Few games have had a really big impact on me over the years but
one of those that did was Geoff Crammond's F1GP on the Amiga.
I can remember the first time I saw screen shots of it in the
Amiga magazines I got very excited. The graphics seemed amazing
in those days and the level of detail was very impressive. I
had already owned Geoff Crammond's first F1 simulation, Revs
on the Commodore 64 (ahhhhh those were the days :).
F1GP became one of my all time most played games (along with
Falcon & Elite) and gave my brother and I endless hours of enjoyment.
The follow up to F1GP was equally as revolutionary, with awesome
SVGA graphics and even more attention to detail than the original.
The biggest drawback with GP2 was that it needed a monster PC
to run it, in fact it's taken 4 years for PC's to get up enough
horsepower to be able to run GP2 with the graphics options maxed
out.
As soon as GP3 was announced with support for 3D accelerators
many F1 fans (myself included) started to get very excited again.
There have been several Formula 1 games released since GP2,
but none (except GPL) have even come close to the level of detail
set by GP2. Considering the advances made between F1GP1 and
GP2 the expectations for GP3 were very high. You would expect
GP3 to be received with open arms by the racing community. This
however was not the case …………
Gp3 was released to a mixed reaction, on the various Racing
Forums some hailed it as the greatest Formula 1 game ever written
and others used less flattering and somewhat more colourful
descriptions that seemed to revolve around sucking and blowing
:-). The truth (as is often the case) lies somewhere in the
middle.
Part of the cause of the disappointment with GP3 was that it
was released with some show-stopping bugs. Few games are released
bug free these days but GP3 had some nasty ones that really
upset many fans of the genre. Fortunately Hasbro responded with
a patch that fixed many of these bugs and so it is the patched
version that I will look at in this review.
Graphics
The graphics in GP3 are pretty good on the whole, not state
of the art by any means but they are a big improvement over
GP2's. Geoff Crammond has stated that the Graphics engine was
rewritten from the ground up, the evidence points to this not
being the case. The graphics structure is identical to GP2 except
with the addition of a GamejamsH folder for the hardware-accelerated
graphics. There are also some legacy issues like the frame rate
being limited to 25 fps. A 25 fps limit may have been acceptable
in GP2's day but people expect a lot more considering today's
hardware. Gp3's graphics are a mix of 2D and 3D that works for
the most part but I can't help thinking that performance would
be better had the graphics engine been entirely 3D.
The car models are very good but unfortunately all the cars
use the same model. This is a shame, as I would've hoped that
all of the cars would be accurately modeled like they are in
F1 2000. Another minor disappointment is the lack of the T-camera
on the cars. It's the little details like this that I look for
and while it's not a big deal it does detract slightly from
the overall immersion.
There are some very nice graphical touches like the way the
track brightens up when the Sun comes out or darkens when it
goes in. You really do notice the changes in weather especially
when it's threatening to rain. This really adds greatly to the
immersion and goes a long way to making up for some of the flaws
that I've pointed out already.
Talking of weather, the rain effects are pretty convincing too
particularly the reflections caused by water on the track. When
it starts to rain the track gradually gets wetter and as the
race continues you start to get wet and dry lines forming. No
other racing game to date has had weather effects this good.
The cockpits are very detailed and easy to read and relays a
lot of information to the driver. Another nice touch is the
way your view is thrown forward to simulate the effects of braking
when in the cockpit view. In the external views you can see
the drivers heads being thrown side to side by the force of
G.
Sound
The sound in GP3 can only be described as adequate. This is
probably the most disappointing aspect of GP3. Engine sounds
are the standard lawnmower fare. You cannot hear any sound from
the other cars in the race, that being said, I'm not convinced
that you would be able to hear other cars above the sound of
your own engine in a real F1 car. The crash sounds are a fairly
dull metallic sounding thud regardless of whether you hit a
metal barrier or a rubber tyre wall.
