Mad Catz Andretti Racing Wheel

• Price: £79.99

If you play a lot of racing games, this driver’s wheel, emblazoned with the name of and co-designedby racing legend Marco Andretti, may be the thing for you, but will it be racing away with all thetrophies or be stuck at the starting line in neutral?

Two games are included in the package: Andretti Racing, a Formula 1-style racing game with a choiceof tracks, cars and many other aspects but contains quite simplistic graphics. The other is Interstate’76: Nitro Pack – for which you don’t need the original game – and takes you back to the days of flaredtrousers and afro hairdos to complete missions such as bumping off enemy cars or protecting an oiltanker from attack.

Taking the wheel apart bit by bit, not literally you understand because it’s got to go back afterwardsand I’m not quite that technically-minded, the steering wheel is made from Tactile Pro-Style rubberracing grip and rotates around 270 degrees. It’s quite small in diameter though, so is fine for AndrettiRacing where small turns are required, but it isn’t suited to Interstate 76 where, while jousting withanother car and a quick, sharp handbrake turn is required to go back for more as this just isn’t possiblewith the Andretti wheel. Any standard car steering wheel would be more the required size since youneed to cross your arms over quickly, even though it’s not what you should do in real life. Then again,how often do you perform handbrake turns on the motorway?

Four action buttons are on the wheel – two on the front and two behind, the former which can be usedto fire at other cars in Interstate 76 and the latter to change gears in Andretti Racing. All four buttonsare programmable through Direct Input-compatible games. A four-way point-of-view hat switch isalso included to allow you to look all around you when the heat’s on and you need an advantage.

Once you can steer, you’ll also need to go forward, which is where the racing pedals come in. There’sno clutch, but while accelerating is very effective with subtle increases in pressure being accuratelyregistered, braking is a less-precise motion as it always stops too soon, so the only viable option withthis is in handbrake-style turns, accomplished by first speeding up, then turning the wheel and braking at the same time.

The padded gear stick will let you change gear, but note that it doesn’t move forward and backwardlike a standard one, it just clicks each way. Securing clamps are included to attach the device to a deskand stop it from moving. You can hook it up to a USB or Gameport connection in either Windows 98or NT 5.0 and only hit one snag while trying to install it the first time.