Pi in the Sky

Ardistel Speedracer Lite

Posted on December 8th, 2007 at 2:20am by Pi.
Categories: Gaming.

I’ve bought one of those driving wheels for the PS2. The whimsical me wanted one since I started playing racing games. Since I’m not too rich, I bought the cheapest choice I’ve found, the Speedracer Lite by Ardistel for only 24.90 euros. I’ve spent about two hours trying it in Gran Turismo 3.

I must say that from the box, the product looks good for the money. When I opened the box and connected everything, it still looked good. Mostly black with an orange piece. Direction pad in one side, buttons in the other, and the shoulder buttons in the center. All the buttons are programmable, that means interchangeable. There are also two levers just behind the wheel (analogical). Included pedals, manual, and a game: Kaido Racer 2 by Genki (published by Konami).

Unfortunately, all the good things end there. First of all, it’s a bit on the small side. Specially the pedals are too together, making it a bit uncomfortable to use them if you’re even medium sized. You can adjust the driving sensitivity to 30, 60 and 90 degrees. Turning it was a bit hard, maybe the springs are too tight for a comfortable driving experience. The levers are also hard to pull, and they weren’t very comfortable for the fingertips on full pull. Vibration was ok, and probably the only feature which is up to expectations. Well, maybe button programming too, it was very easy following the manual to adjust the controls. But that’s all.

The worst thing was the buttons themselves. I think that somehow they interfered with each other. For example, pressing the triangle would also trigger with R1, so not only I went backwards, I unintentionally changed view from interior to exterior (those are the default controls in GT3). Pressing the cross would interfere with L1 I think, or at least one of the buttons related to gear change. So you wouldn’t accelerate at 100%. The experience with the pedals was not very satisfying either, and I didn’t feel it was accelerating at max anyway. I spent a long time, trying different wheel and game configurations to no avail.

The conclusion is that it is a great priced, good looking driving wheel with enough features, but in the end almost everything is under my minimum expected quality, with poor and uncomfortable performance. I think this driving wheel is not adequate for the high performance driving you need in a game like GT3. It might be fun for other kind of games, but I’m not trying. Probably it could be good for things like NFS Most Wanted, but right now I don’t care. I didn’t even bother trying Kaido Racer 2, which doesn’t look bad, but it seems to be a washed down GT3.

Well, it hasn’t been really a surprise. You can’t really have high expectations for such a low price, but I was pretty much disappointed. I thought it would be at least decent for some fun driving with GT3, but it was inaccurate, unadequate, and uncomfortable. Actually I’m returning it, and I’ll keep using the great Dualshock 2 with its very good thumbsticks, and I’ll have more fun driving. Next time I buy a driving wheel, I’m getting one from a higher price range, expecting some more quality.

And my next purchase is an Ardistel pad for PS2, I hope it’s decent, but I’m having my doubts now…

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