Thrustmaster F1 Wireless PC Gamepad Ferrari 150th Italia Alonso Edition Review

This being an F1 controller, I decided it would be fitting to fire it up with F1 2011 on the PC, to see what it can really do and while it took a little getting used to the controller performed rather well. It took longer than I would have liked to setup the buttons how I would like them, due to the mode button switching around button configurations when enabled, making switching modes mid race trouble some if the controller isn’t setup a certain way in regards to what buttons you have configured to gear changes for example swapping places in the “micky mouse dial” mode if your not careful.

The analogue sticks took a little getting used to also, compared to say the PS3 standard sticks, or the Xbox 360 for that matter, they are set pretty high, while this does give you more swinging room, it can feel a little twitchy at first till your thumbs get used to the different levels of force required to make minor adjustments, but that’s really a minor issue, the analogue performance was generally superb.

Next up is the analogue triggers at the rear of the controller, they provide a more comfortable resting position than you would find on the PS3 controller, I’d say they feel somewhere between the PS3 and Xbox 360 in terms of shape, although the spring on these do feel a little stiffer than is required, but not so much that they don’t feel comfortable.

I tried the controller out on a few other racing games, Grid, Shift 2 and Gran Tursimo 5, performance wasn’t too bad, on the PS3, it didn’t feel “as good” as the official controller and on PC I generally prefer my Xbox 360 controller for racing, there is nothing wrong with this controller, but for me its just a matter of preference.

The controller help up fairly well in other games too, I went for a quick run around in Skyrim, Fifa 12 and Super Meat Boy, nothing ground breaking to report, but nothing bad either.