LogiForce
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- LogiForce86
- LogiForce
Introduction:
Hello and welcome to my personal mini review of the Microsoft Wireless Speed Wheel.
Some say they like to use a stick, others just like to keep their hands glued to round object. While some other beings like to use two sticks at the same time. However this time I will be talking about something different...
Today I will be showing you the Bull Wheel as I'd like to call it. It's got a bulls eye in the middle and two horns at its side that you have to grip well in order to drive properly. I am talking today about the new Wireless Speed Wheel from Microsoft. After I took a look today and drove around for a few minutes I really started to wonder why Microsoft stopped with the production of their old wheel and came with this instead. But first let's start with the introductions and unboxing of the wheel.
Inside the box:
The box is nicely wrapped as you can see in the pictures in a normal Microsoft Xbox 360 style, with the product clearly visible for all too see.However one could argue that it would be more enviroment friendly to use natural ink to put a picture of it on an all cartboard box, since most plastics are an oil product. But since us petrol heads love to burn oil each day, who cares? Well... maybe the ones driving a Prius like all those famous people in Hollywood.
The back of the box has some info about how far away from the TV you are allowed to sit, which is 30 feet or 9 meters respectively. Seriously though, if you sit that far away from your TV... you must have one hell of a big ass TV!
The rest on there states the obvious in multiple languages. That it holds the wheel, a software disk (if your xbox is up-to-date you won't have to use this, even if it says install first on the disk sleeve) and a couple of AA batteries. What strikes me the most is that it says it has a vibrator. So let's keep this away from the misses shall we? Else we'll never get around to play Forza Motorsport 4 for ourselves.
What it doesn't state though, but what you get with almost every product are manuals. Six booklets of them containing the same information in 18 different languages. Most of which you and I will never be able to read anyway.
A closer look:
Looking at the wheel itself we will see a close resemblence to a bull's head with its horns sticking out. It is made entirely out of plastic. With the are that you grip your hands being textured for extra grip, the bottom of the wheel is glossy. And to finish it off there is a bit of crome plastic going up and around the hub for decoration. The horns are On here you'll find every button and trigger needed for racing in Forza 4. It has got two triggers for gas and brake, a small D-pad on the left horn, the A,B,X and Y buttons on the right horn. The back and start buttons you'll find in the bulls head, with the bulls eye or Microsoft Xbox button (or Guide Button) in the middel.
You'll have to miss out on the analog sticks and shoulder buttons though, which will make it useless in Autovista in Forza Motorsport 4. The motion sensor in the wheel does act as the horizontal axle of the left analog stick, but does not so in the vertical direction making it impossible to enter a car in Autovista for example. The fact that this has a motion sensor means that it doesn't have a dead-zone, unlike the gamepad which has a small dead-zone. The only dead-zone that is present seems to be the built-in one of Forza 4. Which is a dead-zone of a maximum of 2 degrees at most.
The other things you'll notice are the two rings on top that light up in a Xbox green color when you brake or give gas during gameplay. Which personally makes the device look more attractive but in the end is nothing more then just a gimmick. It just doesn't add anything to the gameplay... at all! At least that's is what I experienced. I will give you a short demonstration how ever so you can be the judge and jury.
Details details...:
This wheel weighs in at 300 grams excluding batteries. With the AA batteries however it starts to feel a bit more heavy, and it'll end up at 340 grams. Which I think, if you drive with your hands in the air for hours at hand will become very tiring. But if you're more of a player that just plays to have fun for about an hour then you'll be more then alright. Also when taking into consideration the younger ones among us racing fans, I think the weight will be durable for them. Maybe more so then with us adults, since our limbs are a bit on heavy side compared to a kids. So we got to have more muscle to keep them stretched.
The wheel's horns have a diameter of 3.4 centimeters and is fairly flat apart from the top ends of the horns where it curves so your thumbs have a nice place to relax. That is until you need to pull on the handbrake in game for instance. I personally think that this is the perfect diameter for anyone from young to old, small to tall and leprechaun to hercules to use. Although if you have really big hands you won't be able to wrap your hands around them, which I can with my medium sized adult hands. Having it rest on your fingers alone doesn't make it any less comfortable to use, so even if dad's a sailor with big hands he will enjoy himself to spend some time with his kids racing using this wheel.
Furthermore for good measure let us also state the other dimensions so you all can imagine how big or small this thing really is. It is 18.3 centimeters wide and 15.5 centimeters tall. Going from the tip of the left horn's left side to the right horns right side measures a length of 43.5 centimeters.
