Excellent first wheel

First let me put my review in context: I'm not a kid, I am an adult who enjoys racing and PC based games. I've been driving for years, and I consider myself a racing enthusiast (mostly road racing), and I‘ve also had some amateur racing experience. I purchased the MOMO FF wheel for use on two games, NFS Underground 1 & 2 (both great games). This is my first wheel/pedal set and I purchased it primarily to add realism to the games that I wasn't getting from keyboard racing. I’ve had my MOMO for a few months and put a couple of hundred hours on it. I hope my experience will help you decide whether to buy a wheel, and if the MOMO is the wheel for you.

So in my mind there are really two reviews types related to any wheel; comparing the wheel other wheels, and comparing wheels against other input devices such as keyboard and joystick. Since this is my first wheel/pedal set, my review will be more applicable to someone considering whether or not to buy their first wheel.

So is it worth the bucks to dump the keyboard and go with this wheel? ABSOLUTELY, the wheel adds a level of realism the keyboard can't match, BUT be aware that with that realism you may experience slower times and lost races. The games are all about winning (forget second place), so while it may be more FUN (even crashing can be fun) to race with the wheel, sometimes it yields slower lap times. This may sound counter intuitive, but understanding the basics of how the wheel vs. keyboard works helps.

With the keyboard you have three modes of steering, straight ahead, FULL left, and FULL right. Same for throttle and brakes; FULL throttle, and SLAM on brakes only. With the wheel/pedals you have VARIABLE steering angle, throttle, and brakes, which give infinite range and tremendous fine control.

So I've found that depending on race type the wheel is better and for some, and others the keyboard works MUCH better. On open road races with long sweeping turns and even city driving on/off the brakes this wheel offers superb feedback and lap times that can better the keyboard with practice. EA's NFS UG 1 and 2 have excellent realism, and with the force feedback tuned right it feels much like real race driving, amazingly so.

The problem is with races requiring extremely fast reaction times and unreal left to right transitions. In particular drift races, where the object is to put the car into a controlled slide for the entire race (points are awarded for angle and duration of slide) the wheel cannot match the keyboard. The wheel is just too slow to go from full right then left to execute the wheel angles required to drift. For instance a race requiring 80,000 points to win can be achieved with the keyboard, but you’re lucky to get 10,000 with the wheel. So I find myself still using the keyboard for some races, although I always make use of the pedals, which does improve race times for either steering device.

So how does the MOMO perform? EXCELLENT, especially when you consider value for the price. The rubber wheel, although a bit small in diameter, is nice and thick and VERY grippy in your hands. The six buttons on the steering wheel are within easy finger reach and are programmable. It has PADDLE shifters in addition to the stick. I use the paddles almost exclusively as they don’t require your hands to come of the wheel, one for up shift, other for down. Some people complain about the sequential shifting mode, but I like it as it feels like a real racing car and prevents you accidentally shifting from say 2nd to 4th. The steering is very accurate and allows fine control though twisty roads.

I was a little skeptical about the force feedback function, but it works really well as long as you tune it down a bit from default. What I didn’t realize is there are multiple levels of feedback. The one I find most helpful is the steering centering function, this provides resistance to turning the wheel proportionate to speed, just like a real car – very cool. This feature alone makes the experience. Then there is motion from bumps and impacts, these do add realism, but if turned up too high detract from the experience. Get it tuned right and you can feel other cars bump you, but not so hard that it knocks you off your line, same for road obstacles.

The software that comes with the wheel is not needed for games like NFS II because all the controls are built in. You can program the wheel buttons and feedback strength in the game as the game was clearly designed with the wheel in mind, it has much better effects overall. Older games like NFS I work better with the gaming control software, this program configures the wheel before you start the game and feeds your settings to the game. It works, but it takes a significant amount of fussing around to get it right. Ultimately the result is not as good as with newer games that are fully wheel aware.

Mounting the wheel to the desk required removing the drawer and if you get rough, it will slip a bit despite the best hand tightening (knobs are 8 sided so regular tools won’t work). I tend to check the 3 knobs every few races for tightening. I had some luck adding a rubber bumper to the tip of the lower clamp to make it stop sliding. Taking it on and off the desk is a pain.

One thing I wasn’t expecting was the wheel part gives off quite a bit of heat if FF mode is on. There appears to be a turning mechanism inside and it really throws the heat off, in the summer I’m concerned this may make play uncomfortable.

I heard lots of complaints online about problems with wheel/pedals in general breaking, so I bought mine on sale at CompUSA (with a mfg rebate on top) and added the 2 yr maintenance plan that I usually never buy. I figure this thing will take a beating so better to safe, although mine has held up great for the couple of hundred hours I have on it. The materials are plastic but sufficiently beefy to prevent accidental breakage.

Bottom line, an excellent wheel at a reasonable price, especially compared to the so called pro wheels. If you are racing on keyboard now, get the wheel.

(original review: march 05- updated june 06)

2009 update - my 12 year old has pretty much taken over the wheel at this point so I don't get any time with it any more.  I can tell you the wheel and pedals have held up well, nothing is broken, not even the mounting bracket.  I figured the wheel would only last about 3 years with wear andd tear but so far I'm doing very well.