How to spend £125 at Christmas

The driving genre is one of the strongest and most popular on the PC platform. Below we take a look at the best driving games you can buy this Chrimbo, as well as some of the gaming input devices to go alongside them. Gentleman, start your engines…

Driving Games

There are certainly some heavy hitters in the driving genre arriving around the Winter period, and despite Test Drive Unlimited slipping to 2007 on the PC (you can pick it up on the 360 now), there is still a wealth of top notch driving action to sink your teeth into. The game that will be top of many people’s Christmas lists is the graphically splendid Need for Speed: Carbon.

Carbon is available on almost every gaming platform known to man (although not the Commodore 64). Released in November, it’s performed well in the run up to Christmas sales charts; this is probably due to its accessibility, pretty graphics and renowned branding. Almost everyone has heard of Need for Speed and if you’ve enjoyed previous games in the series you’ll undoubtedly enjoy this game - it's unrealistic, but good fun nonetheless. At £24.99 it’s an expensive PC game and you’ll undoubtedly be able to pick it up for £10 less come a couple of months after Christmas.

For those who like it a little more ‘real’ then there is the excellent GTR 2. We reviewed it a few months ago and were impressed with the detail and realism of the game. If you’re a hardcore race fan then you really can’t miss this one, which is almost certainly the Flight Simulator of car racing. You can pick it up for £17.99.

If you have dreamed and fantasised about combining your passion for cars with your passion for World of Warcraft then you might fancy taking a look at Auto Assault. It’s being sold for the fairly cheap price of £9.99 but will then require a subscription fee. The principle is that you can build a car, customise it, then use it as a weapon and to complete quests. I spent a couple of weeks with the game and was left feeling like I just wanted to go back to World of Warcraft - but then, I don’t even hold a full driving licence, so maybe it was wasted on me.

If you’ve got a nephew or niece who may be a bit too young for these serious driving games, or perhaps you’re just a massive driving games fan, then there is always Cars: The Movie. I have to admit I haven’t actually played the game for any extended amount of time, but the 15 or so minutes I did spend with it were relatively enjoyable. If your kids are looking jealously at you speeding around in pimped up cars in Need for Speed then this game, for £9.99, might not make them feel so left out.

Christmas is made up of two types of people. Those who like one absolutely massive present with all the money spent on that, then those who like to have lots of small presents. If you’re one of the latter then you might be interested in some classic games which can be picked up for as low as £4.99. The game that really jumped out at me is the classic racer/killing gamer ‘Carmageddon’. You can pick that up for less than the price of a curry over at Play.

Steering Wheels

It’s no good having all these racing games if you haven’t got the kit to play them with - keyboards just don't cut it. You’d be a fool to rush out and just buy a steering wheel, though. First off, there are a lot of differences between various steering wheels and, secondly, you need to actually establish that the game you have really benefits from using a wheel – surprisingly, many don’t.

Unfortunately we haven’t had our hands on the coolest looking steering wheel out there, the Logitech G25. For this article it’s a little irrelevant anyway, as it is priced at £150 - a little bit steep for a driving set up unless you really are a racing enthusiast. Instead we’ll look at some more moderately price pieces of kit:

The Logitech DriveFX Axial Feedback Wheel appeals to me because it is designed for the 360. When Logitech sent it to us we didn't have our hopes up, but when I cheekily plugged it in to our PC I was shocked and pleased to see that my PC picked it up. It doesn’t have any force feedback when in the PC, but it works.

Not bad considering you can then use it on both your 360 and PC and it only costs £50.51 at Scan. Definitely one for those of you who play driving games on both your 360 and PC.

Saitek’s R440 will give you force feedback whilst playing on your PC but will cost you an extra £13, coming in at £62.99 from Amazon. I really enjoyed using this wheel and force feedback certainly does add that missing ingredient to enhance your driving experience.

Thrustmaster, which has a history of excellent steering wheels, also has an option on the market. Coming in at £89.99, the RGT Force Feedback Pro Clutch Edition is probably a little bit too expensive for the nonchalant racing fan. We are expecting this one in the office in 2007 and will give you our impressions then.

Do you really need a steering wheel? It all really depends on what type of racing games you’re going to play. If you’re a fan of games like GTA and Carmagedon then you’re better off sticking with a traditional joypad. Even for games like Need for Speed Carbon, a joypad may actually give you an advantage. Some racing games have been designed specifically for the correct setup, such as GTR 2, and if those are the games that interest you then you really do need to invest in a proper wheel. Either way you should be able to get a wheel and a couple of games for Christmas and still have change from your £125.