Manufacturer - Logitech Type - Racing Wheel Platform - GameCube MSRP - $49.95
Among the hardcore gamer, there are those who simply must have a controller best suited to simulate their gaming experience. To these people, they want the best flight stick for their flight simulators, an arcade stick for their fighters, and a steering wheel for their racer. Unfortunately, first parties like Nintendo – despite their almost compulsive and arbitrary proliferation of odd peripherals and accessories – rarely release these sorts of products, thus leaving the job to third party manufacturers. As a result, the market is littered with piles of unlicensed rubbish, barely suitable for hooking up to your machine. Fortunately, Logitech has created a sturdy, reliable, licensed wheel for your GameCube that we can recommend without any reservations.
The first thing to note about the Speed Force wheel is that the initial package for $49.99 comes with just the wheel and no foot pedals. For those of you looking for the complete package, you’ll need to spend the additional $29.99. This extra bundle also features the lap adapter, which allows the unit to rest nicely in your lap. Without this extra purchase, you’re left with just the wheel, which clamps onto a table or TV tray. While the extra foot pedals would be nice, we had no trouble using the L and R paddles for the accelerate and brake functions, and we actually prefer clamping the unit to a TV tray, rather than resting it in our laps.
The button layout on the face of the wheel contains the official Nintendo controls. However, there is no analog stick and for easy access, the Z button is located directly above the D-pad. You’ll also notice that the A, B, X, and Y buttons have been rotated slightly. While we understand the logic behind this move (it allows the gamer to access all buttons without moving his/her thumb) it does take a bit of getting used to if you’re accustomed to the standard GCN layout. The other questionable part is the placement of the Start button. It’s located near the bottom of the wheel, which means when you are in the middle of a heated bout of F-Zero GX, you may find yourself bashing against a wall while trying to pause the game.
The wheel itself has very smooth, yet resistant action, making it feel more realistic than most third-party wheels. Unfortunately, you cannot adjust the sensitivity of the wheel, but the default calibration works quite well. Additionally, we would have preferred a rubber surface, rather than the hard plastic of the wheel, but what’s there is quite sufficient.
As the GameCube only has a handful of quality racing games in its library, the question of practicality comes to mind. While more than capable of being used on games like F-Zero GX and Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, we found that the wheel is better suited for more traditional racing games Need for Speed and Pro Rally. It’s not that the wheel doesn’t work well on those games – because it does – we were just more at home using it on the more traditional racers.
Overall, we’re more than happy with what Logitech has done. It takes quite a product to become officially licensed by Nintendo, and that quality standard is shown well here.
