Free Wheelin' With The HKT-7430

The Dreamcast has a stunning number of peripherals for a system that lived in the limelight for such a short time. When you really look at the list of different controllers and things you can plug into the console in order to add a new dimension to your gameplay experience, the array is pretty bewildering. Some of these peripherals literally only have a handful of games that make use of them, while others are pretty much redundant today as they were designed for use with an internet connection (or in the case of the mysterious DreamWire HKT-4400 ISDN cable, an internet connection was it's only reason for existing). Twin Sticks for use with Virtual On, the MIDI cable for plugging in a keyboard, the DreamEye for web chat...the list is as long as a long armed person's arm. Recently though, a fairly common Dreamcast accessory came into my possession - the official Dreamcast racing wheel.

A DreamWire. Yesterday.

There's no denying it looks good.

The first thing I noticed was that it doesn't actually come with any foot pedals, which is odd considering that most third party wheels for the Dreamcast do. Even stranger is that the NTSC-J version of the official wheel (HKT-7400) has an extra port on the back that was meant to allow for third party pedals to be fitted, but as far as I can tell there are no sets of pedals that the unit will recognise. Why this was removed from the PAL version I'm not sure, but the little area where the connector should be has been filled in and the wiring totally removed (although the connection on the internal board is still there, just empty). Further to this, the official wheel was never released by Sega in the US, it was rebranded and sold by Agetec as the 'Rally Wheel.' Whether this variation also features the little connector on the back is not something I can confirm, but maybe somebody reading this can let us know.

Odd they called it the 'Rally Wheel' with only two rally games on the DC

A very low quality image of the NTSC-J unit's phantom pedal port and internal wiring

Elsewhere, the unit harbours an aperture where a VMU can be placed. This is quite a nice feature, as it allows you to see your VMU screen while playing a game and also negates the need for a second pad to be plugged into the console at the same time as the wheel...but it also removes any facility for a gear lever that some 3rd party wheels feature. So no pedals and no gear lever...but at least you can look at the dot matrix screen of your VMU as you power slide around a corner! To be honest, I feel that this is a bit of a missed opportunity - how cool would it have been to have a little digital speedometer displayed on the screen whenever it was plugged in to the race wheel? Or even one of those Daytona-style 'maps' showing if there where other vehicles around you? Or perhaps a fuel gauge? Actually, on second thoughts it probably wouldn't be much use as all of those things can generally be found on-screen anyway; and all this would do is turn your steering wheel into a less functional Wii U tablet.

A resting VMU

On the face of the wheel, you will find several buttons but strangely there is no D-pad or, for that matter the regular buttons from the standard pad. What you get are '+' and a '-' buttons for navigating menus and changing gears; A and B buttons for selecting and cancelling in menus/changing views in-game; a start button; and two analogue 'paddles' attached to the steering column for accelerating and braking. At first, this set up seems like a total nightmare but after a bit of play in most games (I mainly played Sega Rally 2, Le Mans 24hrs, F355 and F1 World Grand Prix 2 to test it out), using the wheel actually feels better than using a pad. Granted, you really have to use the first person views in most games to actually get a real sense that you're using a wheel and not a joypad - and get the benefits of the peripheral - but it really does add something to the experience. The real star attraction of the official wheel though, has got to be the tensioning effect whereby the wheel offers some basic resistance to turning by means of a rather simplistic yet clever band of elastic that runs inside the base of the wheel. True, there's no built-in force feedback or anything like that, but this feeling that the wheel is pulling back in the opposite direction as you turn is a stroke of genius and not something I've noticed in other wheels for the Dreamcast.

The advanced elastic technology is illustrated here

The racing wheel isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination - the base feels very light and it constantly moves around when you quickly have to turn the wheel left and right (if negotiating a chicane, for example); and the lack of pedals makes the control system seem a little odd at first. However, the lovely tension on the wheel and the great analogue paddles mean it does have some impressive redeeming features. The most important thing though, is that it really does enhance the experience of playing some of the Dreamcast's finest racers. It takes a little time to get up to speed (sorry) with how it changes the way you're probably used to playing your favourite racers, but it adds a whole new dimension too. Am I happy with my £1 outlay for the racing wheel? Thoroughly. I would recommend this peripheral to anyone who has even a passing interest in racers.