Impressions:
The feel in the hands is surprisingly nice. Although the wheel tends to lean with the triggers on your middle fingers, you won't notice it when you press them due to the very smooth finish on the triggers. The wheel itself has a rotation of no more then 90 degrees, so you won't have to worry about trying to turn the wheel a couple of times. Which would be nearly impossible to do in a racing situation anyway. No, in this case you just have to grab the bull by the horns and struggle with it a bit, especially at first. This wheel does take quite a bit getting used to, but once you get the hang of it you might be better then a gamepad. I personally at least took the corners more accurately because of it. The triggers of the wheel have a throw of 1.5 centimeters, which is more then the Xbox 360 gamepad with only a throw of 0.8 centimeters. This will make it much easier to control gas and braking in the game as well. The rumble in the wheel feels exactly the same as the gamepad, but in my opinion it is slightly weaker. I think this is more due to the construction difference then the rumble engine itself. The big difference is that with the wheel you have the rumble coming for the hub in the middle (orso it feels like), while you grab the wheel at a totally different area (the horns). With the gamepad however, you wrap your hands around the two rumble motors in the left and right grips.
Concluding with a piece of advice:
Now for my final thoughts and advice of this contraption that is a bull in looks but handles as easy as a pussy... cat.
The wheel itself seems sturdy enough like the gamepads do as well. It should technically be more accurate in all ways, but still I think that a lot of people will feel that this wheel is not for them. The reason for this is that, even though it is accurate you don't have the wheel connected to a steering column. For some who use that steering column for reference (either with other wheels, or their own cars steering wheel in real life) this can be a bit of a problem. They will end up swaying from left to right not knowing by instinct how much they are steering. For these people I recommend sticking with a gamepad or if they have the money buy a more decent wheel, like Fanatec's CSR wheel (250 euros excl. pedals) which is an officially Forza Motorsport 4 branded wheel. Or if that is too much money, one might consider a Madcatz Wirless Force Feedback wheel (150 euros), or if you can still get the old Microsoft Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel somewhere.
Since one can also use the Kinect to steer the car in Forza Motorsport for i'll tell you why you should stay away from that, and why the Microsoft Wireless Speed Wheel is definitely better.
Using the Kinect it tracks your body movement in real time. In Forza Motorsport 4 this can be used for two things. The first one is steering your car, the other one is for tracking your head movement so you can look around in the car.
Now has it that there are a few issues with these wonderful but not yet bug free techniques (which hopefully will improve with updates of the Xbox, Kinect or the game). The first one is that due to all the calculations the Xbox has to make for the game alone I reckon, the Kinect seems to have a lag for almost 1 second. Which does not seem as much, but when you're heading into a wall with 300 kilometers per hour then you will most definitely yell "turn dam it! Respond to my commands you must!". This goes for the head tracking as well as the input for steering the vehicle. Another disadvantage is that you can't give any gas (and if you can, I forgive... but not in my small room I couldn't as it didn't see my feet), so this means you'll be stuck with having all aids on including steering and braking. Steering aid as to help counter the lag that is.
Now if we compare it to our Wireless Speed Wheel; you have lag free control over the steering as well as giving gas and braking. Meaning you can also turn of aids when your driving improves, making driving more fun and your times will end up getting better as well.
Now when one looks at the young ones I can clearly see that it is definitely a product made for them. It is easy to play with and setup to use. Just hit the Guide Button and you're set just like with the gamepad. Also this would be more easier for them to grab then having to setup any other wheel on the market that needs pedals, but gives them more control over and fun in the game. I would personally recommend this from 7 or 8 years old and up, but if a young one is already used to something like a wheel with force feedback this will look like a toy to him. So please take that into consideration when buying this as a present for someone.
So for who is this wireless wheel. To be honest, this is more of a startup wheel to see if you like playing with a wheel, either for kids or adults. For kids it is surely a really nice device to start with and enter the world of motorsport. It does indeed offer accuracy and it feels okay for a wheel floating in the air, and does actually do the job. Honestly I would recommend it only if you could get it within a bundled deal like I did at my local store, where the game was 55 euros and the whole package 77 euros.
This wheel retails at 50 euros normally, so if you can get it in a deal, you might want to consider it. If you don't, i'd recommend saving up for a more decent wheel since this does have a lot more fun and feel to it.
Also this wheel is a nice present to give away to someone with or without Forza Motorsport 4, depending of course if they already have the game or are interested in it.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to test the wheel with other games, since I don't own any other racing games on the Xbox platform as of writing the review. So I have to apologize for that this time around.
