 2. However, on some games the hat switch in which you look at the car from a 360 perspective is disabled. It seems to work best with Need for Speed Shift/Hot pursuit and Grid. You have to over steer on Test Drive Unlimited but that might be fixed in the controller menu. There's also vibrational feedback which isn't too bad. Also XBOX immediately recognizes the wheel and no calibration was necessary.
The Cons: Bulky and big. Not a 'nice looking' wheel. Looks kind of corny with the stickers glued on for the label and speedometer. Another HUGE con is after using the wheel for a while there was a horrible screeching sound coming from the metal shaft inside the wheel. It got so bad my cat came in to see what I was doing. I mean, it was REALLY grating like plastic on metal. I actually tried WD40 and then Vaseline. Yea, I know, but it worked. If you use headphones I guess that doesn't matter to begin with. The other cons are no forcefeedback and it's not wireless. It also doesn't work with the GTA IV series.
All in all if you HAVE to have a wheel this one would do. It's DEFINATELY better than a controller or joystick. On the negative, this wheel should be priced around 45-50 dollars. For almost 100 bucks it should at least be wireless. I hope this review helps someone. :P
Best Deals for Xbox 360 Wired Racing Wheel
I've had two of these wheels and both had the same problem -the communicator connection was bad. In races on PGR3, I would get complaints about feedback and a bad connection all the time. So I stopped using the communicator when I raced, which hurt the fun of the game. The wheel itself is fine and I actually prefer it to the MS wheel, which was nearly 3 times as expensive. But the communicator problem is serious, and I've heard other owners of the Mad Catz wheel complain about the same problem. I haven't used this wheel in six months and I'm hoping Mad Catz got enough complaints that they finally did something to correct it. Too badHonest reviews on Xbox 360 Wired Racing Wheel
I use this with Forza 3, I have not yet tried it with Dirt2. I have used it for about 25 hours of play.Good :
The feel of the wheel and pedals are very good. I would like a stronger spring return to center, but I'm just being picky. The wheel does not jitter in game play, and I'm very pleased with the feel of the force feedback, even though it's pretty tame. You can feel the simulated tire chatter in a corner, or the Stability/Traction systems making adjustments in hard driving, and that's really all I wanted.
The feel of the accelerator is great, the brake pedal is a little sensitive, but I can live with it. The pedal board REALLY needs some grippy Velcro or Sup-R-Lock strips to grab carpet or it will slide around. An easy fix. The paddle shifters are great, I don't use the shifter stick much. The paddle shifters will not stand any major abuse, but are sensitive and smooth.
Bad:
The center hub of the wheel is the 4-way controller pad located for your left thumb on the normal XBox controller. Mine is extremely crappy, and often misses a press or reads a double or triple press. I may eventually have to return it for warranty, I'm still figuring the problem out but the hub is sloppy enough it's never going to be a good 4-way button. Navigating is a major problem because of this fault.
Overall:
Happy with the general feel of the wheel, like the pedals, fair price. The wheel and pedals feel very solid. I'm driving far better now.
That 4-way controller in the hub **stinks** though; it's light, weak, sloppy and unreliable and I'm not a bit happy about that bit.
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