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Who'd have thought the software giant Microsoft would, in time, become a hardware giant too? They're now doing a console, keyboards, mice, joysticks there's not much missing from their line up bar an actual full PC, although I'm sure the Justice Department would throw a fit were they to try making any. A while ago now they released one of the first Force Feedback Wheels in an effort to further expand their product line. Since then, time has passed and competitors have wised up and released some pretty decent competition for the Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback Wheel, so it's no surprise that the guys at Redmond decided to tweak a few little things and add something new (USB) for the next version, a bit like they tend to do with Windows really.
There's more to this wheel and the accompanying pedal unit than you might think just by looking at it. No, there's no hidden gear stick or drinks holder, but rather while it offers some pretty standard features for a steering wheel they're all very well done. For instance while the pedal unit is lighter than many as it isn't weighted, it has rubber feet, a large area for your heels to rest on (thereby weighting the unit down) and the front edge almost seems designed to dig into carpet to prevent slippage. Simply put, this baby ain't gonna budge unless you lift up your heels and push suddenly on the pedals. The pedals are a decent size, although a slightly larger area on both of them wouldn't go amiss as once or twice my feet slipped off, but then I wasn't wearing shoes during testing which can't have helped.
Even more so than with the pedal unit, the wheel itself just won't budge once you secure it and the reason for this is the superb hybrid clamp/screw system. You basically slip it onto a desk edge, tighten the big plastic screw, then push forward on the big clamp to further tighten the pressure on the screw and that secures it to the desk. Since it is only screwed on in one place rather than two like with some wheels I thought it might move about a lot during play, but no. Even though the design of my desk means I couldn't push the wheel as far back onto the table edge as it was designed to go before securing it, during testing it just refused to shift more than the occasional few fractions of an inch at worst.
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