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Geoff Crammond is renowned for his obsession with racing games. He started way back in 1986 with the racing game Revs, which was very realistic for its time. After the incredible, more arcade-like Stunt Car Racer (reviewed: here), his obsession for realism would be continued with the release of Formula One Grand Prix in 1991. As the name suggests it focuses on the supreme racing class of formula one and the goal of Geoff Crammond was to recreate the formula one experience as accurately as possible onto your monitor and in that he succeeded marvellously.
Besides being very accurate and realistic, Formula One Grand Prix is packed with options. This may be just the thing for you, but if you don’t want to bother with all this fiddling around with numerous settings you can choose quick race from the start-up menu and you will immediately be placed in a formula one car on a track of your liking. But for those of you who really want to get the ultimate out of the game the main menu is the option to choose.
First you should choose a team and a driver. Although the cars and drivers are based on the 1991 formula one season, Geoff didn’t get the formula one license for this game, so although the colour schemes of the cars and helmets are right, the names aren’t. But in the driver/team selection menu you can customize them, so just enter the names of the drivers and teams of the 1991 season and you are set. The names can be saved, so you don’t have to bother typing them every time you want to play the game. Enter a team and continue. Within the game options you can opt for the game settings as you like them, like show distance in miles or in kilometres, choose an analogue joystick or set the present date in case you trash some track records then this will be registered. When this is done it is time for the racing bit.
In Formula One Grand Prix there are three race-modes. You can practice a track, you can enter a non-championship race or you can participate in a full formula one season, in which you have to earn the most points in 16 races to become world champion. When participating in a non-championship race you can choose one of the 16 circuits to race on. These are the 16 tracks in the 1991 formula one season. An overview of the circuit will be presented as well as all kind of information like track-length and track records. When you made your choice, you can participate in a race, just like the real thing.
You can first practice the track and when you feel confident enough you can try to set the best qualifying lap, which will put you on the front row of the grid in the race. The length of the practice period, qualifying and race can be altered in the race options menu, as well as the difficulty level (there are five: from rookie to pro) and the relative strength of the teams and drivers (all equally strong, random strength or according to the 1991 season outcomes). In practice mode or in qualifying you will start in the pits. Here you can set up your car just the way you like it. You can alter your front and back wing settings, determining the amount of down force you want and the amount of under steer or over steer. You can also alter the brake balance from the front of the car to the back or visa versa and you can choose the tyre compound from hard to very soft. Last but not least, you can set up the gear ratios of your gearbox. Altering your set up really has an effect on your car’s performance and this adds to the overwhelming realism of this game. You can spend hours on end, improving your car to make it as quick as possible on the chosen track. And of coarse you can save your set-ups to disk, so you can race with them whenever you want.
Than it’s finally time to burn some rubber. The graphics in Formula One Grand Prix are absolutely stunning. Entirely built up out of polygons this 3D-game is surprisingly fast. The tracks are built like the real tracks in every minor detail, causing the F1-enthousiast to immediately recognise where he is on a track; just like the real thing. Driving a F1 car can be learned with all kinds of help-options:
Brake-assistant: this helps you with braking at the right moment.
Gear-change assistant: this helps you change gears at the right moment.
Automatic car-rotator: in case you slide of the track, this will automatically put your nose into the right direction.
Indestructibility: making your car immune for damage caused by crashes of all kinds.
Race-line suggestion: this useful help-option draws the ideal racing line on the circuit, so the less experienced driver can learn how to drive a track as fast as possible.
Gear suggestion-indicator: this helps you when to change to what gear.
The higher the level of difficulty you chose, the less help-options you are able to use. The experienced driver can turn all these things off of coarse.
The playability of this game is immense. The reaction of your racing car is very realistic and mastering your car needs some learning and effort. Controls are like you expect them to be; push forward to accelerate, pull to brake and hit the buttons when you want to change gears. It will take a bit of time before you know a circuit, but when you do, you can push your car and yourself to the limit and battle it out against the other drivers. The computer drivers usually drive according to the ideal race-line. So when you want to overtake you’ll have to drive behind them, into their slipstream, causing you to gain more speed and then pass them, or you can brake a little later into a corner and surprise them with a heroic overtaking manoeuvre. When you crash, your car will sustain damage and this means a one-way trip to the pits for repairs. If you crash really hard though, it can mean your car will stop altogether and then it’s end of race for you. When racing a long race, your tyres will wear out and then it may be a good idea to change tyres during the race, just like the real thing. This will improve the handling and performance of your car considerably.
Playing against the computer drivers is fun, but challenging a friend is even more fun. Unfortunately, Formula One Grand Prix doesn’t support serial-link. It is possible though to take turns. In qualifying this is rather straight forward, but in the race this is a bit awkward. Before you start a race you have to decide on the amount of turns every human player will get in a race, which has to be entered in the race option menu. If playing with two players and every person gets two turns in a race, this means that the race will be divided into four parts of roughly the same size. When a player is racing and it’s time for another player to take his turn, a light on the dashboard will flash and a few seconds later the computer will take over the controls of the car. Then the screen changes to the cockpit of the car of the other human racer and a few seconds later he can take control of his own car. This allows you to participate with up to 34 (!!!) human players, so you can play this game with the entire family or with all your bar-mates! But if you are the 34th driver to take a turn, you will have to be very patient.
As you can discern from the text above, the options in Formula One Grand Prix are almost endless and the level of realism is incredible. This may put off some gamers who just don’t want to put in all the effort and just want a more arcade-like racing game. But if you want to get as close to the real formula one experience as possible, then this is absolutely the closest you are going to get on the Amiga! Geoff Crammond perfected the art of making racing games and this is a supreme example of his talent.
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The menu graphics are okay and the in-game graphics have to be seen to be believed. The 3D polygon graphics are very fast and the level of detail is incredible. Every minor detail of the real racing tracks was implemented, adding to the incredible level of realism in this game.
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The intro tune, mildly inspired by the BBC formula one tune, is pretty good. The same can be said about the in-game sounds. Not overly special, but good nonetheless.
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With so many options and details, it’s hard to criticise this game in the playability department. The handling of the car is superb and the level of detail is just stunning. Everything has been thought of, from the car’s detailed set-up, to the help-options for the less experienced and from the possibility of sustaining damage and wear of the car to the slipstreaming when overtaking. Near perfect.
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| Geoff Crammond had outclassed himself with Formula One Grand Prix. In converting formula one to the computer as realistically as possible, he succeeded perfectly. The level of realism is uncanny and everything you could ever want in a formula one game is here. In my opinion, this is the best race simulator for the Amiga. Two thumbs up! |
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Get Amiga Forever with pre-installed Workbench, games, applications, and much more.
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