F1 Challenge '99-'02

The utterly mad BAR with different sponsors on each side of the car.

When Electronic Arts lost the rights to produce Formula 1 games to Sony from the 2003 season, many people thought they would give up and just produce a repeat copy of their last F1 game, F12002, and just add a number at the end. But Electronic Arts and ISI had other ideas. EA have owned the F1 license on PC since 1999 and have produced a F1 game every year since then. Now, this is where it becomes interesting. Owning the license since 1999 allowed them to recreate every car and track, even the different layouts of the circuits from then until last year.

Split Personality?

Blasting through the tunnel at Monaco.

This doesn't sound that big a deal, but for a dedicated F1 fan, the chance of racing everything from Ferrari's and BAR's, to the now defunct Orange Arrows, Prost and Stewart teams IS a big deal, as is racing on all the tracks before many were sanitized/ruined by the need for safety. But is it just content over quality? Let’s have a look at the game in more detail and find out.

Installation is the usual simple job and doesn't take up too much space or time. Run the 3D config to set the game up to match your PC specs, create a player and then you have the choice of which year you want to race in. The 1999 cars are obviously slightly slower with different shapes to the current cars and a few different sponsors and teams exist. The BAR cars even tried to run two cars with different sponsors in 1999, but the FIA governing body said no, so they 'halved' the cars with each sponsor taking up one side of the car. It looked very strange, but certainly made for a talking point.

Time Travel

Leaving the pit garage at Melbourne

Each year’s tracks are also accurate and any changes made to the track are accurate for each year. Some tracks didn't change very much, others by quite a bit, mainly to try and slow the cars down as year on year they just get faster and faster. Next up you choose what manufacturer you want to drive for. Choosing a middle of the road team, such as BAR or Jaguar can prove a challenge, but choosing teams such as Prost, Minardi and Jordan is really only for truly mental people as even scoring points is a hard job, never mind getting onto the podium or even winning.

Facing the wrong way after a small(ish) spin. Scary moments!

There's the usual level of detail, all the rules are tweakable with everything from auto gears, traction control and braking markers right up to steering help and the correct racing line being painted on the track. Weather is also changeable and you can specify a certain type, or leave it to chance. Racing these cars in the wet is very different to dry running and needs a steady hand and gentle pressure on the accelerator, traction control or not.

As in all of these types of games, every aspect of your car is totally tweakable as well. Ride height, steering ratio and lock, gearing, tyre type, and suspension settings are all changeable, and they also have a definite effect on the car. You can even feel the changes you've made should you have a Force Feedback steering wheel. Setups can be saved, and even swapped online to create a huge selection of settings that you can try out in practice or test days.

More friendly for your friends

The jaguar being put through it's paces

There are four different game modes, the test day, which is pretty much self explanatory, quick race, which again is fairly easy to guess, season or championship mode which you can race through a whole season, slowly working your way to winning the world championships, and multiplayer, in this case, either via network or Internet. These modes are similar to the modes in previous games, but the Internet multiplayer is vastly improved compared to the last game. In F12002, Internet multiplayer games were limited to 6, at the most, 7 people, and even then lag and warp were commonplace.

ISI admitted that they only really tested it over a network, so it's understandable that the lag in Internet games is an issue. ISI listened to the criticism, and have substantially improved the multiplayer, to such an extent that it's possible to run races with up to 10 people if everyone has a decent connection. This bodes well for the online racing scene as, just like F12002, F1CC is expected to receive several mods, some of which are already in development. This should also drive sales of the game, as not everyone wants to race F1 cars. Quite how Grand Prix Legends (from 1998 no less) can support a full race field of 20 cars if the host has a fast connection, but F1 Career Challenge cannot handle more than 8-10 even if everyone has broadband is, however, beyond me.

Sounds great?

WIlliams over Jordan, Ferrari and the other Williams.

The sounds are good, but only that. Many of the cars engine sounds are almost the same, but this is most likely to be due to the same engine configuration of all the cars, something that's a particular bone of contention to me, but this isn't a rant about F1 in general, so I'll leave it there. ISI have admitted that time and space constraints limited what they could do with the sounds, and there may well be a patch in the future that should return the cars to their high pitched, screaming glory.

The visuals are wonderfully detailed, graphics with excellent car detail and modeling and the tracks are also excellent. If you know the track well enough, it's even possible to tell what year you're racing in by trackside sponsors and track layout, it's that good. Things also seem to move slightly faster than the last game, F12002, certainly on my system, but some optimisation is only to be expected.

Driven to extremes?

You can race the old, high speed Hockenheim, not the new, sanitised version they race now.

So, now that you've read about the game and its various options, how does it play? Very well, actually. It's all highly polished stuff with excellent presentation, well laid out menu's with all options easily found and modified. The cars feel just as fast as they actually are with a good illusion of speed and you can hardly believe you can brake so late into corners, or go so fast out of them. The power of the cars just makes for amazing straight line speed and dicing with the AI or other online players can be very exciting, but also slightly worrying as you know even the slightest mistake can mean they'll be seconds into the distance, or you could take them off also.

The game does have a real problem though, and it's a problem in common with most Formula 1 games, and not just the PC versions. Apart from new track detail, the option for the previous three seasons and the cars to go with each season, it's essentially the same game as F12002. It's all just very similar, same tracks, slightly different cars, same drivers for the most part, the odd different track or sponsor here and there, there's just not really enough difference between this and other F1 games of the past.

Should you buy it then? Well, I’d be buying it, but(and I have to say this), just for the mods that are due. Classic Trans Am? Sports cars? FIA GT? All mods that I'm really looking forward too, and as I do most of my racing online these days, the improved online mode certainly whets my appetite for the future. It's a good game, don't doubt it, but I can see more copies being sold because of the mods that are due than for the F1 game itself. That's not the best thing, but I doubt ISI and EA will actually mind one bit. Sales are sales after all!