Ferrari Force Feedback Wheel Review - By Mark "Frugal" Bush
I'm a great believer in
the right tools for the right job. This means that for flight sims I
need a dedicated HOTAS and for driving sims I need a good steering wheel.
Thankfully these days there are some pretty good wheels around so I thought
it was time I took a look at one. The Guillemot Ferrari Force Feedback
wheel seemed a good choice as it's the nearest I'm likely to get to anything
with the prancing pony on it (unless Ferrari bring out a line in Polo
shirts :)
As soon as I took this wheel out of the box I was impressed. It is certainly the best looking Force Feedback wheel I've seen. The black rubber wheel has a silver front facia
topped off with the Prancing Pony logo at it's center and looks great.
Not suprising as it is a replica of the wheel found in many of Ferrari's
sporty little numbers.
The wheel bolts to the desk with
a large plastic clamp. The nice thing about this clamp is that it
opens far enough to fit on my desk which is not easy as my desk has
an overhanging front panel. The pedals are plastic but are hinged
and have a decent spring to them. I found that the base was large
enough to rest my heel on and did not move about under my desk. The
pedals being silver were also very easy to spot in the darkness under
my desk which, to me, was an added bonus. The wheel has both a USB
connector and a standard Gameport connector.
I opted to use the USB connector as my TM F22 gets a lot of usage and
I suspected this wheel was going to become a permanent fixture too. Installation
was completely pain free, I just plugged the wheel into the USB port
and Windows detected the wheel and asked for the driver disk. One quick
driver installation later and I was up and running. I did have one or
two problems getting the wheel to happily co-exist with my stick, but
this was more a direct x 7 problem rather than any fault of the stick
or wheel. The beauty of USB is that there is no need to calibrate the
equipment so I was ready to roll.
In the windows control panel game controllers applet you have the option
to increase or reduce the gain on the wheel and also to test the forces.
After setting the gain to just the right stiffness (about the same as
the wheel in my real car) I played with the force tests for a while (I
have to admit to spending far more time playing with these than was necessary
or befitting a grown man :). The 3lb motor gives a very good feedback,
I particularly liked the "Engine Start" test which was able to shake
my entire desk.
The supplied software allows you to set up the numerous buttons and hats
on the wheel for your games. It allows you to save your configurations
for later use and has several presets supplied for popular games such
as NFS 3, Toca 2, Midtown Madness and many others. The wheel is certainly
well endowed in the button department having an up/down gear shift, 2
formula one style paddles behind the wheel, an 8 way hat, a 4 way hat
and 2 buttons. These are very well placed and within easy reach. I get
the impression that a lot of care was taken by Guillemot in the design
of this wheel. The software is very easy to program with a point and
click interface.
So how does this baby perform in games. Well first up was Sega Rally
2. As far as force feedback was concerned this was a bit of a disappointment,
the feedback was practically non existent. This is more the fault of
the game than the wheel because I noticed the same thing when playing
Sega Rally 2 at ECTS on the MS FF wheel. Even without the feedback though
I was impressed with the performance of the wheel itself. As a wheel
in itself this is great, the rubberised wheel with grooves for the thumbs
was real comfortable. The performance was great, it made the game far
easier to control and it felt right.
Next up to bat was Need For Speed 3, now this was a whole other story.
The feedback in this game was very evident and added a whole new element
to the game. Going over the wooden bridge for the first time was an experience
in itself with the wheel shaking like a maniac, excellent! Then when
I first got hit with the stinger….. wow!! The feed back when the tires
burst was awesome. The only drawback being that afterwards I found myself
trying to hit the stingers instead of avoiding them.
For the final test I tried Rally Championship, a game made for Force
Feedback wheels if ever there was one. All I could say was oooooooooh
baby!! This was absolutely great, the force feedback never let up for
a minute. The wheel was constantly vibrating and even getting pulled
from left to right over the bumps and crests. On ice the wheel lost friction
completely and in deep snow it got real sticky. The extra immersion supplied
by the wheel was amazing. I found fighting with the wheel over the bumpy
and rough terrain while hurtling along at 90mph down country lanes to
be a huge adrenaline rush.
So would I recommend this wheel? Sure I would, in a heartbeat, I love
it. In fact Jazzman came round one night (with the intention of kicking
my ass at Quake 3) I convinced him to try Rally Championship with the
wheel and he was set for the night. He then went straight to EB the next
day and picked up one of these wheels. Anything that can draw Jazzman
away from Quake for a whole night gets my vote. I can't tell you if this
is any better or worse than any other force feedback wheel as I have
not tried the others. What I can say is that I loved this wheel for the
force feedback, it's looks and it's feel. If I had to find a fault with
it then I'd say that it's too damn gorgeous. It's been making me spend
far too much time driving, taking me away from my first love which is
flight sims. If driving games are your first love then this wheel is
definately for you. Guillemot have done a fantastic job.
The wheel bolts to the desk with
a large plastic clamp. The nice thing about this clamp is that it
opens far enough to fit on my desk which is not easy as my desk has
an overhanging front panel. The pedals are plastic but are hinged
and have a decent spring to them. I found that the base was large
enough to rest my heel on and did not move about under my desk. The
pedals being silver were also very easy to spot in the darkness under
my desk which, to me, was an added bonus. The wheel has both a USB
connector and a standard Gameport connector.
