The ESWAP XR PRO is the Best Racing Controller I Ever Bought, But it Takes Practice!

A Closer Look

I love my funky controllers and have owned some pretty whacky ones over the years. I used to have this one to play Rage Racer, and Motorhead, and if I remember right, it worked pretty well on Rollcage too! You twist it in the middle to turn, it was pretty wild for long drifts.

Then there was this fantastic beast, the Namco JogCon. From what I heard over the years, it wasn’t well-loved, and I can’t figure out why. I played the hell out of Ridge Racer Type 4, and even now that intro music still gives the chills, albeit more from nostalgia these days.

What’s interesting though is that the JogCon is by far the closest in concept to what Thrustmaster has created. It has a wheel you can control with your thumb, albeit, it’s in a fixed position and the controller is pretty much a one-trick pony, while the ESWAP is more of a Swiss army knife.

First impressions are pretty fantastic, this is a stunning-looking controller even in its default gaming configuration. As you can see, it’s a traditional two-stick Xbox controller layout, and it also has that fantastic Forza Horizon 5 aesthetic. Personally, I prefer Forza 7, but hey, to each their own. However, a generic Forza franchise brand may have been a slight improvement to hit fans of each.

The controller is premium in every regard, with some nice clicky mechanical switches for the face buttons.

A really good quality D-Pad that has a well-defined action on each press, albeit it’s raised design could wear your thumb down a little if you’re using it for fighting games.

The sticks are gorgeous, with a gripped recessed design that you can really dig your thumbs into for added control, or grip the edge for precision control in shooters.

There are additional hard-wearing grips on the side too, so sweaty hands won’t let it slip so easily.

A little detail, the USB cable has a standard Micro-USB port, but it’s heavily recessed. There’s a plastic block on the cable that ensures it locks in much more securely, which is great!

Around the back, there are four buttons that you can index with your fingertips, these are fully programmable too, but it’s great for times you don’t want to take your fingers out of position. I use them in Halo as jump and melee buttons, and in Forza, I actually have them set to skip music and trigger the rearview camera. There are two switches here too, moving them adjusts the maximum range of each of the triggers, shorter trigger = faster actuation from 0-100% allowing for greater response times in braking and accelerating.