Gadgetory

if you're a fan of racing and racing Sims you probably get into the point where you're sick of driving with your thumbs and want to step up to a bona fide racing wheel I'm Antoine Goodwin with cnet.com let's take a first look at the fanatic CSR wheel shifter and pedal combo the CSR combo is actually branded with the Forza Motorsport logo and there's also an Xbox 360 connect button indicating that it works best with the Forza Motorsport for racing game and the Xbox 360 combo however this Universal wheel and pedal combo can be used with any Xbox 360 game wirelessly and connected by a USB to a ps3 or PC for racing on those systems as well the CSR wheel has a very thick rim with a flat bottom design if they're actually really racy they're also Alcantara inserts at the neutral positions that wick sweat away from your palms during timpz races and aiding grip there's also a pair of aluminum shift pedals here on the back that feel like they can take quite a beating the wheels brushed aluminum face is dotted with controls that are easily reachable with the thumbs including this directional pad the ABXY buttons Bank shoulder buttons and an LCD display that can be used for adjusting anything from force feedback stream to sensitivity from ninety degrees all the way up to 900 degrees and linearity of the controls you can also set up to five different presets of all of those settings for different games or different players even at its default setting the wheel offers really good really strong force feedback and it's actually quite accurate for racing the table attachment clamp at the bottom holds really well but if you want a little bit more security you can actually even remove it and drill holes in a table or a racing wheel stand or even more firmness the next bit of the package is the CSR shifter kit now this kit actually includes two shifters one is a sequential shifter and the other is an H pattern shifter the edge pattern shifters gates they're a little too loosely defined for my taste and I've watched more than one three-two to downshift during a race but I think if you can get a little bit of practice with it maybe even a little firmer mount you could probably get used to it finally we have the CSR elite pedal which is actually a step up from the CSR components that we've been talking about part of the elite series now this actually uses almost a completely aluminium construction for the pedals and the base there's also a really heavy steel bottom here to hold it in place and this thing is heavy and that's good because you're basically going to be kicking the crap out of it while you race each of the pedals can be adjusted horizontally or vertically with simple hand tools and you can also adjust the spacing it for example when you want to get the brake pedal closer to the gas pedal for that perfect heel and toe downshift now casual gamers are probably gonna get a little sticker shot from the price the TSR wheel itself is 250 bucks the shifter kit is $60 and the pedals are about a hundred and fifty bucks then we're talking about four hundred and sixty dollars worth of racing simulator here now if you want to save a couple of bucks you can step down to the non elite standard CSR pedals for about eighty dollars they use a little bit more plastic in their construction but they use that same really heavy bait that I like and you could probably even skip the shifters because they're not really that great to begin with shaving about 60 bucks off of the price check out the full review of the CSR wheel pedal and shifter combo for even more details about the things that I liked and disliked about each component and how they compare to the previous generations of fanatics Racing combos until then I've been antoine goon which cnet.com and if you'll excuse me I've got a little more work to do you