Thanks to South African Xbox Ambassador and all round Xbox 360 community good guy – Glenn ZA – we were fortunate enough to get our hands on Microsoft’s new Wireless Speed Wheel for a little bit of a test drive well before its arrival in South Africa. To compliment the wheel we got the opportunity to give Forza 4 a go and while we’re a little late in that respect, it would be remiss of us not to give our opinion for those looking to get it still.

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[wptabtitle]Wireless Speed Wheel [/wptabtitle]

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The Wheel is expected to hit the South African retail shelves somewhere around the end of November to early December with what appears to be around a R500 (£50) recommended retail price. Some of the online retailers – such as Kalahari.com – have the standalone Wheel on pre-order for R466 and a Wheel/Forza 4 bundle for R856.

Clearly the Speed Wheel is at the very least a competitively priced piece of kit. It’s also pretty damn sexy to look at. But let’s be honest, none of that really matters if it’s unresponsive – or at the very least does nothing for your lap times.

Thankfully, the Wheel does actually check both those boxes. It is surprisingly responsive and while it takes a few laps to get used to, it eventually proved to help my frankly poor driving skills to the point where I was actually shaving a few seconds off my standard controller lap times. However, that might have more to do with my improving driving skills than the Wheel.

Acceleration and braking is controlled as on the standard controller – right trigger to accelerate and left trigger to brake. However, the triggers on the Wheel appear to have a little more ‘travel’ in them allowing for a greater feeling of control over your speed and braking. The D-Pad gears you up and down but the controller is missing a ‘replacement’ left thumbstick as well as the RB and LB inputs. The detriment of the missing left thumbstick is that the Wheel is completely useless in Forza 4’s Autovista – although I have been told by others that this same fault exists with the other wheels available. The RB and LB inputs have been converted to flashing green lights which correspond with gear changes, although they appear to be Microsoft’s idea of remembering 70’s disco – pointless in other words…

One of the biggest drawbacks of the Wireless Speed Wheel is a small, but rather significant input – one that most gamers see as an absolute necessity for online gaming. Surprisingly, the wheel has no input for your headset. Nothing. Your only solution is to get the Bluetooth headset. This is a crime considering the presumed target market of the wheel – casual racing gamers looking for an affordable wheel to take online.

No-one is likely to use the Wheel for longer than an hour at a time either. The Wheel weighs in at around 360grams – which may not seem like much at first – but after a while you start to feel it in your shoulders and upper arms (well, arms in general) a little. Thankfully, I found the wheel was equally responsive even while holding it basically horizontal to the ground.

My suspicion is that hardcore or serious racing game players will stick with one of the table/lap mounted wheels with foot pedals or even a full racing seat, while this will be the wheel of choice for the cash-strapped casual racing drivers who play in short(-ish) bursts. Ultimately, I would happily buy the Wireless Speed Wheel. Unless I suddenly won the lottery – then I’d probably buy a real Porsche or Ferrari.

And one final point – the Wheel does not need Kinect. It is completely standalone. In case you were concerned about that.

What I liked

Looks sexy.
Quite responsive.
Well priced.
Improved my skills.

Not so much

Feels like it weighs a ton after an hour.
Useless in Autovista (Forza 4)
No headset input…

Developer: Microsoft
Publisher: Microsoft
For fans of: Steering Wheels. Duh.
Reviewed on: Xbox 360
Also available on: Xbox 360 Exclusive.
If we had to give it a numerical score: 7.5 out of 10.

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[wptabtitle]Forza 4 [/wptabtitle]

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For most Xbox 360 gamers Forza 3 was the ultimate racing/driving game – beautiful to look at and a joy to play. It had some faults – no weather and eight player multiplayer lobbies being the rather small issues – so the underlying question with Forza 4 is whether it has improved on Forza 3…

The short answer is yes. You can actually stop reading now and go and buy the game if you were waiting for our verdict for some reason.

While the game doesn’t add rain – it does offer overcast and dry tracks as an option – it has increased the lobby size meaning you can now get up sixteen players into a multiplayer virtual car pile-up. The number of cars and track options has been increased, as has the length of the career. The obligatory Kinect features have been added – many will shrug indifferently, but many will enjoy the hours of pretending to hold an invisible steering wheel, the head tracking and (region dependant) voice commands in the menu. Along with the stunning graphics, improved AI and the new Autovista mode (the ability to walk around and examine the car with your host – at times – Jeremy Clarkson) the game is almost the perfect package.

Almost… Most of the issues I have with the game are minor and most probably personal preference. For me the two most glaring is the fact that Turn 10 was forced to give up the Porsche brand which meant a meaningful portion of motor vehicle history is missing from the game. I also noticed that the ability to hire a driver has been removed – yes, that’s the lazy side of me complaining, but there was no reason to remove it in my opinion. Sometimes, I want to watch a pro drive for me sometimes.

Overall however, there is no reason for me to even suggest that the game is not worth your time or money – especially if you enjoy racing/driving games. Turn 10 will most likely continue to support the game up until Forza 5 releases, so you can expect constant tweaks and plenty of DLC. So what are you waiting for? If you haven’t got Forza 4 yet, race to your nearest retailer and grab it. Or wait for the Wireless Speed Wheel to release and get yourself the bundle.

What I liked

Looks fantastic.
Immersive but accessible.
Improved and challenging AI.
Best racing game on the Xbox 360.

Not so much

Where’s my hireable driver?
I want some rain too.
And some Porsches.

Developer: Turn 10
Publisher: Microsoft
For fans of: Racing games. Duh.
Reviewed on: Xbox 360
Also available on: Xbox 360 Exclusive.
If we had to give it a numerical score: 9.0 out of 10.