So in 2005, I returned to the Gran Turismo series once again, with Gran Turismo 4. Daniel started talking to me again, and I was really into the game. We'd basically come to school, and during lunch times, we'd talk about Gran Turismo 4 all the time. I bought a cheap steering wheel for the game (although it was one of those wheels that were simply detected as a regular controller. But we were really into it. We'd chat about anything related to it. What cars we used. What our fastest times were. The best ways to drive on a particular track. Tuning strategies. Grinding cash (Capri). We knew every secret and every trick in the book to beat the game. I was a great, clean driver, but I wasn't good enough to beat the Online League records.

Racing games have always my strong point. The racing simulator games like Gran Turismo and Forza moreso than other arcadey types like Need for Speed and Burnout. But anything to do with controlling a car of some sort, even, say, controlling the vehicles in Halo, Call of Duty, that sort of thing. The racing sims were more fun as well. Arcadey types often had something that made it too accessible. Not that that's a bad thing or anything. It just focused more on entertaining gameplay than realism. Some arcade racers are amongst my favourite racing games.

But nothing beats the feeling of success in a racing sim like Gran Turismo. Turning your 10,000 starting credits into millions, along with an expanding collection of racing machines. The race spec models are great and all, but the real fun of the game is picking up a car and turning it into a formidable racing machine. The best cars to do so with were any of the Japanese models, but careful consideration with your tuning needs to be considered depending on what track you're racing on. I remember this one time when I was racing against Daniel, he had this low powered car (I think it was a Pontiac), but he beat me when I was using one of my high-powered Nissans. It wasn't a blowout, less than two seconds, but every second counts in a racing game.

The steering wheel I had was a pretty good one for its price. It didn't have pedals, rather, it had paddles on the back of the controller used for acceleration and brakind (or whatever you assigned the buttons to in game). It was such a great controller, but unfortunately one time a couple of years ago I was playing another racing game, Juiced, a game which I've long considered underrated, but it's extremely frustrating. One time in a pink slip race, I lost, and threw the controller in a fit of rage. It didn't actually break exactly, but the dome of the wheel snapped off. If I find the wheel, I could still use it. I'd also need a bit of duct tape to help keep everything together.

Any racing sim is that much more enthralling with the use of a steering wheel.
Don't feel that you have to shell out $400 for some of them. This one cost me $60.

Pictured above is the steering wheel I mentioned I had. There's one variety that came with pedals, but the only one I saw was one that just had the paddles. Although for this wheel, it was better. The good thing about the wheel is that it was compact. Pedals would've taken up so much space. You could sit however you wanted while using it. And best of all, it was less than $60. As good as Logitech's wheels are, if you're not a dedicated racing gamer, there's no need to pay the $399 or whatever it is for their G27 wheel. I've got to find where mine is. It'll be downstairs somewhere.

I always found a way to play games at school. None were a more fun experience than when I got Daniel and a couple of other guys to bring their PS2's to school. We snuck into the AV room one lunchtime (which was conviently inside the library, where we were, ahem, 'studying'), set up the PS2's side by side and played a four-car i-Link race. The two best parts about the AV room were that one, it was completely soundproof and two, it was dark inside. As long as the TV's were facing away from the door (and the windows), no one knew you were in there. Since you weren't allowed to go in there, teachers never checked in there. We just had to take care coming in and out of the room, to avoid being seen.

As I'm typing this, the temptation of stopping this blog right where I am just to play GT4 begins. It's not my favourite game in the series (GT2 and 3 take precedence), but really, every game in the series is just glorious. Some people believe Forza is a greater racing sim, but I'm not sure. I don't know if it's because I've played the Gran Turismo series since its beginnings, but there's just something that's extremely dry about Forza. I enjoy the racing, but it seems that I can't play it for more than a couple of hours at a time, and on the other hand, I can play any game in the GT series for the better part of a day. Which I might just go and do sometime this week.

Have you ever used a steering wheel to play a racing game? Let me know in the comments section below.

Contents:
Part 01 | Part 02 | Part 03 | Part 04 | Part 05 | Part 06 | Part 07 | Part 08 
Part 09 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15