Force Feedback Wheel Roundup

Game Bundle
Act-Labs has included UBIsoft's F1 Racing Simulation with the Force RS. Also included is a full version of Immersion's I-Force Studio, which allows you to customize your Force effect settings and save them to profiles. You can then organize these profiles so that you have a different one for each game, user, whatever.

Installation
Well, no surprises here. The software installs in a snap, reboot the machine, add the controller in the control panel. Physically, this unit is held on the desk by a heavy clamp on either side of it. The clamps spin on easily with dials located directly above them. It connects to your computer by way of a serial port, and therefore requires an IRQ. Again, this may be bad news for those of you with modems and serial mice.

Ergonomics
The Act-Labs Force RS is truly a different looking animal. The steering wheel is large and wrapped with a stitched dura-buck type, tan-colored artificial leather. It looks like it has the most expensive construction of the bunch, and maybe it does. The wheel has three spokes, which hold seven buttons, all within easy reach and separated by just enough space that you won't accidentally hit two at once. The wheel's design has one really high point and one really low point. The high point is a four-position hat switch (in the shape of a subtly-contoured disc) sitting right in the middle of the wheel. This would be great for a flight game to change your point of view, and works very well in NFS III to steal a quick look behind you. The low point is the terrible paddle shifters. They are long and thin, with ovals on the ends... in fact they look like two plastic teaspoons stuck in either side of the steering shaft. They are flimsily attached, rocking up and down as well as back and forth during operation. The other really odd thing about them is they appear to be designed to be tapped from the front as opposed to being drawn inward from the back, like the other two. This arrangement doesn't work particularly well, and we eventually abandoned them in favor of using two of the buttons on the wheel spokes. This may be a non-sequitor as Act-Labs is releasing a gated (Ferrari-Style) shifter that will work with the Force RS. When that happens, the major weakness of this wheel may be eliminated (with the dropping of a few more dollars). The foot pedals look very much like the rest of the unit: expensively constructed, heavy, durable. The gas and brake pedals go down as opposed to forward, and they have a fair amount of resistance. You can actually rest a lot of your foot's weight on either pedal without pushing it all the way down. There is a huge footprint to this pedal array, so much so that you can rest your left foot on the pad on the left, or below the pedals in the center. If not for the brutal shifter setup and the loud noises that accompany turning the wheel, this thing would be darn near perfect. Lastly, we have to mention a special feature of this product that doesn't quite fit in to any category but has to be mentioned somewhere. So here it is: The Force RS doesn't wire directly in to the serial port of the computer. The wheel end of the connection is an affair that looks like an over-sized Super Nintendo cartridge. Act-Labs calls it an 'engine' and it allows you to interchange your pc engine with the other engines that are available (N64, Playstation, Saturn) for a mere $25, and use your Force RS with whatever video game console you happen to have!

Force Feedback
Well, not only is the wheel itself strong, so are the shakes and vibrations. Of the three wheels tested, the Act-Labs unit has by far the strongest available force effects. An easily customizable driver setup allows you to vary the effects from barely noticeable right up to earthquake-strength (and the I-Force Studio lets you save those settings to a profile so that Grandma doesn't sprain her arm when she jumps on the machine for a quick game of Motorhead). The effects were pretty even over the games we tried, except for MTM II, where the Microsoft seemed to be stronger at the same relative setting.

Price
Here's the kicker, folks. The wheel that looks like it cost the most to produce (and has some great special features that the others lack) costs the least to buy. The Act-Labs Force RS retails for a modest $139. Great machine, great price!