BeamNG.drive is awesome driving fun (and low priced)

That didn’t go too well

If you have a steering wheel (or even if you don’t) I can strongly recommend the BeamNG driving simulation. It really is great fun. As a game it doesn’t have the depth of full price ones like Forza, but it does have impressive physics and gives you a highly realistic gear change action, even down to the damage you do to the gearbox if you get it wrong. The game is not based on any particular car designs (although a lot of them look very familiar) which means that the cars can be crashed and bashed out of shape as much as you like.

There is on-road and off-road action and a whole bunch of scenarios, including one where you have to escape lots of tiny Italian police cars in an experience that brings back fond memories of the wonderful “Driver” game for PlayStation One.

And it is refreshingly cheap at less than 20 pounds on Steam. Great stuff.

Thanks, but no thanks

Not sure how this makes my steering wheel work better….

I like my Logitech G29 steering wheel and it works well. However, since I installed the G Hub application that lets me configure it I’ve had Discord asking if Logitech can have access to my account. The access is fairly limited, but even so, I don’t see why I should have to do this. I went to a Tech Session a while back that made the point that data is the most valuable commodity on the planet at the moment. So I guess this is just part of the price of things now.

Logitech G29 Steering Wheel on Forza

The gear lever is worth the extra cash

The Logitech G29 steering wheel is a good option if you fancy a bit of force feedback with your digital driving. It frequently pops up heavily discounted. The PlayStation version works with Gran Turismo but also with the Forza games on your PC. The only problem I’ve had with it is that the buttons are a bit hard to understand. The game asks you to press buttons and you have no idea which one does what. I’ve spent a while fiddling with it and made this little map.

Logitech G29 Button Mapping for Forza Horizon (PC)

Button Mappings

Button #	Label	In-Game Mapping	Notes
0	X	Forza 1	Confirm
1	Square	Forza 2	View
2	Circle	Forza 3	Back
3	Triangle	Forza 4	Rewind
4	Right Paddle	Forza 5	Shift up
5	Left Paddle	Forza 6	Shift down
6	R2 Pedal	Forza 7	Accelerator
7	L2 Pedal	Forza 8	Brake
8	Sunrise Button	Forza 9	ESC in G HUB
9	Hamburger Button	Forza 10	ENTER in G HUB
10	R3	Forza 11
11	L3	Forza 12
12	1st Gear Button	Forza 13
13	2nd Gear Button	Forza 14
14	3rd Gear Button	Forza 15
15	4th Gear Button	Forza 16
16	5th Gear Button	Forza 17
17	6th Gear Button	Forza 18
18	Reverse Gear Button	Forza 19
19	Plus (+) Button	Forza 20
20	Minus (–) Button	Forza 21
21	Red Dial Right	Forza 22
22	Red Dial Left	Forza 23
23	Red Dial Press	Forza 24
24	PS Logo Button	Forza 25	MAP

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D-Pad / Hat Switch (POV)

Direction	Forza Device Mapping	Function
Left	Device 1 SW 1	LEFT
Right	Device 1 SW 2	RIGHT
Up	Device 1 SW 3	UP
Down	Device 1 SW 4	DOWN

The left-most column is the button number as far as the steering wheel device is concerned. The label tells you which button it is on the wheel. The “In game mapping” column gives the button numbers in Forza and finally the right hand column gives you notes for useful in-game functions.

I’ve used the G Hub application to map two steering wheel buttons to ESC and ENTER, so that I can use the wheel without needing a keyboard.