A great wheel. That's the most important thing to walk away with from this Project Gotham Racing with Wireless Wheel combo. One of the best experiences I've had to date with the 360. A quality product, a unique experience, and, for once, worth every pence.
First, let's get this out of the way. If you're a hardcore Project Gotham Racing 3, Import Tuner, Forza, or whatever driver, you're going to keep using thumbsticks for the same reason FPS players prefer mice: Precision. Any wheel will require larger movements, and support less range of motion than you can get in your 360 wireless controller's two two-axis thumbsticks, D-pad, and multitude of buttons and triggers. There. I've said it. For the hardcore racer, nothing beats the thumbsticks.
I'm not a hardcore racer. I could give a damn, really, about shaving 0.0000008 off of my lap time by running the same course eight billion times with every car in the system. I can appreciate that there is a market for that, and that PGR3 plays to that market in the same way that GT4 and Forza do. Build a simulation, add tracks, add cars, and pack in an anorak for every buyer.
Me? I can't even drive in real life. The main reason I like Tokyo Import Racer? Because I get to drive around Tokyo at night and at dawn and say "ooh, I remember when I lived there and did X". I like Tokyo Import Racer not for its driving, but for its ability to remind me of what it was like to live in Tokyo.
And PGR3? I first bought it in the discount bin at my local GAME. Used, not new. Because someone said I should, so I did. And it's ok. Force feedback is supposed to be another way, like visual cueing, for the game to tell you what's going on, but all it ever felt like to me was a bunch of thumbsticks rumbling away in my hands while I skidded around a corner. Of fleeting novelty, I believe would be an accurate depiction of my feelings.
Add a wheel. Now I suck a lot more than with thumbsticks, but gain something: Suddenly, it all makes sense. The wheel is solid, rugged, weighty. It feels really good, like a quality piece of gear. It came in a gigantic package - so if you're buying one, bet on taking a car or a taxi home, it's unwieldy. Alternately, order through amazon and let them do all the heavy lifting. Personally, I went through game, as... well, I appreciate having a local gaming retailer, and want to support them. Anyways, it's big. Bigger than you think, so don't think of carrying it home, even if you only live a short distance from the shop.
The feel when in PGR3 is brilliant. The wheel offers resistance when you're on the road; when you go into a skid, you feel the wheel slacken as you lose traction. It's clever, it's brilliant, it's well implemented. Thought, care, and love went into the PGR3 implementation.
Import Tuner? Nothing. Sure, the wheel works, but that's it. No frills. Truly a shame.
And so I look forward to using the wheel, now - it's given life to PGR3 where once there was none. I could have cared less about games in this genre before; now I actually find myself wanting to play these games. Adding the wheel has done what force feedback has always claimed and promised, but up until now for me, never delivered - the feeling of immersion, of adding an extra dimension of context to convey information to the player.
I'm not going to be better than you at PGR. But I'll bet I'm going to have more fun.