That's it for now and I hope to bring you a review again soon!
Hello and welcome to my personal mini review of the Microsoft Wireless Speed Wheel.
Some say they like to use a stick, others just like to keep their hands glued to round object. While some other beings like to use two sticks at the same time. However this time I will be talking about something different...
Today I will be showing you the Bull Wheel as I'd like to call it. It's got a bulls eye in the middle and two horns at its side that you have to grip well in order to drive properly. I am talking today about the new Wireless Speed Wheel from Microsoft. After I took a look today and drove around for a few minutes I really started to wonder why Microsoft stopped with the production of their old wheel and came with this instead. But first let's start with the introductions and unboxing of the wheel.
Inside the box:
The box is nicely wrapped as you can see in the pictures in a normal Microsoft Xbox 360 style, with the product clearly visible for all too see.However one could argue that it would be more enviroment friendly to use natural ink to put a picture of it on an all cartboard box, since most plastics are an oil product. But since us petrol heads love to burn oil each day, who cares? Well... maybe the ones driving a Prius like all those famous people in Hollywood.
The back of the box has some info about how far away from the TV you are allowed to sit, which is 30 feet or 9 meters respectively. Seriously though, if you sit that far away from your TV... you must have one hell of a big ass TV!
The rest on there states the obvious in multiple languages. That it holds the wheel, a software disk (if your xbox is up-to-date you won't have to use this, even if it says install first on the disk sleeve) and a couple of AA batteries. What strikes me the most is that it says it has a vibrator. So let's keep this away from the misses shall we? Else we'll never get around to play Forza Motorsport 4 for ourselves.
What it doesn't state though, but what you get with almost every product are manuals. Six booklets of them containing the same information in 18 different languages. Most of which you and I will never be able to read anyway.
A closer look:
Looking at the wheel itself we will see a close resemblence to a bull's head with its horns sticking out. It is made entirely out of plastic. With the are that you grip your hands being textured for extra grip, the bottom of the wheel is glossy. And to finish it off there is a bit of crome plastic going up and around the hub for decoration. The horns are On here you'll find every button and trigger needed for racing in Forza 4. It has got two triggers for gas and brake, a small D-pad on the left horn, the A,B,X and Y buttons on the right horn. The back and start buttons you'll find in the bulls head, with the bulls eye or Microsoft Xbox button (or Guide Button) in the middel.
You'll have to miss out on the analog sticks and shoulder buttons though, which will make it useless in Autovista in Forza Motorsport 4. The motion sensor in the wheel does act as the horizontal axle of the left analog stick, but does not so in the vertical direction making it impossible to enter a car in Autovista for example. The fact that this has a motion sensor means that it doesn't have a dead-zone, unlike the gamepad which has a small dead-zone. The only dead-zone that is present seems to be the built-in one of Forza 4. Which is a dead-zone of a maximum of 2 degrees at most.
The other things you'll notice are the two rings on top that light up in a Xbox green color when you brake or give gas during gameplay. Which personally makes the device look more attractive but in the end is nothing more then just a gimmick. It just doesn't add anything to the gameplay... at all! At least that's is what I experienced. I will give you a short demonstration how ever so you can be the judge and jury.
Details details...:
This wheel weighs in at 300 grams excluding batteries. With the AA batteries however it starts to feel a bit more heavy, and it'll end up at 340 grams. Which I think, if you drive with your hands in the air for hours at hand will become very tiring. But if you're more of a player that just plays to have fun for about an hour then you'll be more then alright. Also when taking into consideration the younger ones among us racing fans, I think the weight will be durable for them. Maybe more so then with us adults, since our limbs are a bit on heavy side compared to a kids. So we got to have more muscle to keep them stretched.
The wheel's horns have a diameter of 3.4 centimeters and is fairly flat apart from the top ends of the horns where it curves so your thumbs have a nice place to relax. That is until you need to pull on the handbrake in game for instance. I personally think that this is the perfect diameter for anyone from young to old, small to tall and leprechaun to hercules to use. Although if you have really big hands you won't be able to wrap your hands around them, which I can with my medium sized adult hands. Having it rest on your fingers alone doesn't make it any less comfortable to use, so even if dad's a sailor with big hands he will enjoy himself to spend some time with his kids racing using this wheel.
Furthermore for good measure let us also state the other dimensions so you all can imagine how big or small this thing really is. It is 18.3 centimeters wide and 15.5 centimeters tall. Going from the tip of the left horn's left side to the right horns right side measures a length of 43.5 centimeters.
