They say that Asian Californians are the worst drivers because they drive too fast and barely pay attention to what goes on out there on the road. Well, being an Asian Californian myself, I found it quite humorous that I was assigned to review the Thrustmaster NASCAR Compact Wheel for the PSX / PS2. Despite all the stereotypes out there, I consider myself to be a decent driver and freeway racer. Now in the gaming world, I love to play racers in the arcade and love the Ridge Racer and Gran Turismo series. However, this is the first time that I have test driven a home version of a gaming wheel. I was more used to playing with the standard PSX pad on racers so I'll be comparing the NASCAR Compact Wheel with my experiences on the road and on the arcade.

The NASCAR Compact Wheel is a smaller version of the bigger wheels out there and is fundamentally designed for easy transport and storage. This also means that it lacks the foot-pedals that the bigger wheels have, but instead it has the "braking" and "acceleration" functions on the sides of the wheel. I thought the design of the compact wheel was very clever considering how it was meant to be small, yet no handicapped in anyway from a big standard wheel. Also, the directional pads and standard buttons on the wheel adds to the flexibility of options including Dual Shock features. Setup was easy; just adjust the clamps from the wheel to the edge of a table. This could be a problem for some gamers who don't have a table, desk, or any edge close enough to them and it can be quite a challenge in positioning yourself for comfortable control and posture.

To test drive the wheel, I selected two of my favorite racers, Gran Turismo 2 and WipeOut XL and I was a bit disappointed with the results. Despite the excellent design and ergonomics of the wheel itself, gameplay control was unacceptable and difficult. For instance, in Gran Turismo 2, it was nearly impossible to get the car to turn how I want to. The wheel seemed to only respond to "big turns" which causes the car to spin out of control and the sensitivity is just horrible. The wheel doesn't seem to register small turns that well which really hinders the wheels functionality and it is tremendously frustrating spinning out of control every time I try to make a turn. Accurate turning and directional movement is extremely important in racers especially when making sharp turns at high speeds; this wheel just doesn't get the job done. Just to make sure that the wheel had problems only on one game, I tried it on WipeOut XL and got the same results as I did with Gran Turismo 2. I kept losing control of the craft and ended up crashing all over the place. I discovered that I ended up using the direction pad on the wheel instead of actually turning the wheel itself, because it was starting to become exasperating when it didn't register any of my turns.

Even though the wheel seemed to have a lot of potential at first glance because of its intuitive design, the poor sensitivity in turning makes the NASCAR Compact Wheel frustrating to use. The wheel adds no sense of realism or adding any type of fun factor at all so it is recommended that you stay away from this wheel if you don't like crashing into walls or other cars every time you turn!

Rating: C-

Visit Thrustmaster's website for more information.

··· Raziel