It all comes down to performance, doesn?t it? Well, use the
Driving Force Pro in conjunction with
Gran Turismo 4 and you?ll breathe new life into your PS2. Your friends will be amazed (and be fighting over who gets to play next). That?s assuming you want to bother spending all that time to maintain friendships after you?ve got the
Driving Force Pro Force Feedback Wheel and
GT4 in your possession. (Enter a hissing ?My precious? here.)
The force feedback on the Driving Force Pro is quite excellent. This is not a ?vibration feature,? but is fully articulated force-feedback. You can feel the variable resistance you have against the road as your vehicle loses and regains traction or as you race on different surfaces. You feel the jolt in your hands knocking your wheel towards the opposite direction when you make contact with another vehicle. This realistic feedback not only makes racing games more enjoyable, but also has the effect of making them a bit easier. With realistic actions, your natural reactions can be helpful and useful; when you feel less resistance in your attempts to turn the wheel, you automatically reduce how much you?re trying to turn. If you were using a gamepad, you?d just keep right on turning. This leads to a lot of oversteering problems when playing with a gamepad.
The rubberized wheel is very comfortable to use, allowing for long playing times and good grip. The pedal cluster is nicely weighted, preventing the common problem of pedal slip that often occurs with wheels with lightweight pedal clusters.
The controls on the front of the wheel are easy enough to get to; it?s not like you?re going to need to use them heavily in a racing game, but having them there prevents the need of using a gamepad to select things in menus and such in addition to the steering wheel.
All-in-all, I found the Driving Force Pro to be an excellent steering wheel, providing a racing experience more readily expected from an arcade than in your living room.
