Logitech G29 Racing Wheel Review
Software
The Logitech software has come a long way since the early days with my Momo Racing. With thousands of pre-built profiles you’ll be up and running in moments. Obviously the majority of customisation happens in game, but the ability to bind macros can be handy for the “thanks/sorry” chat necessary in online racing.
Dirt Rally
Like Project Cars, Dirt Rally has a prebuilt profile for the G29. Considering Codemasters history with wheels this is something of a surprise. Dirt 3 and Grid Autosport certainly want no part of wheels, but then with their arcade physics there isn’t really a need. Dirt Rally is no Richard Burns Rally, but it’s at least a lot nearer the sim end of the spectrum than other Dirt titles.
Unlike the relatively serene world of Project Cars, which we’ll get to on the next page, the control of your fire-spitting rally car is much more frenetic than a track based car. Rallying is fast paced, with corners coming at you at an incredible rate, and you might thing that the force feedback would be detrimental to your ability to quickly flick the car around because you’re always fighting against the centring force. Such is the quality of the helical gears and dual motors in the G29 this is never an issue, and the trees fly past whilst you gobble up corners in a flurry of gear changes and delicate throttle balances.
Although my old PBs weren’t particularly fast, mainly due to a lack of seat time, they were quickly annihilated by my efforts with the G29. You have to remember that there is always an adjustment period when you have a new controller, and muscle memory being what it is a wheel is one of the biggest adaptions to make – although anyone changing HOTAS or even mice will know how you go to click buttons that no longer are where you expect to find them – but the feedback, linearity and absolute control afforded to you by the G29 makes that adaption period very brief. Probably the brake pedal is the thing that it’s taken me the longest to get my head around, but for entirely good reasons.
If there is a slight issue that the freneticism of Dirt Rally brings up when compared to the earlier Logitech models it’s the lack of an H-Pattern shifter and, when comparing it to my old Momo Racing, the lack of an obvious handbrake. I used to use the built-in sequential shifter to mimic the handbrake you find in pukka rally offerings, and you could do the same by sticking the G25 in sequential mode, but the G29 relies just upon the on-wheel buttons which are within easy-ish thumb reach but not as handy as something sticking up.
