F1 Fanatic

@Fer-no65 That Jackie Stewart video is terrific!

Formula 1 ’97. For every reason @Ajokay said and so much more.

I’d been in love with Formula 1 (the sport) before 1997, but I always look back to that season and that game as the point at which I know I would be ‘married’ to F1 for the rest of my life.

@keithcollantine: it is, isn’t it? It’s great to see him commenting about the lap, the circuit, the bumps and everything… they really did a great job with the cars and tracks back then.

To think they were showing videos about a simulator released in 1998 at the Williams garage 8 or 9 years later!

similar article here- http://wtf1.co.uk/post/1069229427

( @keithcollantine is there any chance of putting the reply box on every page within a thread like this?)

@ajokay said it all, and it’s F1 97. It was the first F1 game I had and if I didn’t own any of the others, I wouldn’t miss them. It is THE F1 game. I remember taking great pleasure in punting Michael Schumacher off and trying to get Panis and Nakano to fill the other two steps on the podium.

I once did a full length race at Spa – I can’t have been any older than 10 – and took great joy in spending most of the race trying to catch Ukyo Katayama for 15th place. I did it, and felt like a king. Few games since have brought me such joy from such apparently little success.

I’ve since bought and played the original Formula 1, based on the 95 season, and I have to say I prefer it. The cheat where Murray spews out random phrases is without doubt the best cheat on any game ever, and the fact that it has driver changes throughout the season and Simtek even disappear after the Monaco Grand Prix make it brilliant.

However, I bought the game when I was 19, not 9, and F1 97 has all the nostalgia, and is why for me, it’s the best F1 game ever.

F1 World Grand Prix on the N64 by a huge margin. For it’s time it was incredible. It was also my first computer game :D, I got it probably a year or two after I started watching F1.

At the time I was a huge fan of Schumacher watching him fight off Hakkinen. Ever since then I can’t bring myself to play Schumacher in a racing game because I never felt I’d do him justice.

I used to play Irvine a lot. That’s also when I became a fan of Minardi and Trulli.

Other notables? I liked F1 Pole position 96, again on the N64, not so much because of the graphics, or physics, (both of which were… old). But it was fun and the key point, you could re arrange who the drivers drove for, and what engines the cars had.

I always used to put hill in the Forti just so he didn’t win everything, and he’d still always get points.

I’ll be honest, if they did something like that in a modern F1 game it would increase my play time 20 fold.

Honestly speaking, F1 2011 is the best available today, but taking into account what they could do given more freedom? it’s a long way off. (Granted most of that blame rests with the rules the FIA/Bernie/person responsible sets them)

…..nostalgia … :D

I agree with Spud and Fer No.65, the challenges were great.

@fer-no65 I remember trying to get as far down the track as I could before the wheel flew off! It was a mental challenge! And you’re right, it was impossible but I bet you managed to do it anyway. I know I did. That was a life box ticked right there. The only thing that slightly irked me was the fact that they got the Hungaroring wrong. They had two extra turns, which you can see on a satellite image, immediately after turn 3. It might have been part of the track years ago but it was incorrect at the time the game was out. But I’m nitpicking. It was a great, great game. :D

@fer-no65 I remember doing that particular one and the “Damon Hill in the Arrows” challenge. I couldn’t do them for aaaaaages, and left it alone for weeks. Then for some reason, I hopped back in from of the N64, and had a go. I managed it after three or four tries. The Hungaroring thing used to annoy me, not because of the 2nd gear thing, but because I’m so pedantic, and I knew that corner wasn’t really there. :P

But yeah, I think those challenges were, by far, the best aspect of the game. Codies have done something vaguely similar with their “scenarios” but these are just glorified time trials really. I would love for them, or any other developer, to take up the running and put a proper “Challenge scenario” into a new game. Though I fear if that were to happen, I’d never leave my house. :P