Review

Logitech DriveFX™ Racing Wheel
Xbox 360 Fans Now Have an Excuse to Spend More Money

by Chuck "PFunk" Bellows

Consoles have long borne the brunt of an avalanche of criticism, jokes, and outright derision on simulation web sites. Console racing games have long been considered (with good reason) to be overly simplistic, or ignoring Newtonian physics completely so as to allow the racer to KISS (Keep It Shiny, Stupid).

Dent-free arcade games are not simply the purview of consoles, however. The PC has been home to several awful titles as well, but at least the ability to sit behind a racing wheel offered you a slight amount of realism that even the most high-fidelity console/gamepad combination could never reproduce. Until now.

With the advent of the Microsoft Xbox 360, there now exists a console with the number-crunching ability to match pixels with even the stoutest of PCs. With the coming next-gen console wars, the 360 has a clear advantage (it was here first and thus has a head-start) and software and hardware developers have had a chance to create some very nifty peripherals for it.

Up until now, the racing wheels made for the 360 have been childish-looking affairs, like something strapped to a toddler’s car seat when they wanted to ‘pretend’ to drive. Designed to be placed in the driver’s lap, allowing the player to drive from the Barcalounger, these lap-friendly devices were largely met with yawns from gamers who were accustomed to driving with a gamepad and saw no need to further clutter up their living room or have something that ridiculous laying around where someone might see it.

Enter the new Logitech DriveFX Racing Wheel for the Xbox 360.

Logitech DriveFX Racing Wheel

One look at the general design and workmanship, and you can tell this peripheral’s descendants were PC wheels. The DriveFX’s construction is rugged and durable. The rubber-coated wheel is approximately 10 inches in diameter and allows you to firmly grip at the 10 and 2 positions. On the left spoke is the direction pad and the four color-coded buttons are on the right. The Start and Back buttons are on the bottom spoke along with the standard green ‘X’ button that turns on the console.

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