Submitted article: Review of Psygnosis' "Formula 1"

[Ataxia]

Im off out tonight for a few beers with the lads but when I get home later and the family are all away tucked up in bed I think I'll try to answer the age-old question "Could Domenico Schiaterella ever win at Estoril in the Simtek Ford?"

Wish us luck.......

Better yet since you're out for a few beers

Could a drunken Domenico Schiattarella ever win at Estoril in the Simtek Ford?

The answer to the first question is "Yes, after over-taking Hill on the last lap" and for the second Id postulate Schiaterella was often drunk behind the wheel based on his performances in '95

And in the morning, he went by the name of Vomenico Schiattisguttzout.

[f1andrea]

Ugh F1 98! An awful awful game.

Some of the bad points have already been mentioned but there's so much more crap in there. Remember how the cars lost all their textures (apart from yours) when there were too many on screen? Infact the graphics were pretty awful full stop!

True!!

I don't know why, but in these days I've played it again. As I wrote here in page 2, I used to play in these way: full race distance, first 4-5 laps going in wrong way (doing funny crashes ) and then try to recover.
I've done it with the Stunt Park circuit, one of the two special track of the game. There is an huge bug in this track: don't know why, where there is the bridge (because the track is like an '8' form) the IA cars sometimes going crazy and start to hang oneself. If you crash into they, also you been involved into this crazy bug as you can see in the images:


(I'm in the air, not on the asphalt!)



I don't know how, but I was able to exit from this situation and I start my recover, but lap by lap I understand that the cars been involved into the bug were retired from the race (and in F1 98 IA cars never do it) for two reason:
- during my recover I've been forced to unlap and I've never overtake that cars
- the position index went crazy changing even if I don't overtake anyone

Really crazy!

[MrMG]

Crazy indeed!

It was somewhat fun to choose Spa and go down Raidillon backwards at full speed. The cars physics would go crazy as the game engine struggled to cope with the airtime!

[f1andrea]

Crazy indeed!

It was somewhat fun to choose Spa and go down Raidillon backwards at full speed. The cars physics would go crazy as the game engine struggled to cope with the airtime!

I've played at Spa this morning!
There are another three funny bugs
- If you run wrong way, in the first lap when you find the leader, your index position switch from 22 to 1 and every time a car overtake you, you go 2nd, 3rd
- In the italian version if the leader is Alesi or Herbert, the commentator says "Salo (or Diniz) is the leader". If you run Verstappen, he doesn't say anything
- If you push a car into barriers at the last corner of Spa, the cars remain framed into the barriers (Huge bug ). I crashed Schumacher into the barriers before the old Bus Stop Chicane, he coming to run in circle always framed into the barriers. At that moment, I start to run in the right way, after 2 laps the Schumacher's car disappear and I overtake him but I don't have find his car for the rest of the race.

[CoopsII]

The 2000 version had a unique way of dealing with other cars retiring; they'd hover in the air before disappearing. I won in Austria as Coulthard by undertaking a handily floating Barrichello.

[MrMG]

I always found it funny in F1 97 how an AI car could go up in flames, yet the driver calmly drives it back into the pitlane!

I don't think any F1 games have really done the whole retirement thing well, except from maybe the Grand Prix series where you see a marshal pushing the car away (and being lifted by an invisible crane). It's silly how in the Codemasters games you sometimes have to sit behind the Safety Car for several laps, yet there's no debris or retired cars to be seen (they just disappear after 10 seconds).

I'd like to see a wrecked or broken down car sitting at the side of the track for several laps whilst the SC is out. Hopefully the next-gen technology will allow them to show marshalls/cranes/recovery vehicles in F1 2015.

[AustralianStig]

I always found it funny in F1 97 how an AI car could go up in flames, yet the driver calmly drives it back into the pitlane!

I don't think any F1 games have really done the whole retirement thing well, except from maybe the Grand Prix series where you see a marshal pushing the car away (and being lifted by an invisible crane). It's silly how in the Codemasters games you sometimes have to sit behind the Safety Car for several laps, yet there's no debris or retired cars to be seen (they just disappear after 10 seconds).

I'd like to see a wrecked or broken down car sitting at the side of the track for several laps whilst the SC is out. Hopefully the next-gen technology will allow them to show marshalls/cranes/recovery vehicles in F1 2015.

Does the safety car actually come out in F1 2013? I played an entire 50% race distance season on F1 2012 but no matter how bad the crash was the SC never seemed to come out because the cars ghosted during a big accident. Also the lack of DNFs in races bugged me - all cars would usually finish the race! That made me pretty unhappy with the franchise and is basically the main reason I didn't buy F1 2013.

[MrMG]

I've seen it a few times in 2013 at least. It came out right after I made a pitstop in Australia (Getting me from 14th to 2nd!) and again in Bahrain. I only ever saw it once in 2012, after both the Toro Rosso's had a big collision in Australia.

In other F1 game news, check out the cheese-tastic ending for F1 Beyond the Limit/Heavenly Symphony on the Mega CD!

[watka]

I always found it funny in F1 97 how an AI car could go up in flames, yet the driver calmly drives it back into the pitlane!

I don't think any F1 games have really done the whole retirement thing well, except from maybe the Grand Prix series where you see a marshal pushing the car away (and being lifted by an invisible crane). It's silly how in the Codemasters games you sometimes have to sit behind the Safety Car for several laps, yet there's no debris or retired cars to be seen (they just disappear after 10 seconds).

I'd like to see a wrecked or broken down car sitting at the side of the track for several laps whilst the SC is out. Hopefully the next-gen technology will allow them to show marshalls/cranes/recovery vehicles in F1 2015.

I don't play the game much any more, but on F1 Challenge I would often alter the game settings files to leave retired cars out on the track unrecovered. You could have a huge pile up on Indianapolis.

[FullMetalJack]

I always found it funny in F1 97 how an AI car could go up in flames, yet the driver calmly drives it back into the pitlane!

I don't think any F1 games have really done the whole retirement thing well, except from maybe the Grand Prix series where you see a marshal pushing the car away (and being lifted by an invisible crane). It's silly how in the Codemasters games you sometimes have to sit behind the Safety Car for several laps, yet there's no debris or retired cars to be seen (they just disappear after 10 seconds).

I'd like to see a wrecked or broken down car sitting at the side of the track for several laps whilst the SC is out. Hopefully the next-gen technology will allow them to show marshalls/cranes/recovery vehicles in F1 2015.

I don't play the game much any more, but on F1 Challenge I would often alter the game settings files to leave retired cars out on the track unrecovered. You could have a huge pile up on Indianapolis.

I tried doing that thinking it would leave my car out if I had retired so I could watch the rest of the race without it automatically simming it.