Impressions:
The feel in the hands is surprisingly nice. Although the wheel tends to lean with the triggers on your middle fingers, you won't notice it when you press them due to the very smooth finish on the triggers. The wheel itself has a rotation of no more then 90 degrees, so you won't have to worry about trying to turn the wheel a couple of times. Which would be nearly impossible to do in a racing situation anyway. No, in this case you just have to grab the bull by the horns and struggle with it a bit, especially at first. This wheel does take quite a bit getting used to, but once you get the hang of it you might be better then a gamepad. I personally at least took the corners more accurately because of it. The triggers of the wheel have a throw of 1.5 centimeters, which is more then the Xbox 360 gamepad with only a throw of 0.8 centimeters. This will make it much easier to control gas and braking in the game as well. The rumble in the wheel feels exactly the same as the gamepad, but in my opinion it is slightly weaker. I think this is more due to the construction difference then the rumble engine itself. The big difference is that with the wheel you have the rumble coming for the hub in the middle (orso it feels like), while you grab the wheel at a totally different area (the horns). With the gamepad however, you wrap your hands around the two rumble motors in the left and right grips.
Concluding with a piece of advice:
Now for my final thoughts and advice of this contraption that is a bull in looks but handles as easy as a pussy... cat.
The wheel itself seems sturdy enough like the gamepads do as well. It should technically be more accurate in all ways, but still I think that a lot of people will feel that this wheel is not for them. The reason for this is that, even though it is accurate you don't have the wheel connected to a steering column. For some who use that steering column for reference (either with other wheels, or their own cars steering wheel in real life) this can be a bit of a problem. They will end up swaying from left to right not knowing by instinct how much they are steering. For these people I recommend sticking with a gamepad or if they have the money buy a more decent wheel, like Fanatec's CSR wheel (250 euros excl. pedals) which is an officially Forza Motorsport 4 branded wheel. Or if that is too much money, one might consider a Madcatz Wirless Force Feedback wheel (150 euros), or if you can still get the old Microsoft Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel somewhere.
Since one can also use the Kinect to steer the car in Forza Motorsport for i'll tell you why you should stay away from that, and why the Microsoft Wireless Speed Wheel is definitely better.
Using the Kinect it tracks your body movement in real time. In Forza Motorsport 4 this can be used for two things. The first one is steering your car, the other one is for tracking your head movement so you can look around in the car.
Now has it that there are a few issues with these wonderful but not yet bug free techniques (which hopefully will improve with updates of the Xbox, Kinect or the game). The first one is that due to all the calculations the Xbox has to make for the game alone I reckon, the Kinect seems to have a lag for almost 1 second. Which does not seem as much, but when you're heading into a wall with 300 kilometers per hour then you will most definitely yell "turn dam it! Respond to my commands you must!". This goes for the head tracking as well as the input for steering the vehicle. Another disadvantage is that you can't give any gas (and if you can, I forgive... but not in my small room I couldn't as it didn't see my feet), so this means you'll be stuck with having all aids on including steering and braking. Steering aid as to help counter the lag that is.
Now if we compare it to our Wireless Speed Wheel; you have lag free control over the steering as well as giving gas and braking. Meaning you can also turn of aids when your driving improves, making driving more fun and your times will end up getting better as well.
Now when one looks at the young ones I can clearly see that it is definitely a product made for them. It is easy to play with and setup to use. Just hit the Guide Button and you're set just like with the gamepad. Also this would be more easier for them to grab then having to setup any other wheel on the market that needs pedals, but gives them more control over and fun in the game. I would personally recommend this from 7 or 8 years old and up, but if a young one is already used to something like a wheel with force feedback this will look like a toy to him. So please take that into consideration when buying this as a present for someone.
So for who is this wireless wheel. To be honest, this is more of a startup wheel to see if you like playing with a wheel, either for kids or adults. For kids it is surely a really nice device to start with and enter the world of motorsport. It does indeed offer accuracy and it feels okay for a wheel floating in the air, and does actually do the job. Honestly I would recommend it only if you could get it within a bundled deal like I did at my local store, where the game was 55 euros and the whole package 77 euros.
This wheel retails at 50 euros normally, so if you can get it in a deal, you might want to consider it. If you don't, i'd recommend saving up for a more decent wheel since this does have a lot more fun and feel to it.
Also this wheel is a nice present to give away to someone with or without Forza Motorsport 4, depending of course if they already have the game or are interested in it.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to test the wheel with other games, since I don't own any other racing games on the Xbox platform as of writing the review. So I have to apologize for that this time around.
That's it for now and I hope to bring you a review again soon!
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