The Big Forza 4 Problem…

Forza Motorsport 4 was released last week, and with it a brand new wireless racing wheel from Microsoft. This accessory was obviously a planned piece of the new Forza puzzle, being released on the same day and touting support for the title. 

There are some downright shocking missteps regarding the wheel itself and its communication with the game, with blame falling on both Microsoft and Turn 10 studios, the game’s developer. Let’s start with the actual hardware.

The wheel itself feels great in your hands, that’s for sure. The triggers are meaty and really have a nice feel. The grip is good, just about everything about the look and feel of the controller is fantastic. There are, however, two major setbacks. The first is the lack of bumper buttons. Having no LB or RB buttons on an Xbox 360 peripheral is downright maddening. Almost every game uses them, including most racing games. What boggles the mind is that even Forza 4 itself uses them by DEFAULT, and the wheel cannot navigate the menus without plugging in another controller, but I’ll get back to that. Having no LB and RB would seem ok if the game supported controller mapping or a layout without them, but shockingly enough, not every racing game will go back and retroactively patch to work without these two buttons. Sure, I haven’t gone through and tested every racing game for compatibility, but I think it’s a safe bet you’ll run into some issues.

The second big problem with the hardware is the complete lack of a headset jack. That’s right, you can’t plug in your first party or third party Xbox Live headset into this wireless racing wheel. The cynic in me wants to think that this is Microsoft forcing a purchase of their wireless headset on me, but I find that hard to believe. Microsoft’s Xbox division is a lot of things, but blatantly leaving out support for one product in favor for another just feels like a colossal failure. Especially if you use any kind of headphones with your home theatre (like I do at night, so neighbors don’t kill me). If you’d like to chat with your friends while using the wireless racing wheel, you’ll either need to buy Microsoft’s wireless Live headset, or setup a Skype call or something similar. It boggles the mind.

And now onto the software, Forza 4. This is a Microsoft Studios product, developed with this wheel in mind. Product synergy is nothing new, and like I stated earlier, there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that this wheel was engineered specifically as a must-have accessory for die-hard Forza fans. This is why it was an incredible shock to me at how broken the connectivity between game and device truly is.

To start, the recognition of the device seems immediate, in the main menu you can use the d-pad to navigate up and down, left and right. But once you enter in any sub-menus, the game changes. The d-pad’s left and right directions begin to get ignored, and interactivity with certain features require mandatory use of LB and RB buttons; buttons Microsoft cleverly omitted from this wireless wheel. That’s right, there are actually lots of examples in Forza 4 where you are downright unable to progress without signing out of your Xbox Live profile, turning off the wireless wheel, turning on a regular controller, and signing back in. This includes the brand new AutoVista mode which right out of the gate requires you to push “up” on the analog stick…a stick that doesn’t exist on the wheel. It gets worse, because by default, the game won’t even let you shift gears in manual transmission without the LB and RB buttons.

If you want to do any car customization, which includes custom paint jobs or tuning, forget it. Want to pick a track? Forget it. Navigate menus? Tour the brand new AutoVista mode? Hope you’re ready to sign out of your profile, power down the wheel and turn on a wireless controller…and then do it all over again to get back to racing with the wheel.

It’s things like this that really blow my mind. How on Earth could this happen? How does the hardware and software it was made for, all created by the same company, not work? How are there not options to play the entire game, menus and all, with this new peripheral? How could this wireless controller not include an audio jack like every other wired or wireless controller? The questions add up, and I’d love to hear them answered.

All this being said, I don’t want to run back to the store and immediately return the wheel. Why? Because once you’re in the game and racing, it feels absolutely fantastic. Microsoft did a great job on one single aspect of this experience, and thankfully, it was the most important one. I have a good feeling a lot, if not most of the software related problems will eventually be patched. Hopefully keeping me from needing to sign in and sign out. If this does happen, I’ll be pretty happy with my purchase, for the most part.

I’ll be able to tell all the competing racers online the same thing too…if they’re in my Skype chat room.