Mmm, I read about the (unfair) mention that Forza 2 has recieved. This game is a good simulator. You can feel the weight of the car moving around and it behaves in a very true to life way. Different cars have definate pluses and minuses, and each modification you make adjusts the handling in some way, like as I said earlier, getting bigger wheels increases weight! Find another game that does that.
Why is it "engineered" to play with a gamepad (or console games in general)? Because not everyone wants to buy a wheel for their console, (it's not as practical as a PC because generally you don't have a desk!) plus with the already high price for a "gaming only" machine, many people don't want to spend extra on periphipals that they won't "always" be using.
(For the record, most of the WRs are set using a Momo or something, last time I checked they all used auto clutch and most likely drove with sequential gearbox and 240/270 degrees of rotation on their wheel.)
And let's be frank. If a game such as GT5 or GTR only had 50,000 or so people buy it, the development team would go out of
buisness very quickly.
BBman is correct, however. A simulator is still a sim regardless of how it's controlled, and on that basis you cannot assume another game is not a simulator because it's controlled by a gamepad. It's the output that matters (feel, features), rather than the input (wheel, keyboard, whatever).
Ika, you refer to these very expensive wheels in F1 and the like - Do you even know why they're so expensive? Because they have all sorts of knobs and switches that allow the driver to adjust his car as he's driving. Diff, traction control, brake bias, the lot. Not to mention they probably have all sorts of LED speed, revs, (split times?) lap #, etc. It's more than just "a wheel". I'm sure if you have a computer set up the car exactly the same as a driver would whilst going round, then bolted a wheel from an early 90's car on, I'm sure he'd drive pretty much exactly the same laptime.
Sure, some games are directed as "arcade" racers, and others more serious sims, but at the end of the day, the people who play these games enjoy them, and isn't that what gaming is about? Enjoying yourself. I'm sure they don't care if you think that their copy of NFS isn't automatically good because it doesn't support a wheel or whatever bullshit you'll say, I'm sure they'll just enjoy the game regardless.
Is it me or are alot of people incredibly serious about racing sims, to the point of annoying "lesser games"?
To quote Clarkson, regarding the Ferrari Owners Club "Most of them angry because they don't actually have Ferraris", as in they can't actually race in RL for whatever reason?