Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!agate!eos!barry From: barry@eos.UUCP (Kenn Barry) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Software review: Ferrari Formula One Message-ID: <642@eos.UUCP> Date: 29 Apr 88 22:23:16 GMT Organization: QQQCLC Lines: 144 Keywords: game, simulation, driving, review [] What follows is a review I wrote for a local Amiga newsletter. Seemed a shame to waste all that effort on a small audience, so I figured I might as well post it here, too. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Reviewed: Ferrari Formula One, from Electronic Arts, $49.95 -==- Well, if you saw the last issue of the newsletter, you will know that The Kindly Editor has been making my life miserable with his demands for a software review. I've held out as long as I can, so here it is. Now, Bob, will you let me play with my Amiga in peace? _Ferrari Formula One_ is, quite simply, the best road racing simulation I've yet seen. It is a detailed simulation of an entire season of Grand Prix racing (the 1986 season), with accurate renditions of 16 Grand Prix courses, plus a test track at the Ferrari home base in Fiorano. The graphics are detailed and attractive, and provide useful feedback. Sound includes not only the sound of your own engine, but the engines of any other car you are close enough to hear, and the squeal from your tires if you break them loose in a corner. I make an important distinction between games and real simulations. A simulation is a program that tries to accurately simulate the real-world behavior of the thing simulated. Many driving games, alas, do not qualify as simulations. The behavior of the car on the road is too unrealistic, or the screen view is an overhead view instead of an out-the-window view, etc. _Ferrari Formula One_ is a good simulation. Your point of view is from the cockpit of your formula one Ferrari F186; you have standard formula one instruments, rear view mirrors which work, and an out-the-cockpit view. The handling of the car seems quite realistic (though I confess I've never driven a real formula 1 racer). The frame rate looks to be around 5 frames/sec., which is adequate for driving. But this program includes far more than just the races, themselves. You must maintain your car, as well. Parts wear out (quickly, in this kind of driving!) and must be replaced. Choices must be made for the appropriate configuration of your car for each race. Mauro, the head of your pit crew, will recommend settings for the various systems, and so far I've found it wise to always heed his advice. The gear ratios can be changed, as can the wing angles, tire types (can be different for each wheel), and shock stiffness. The engine can be repaired or replaced, and different ROMs can be chosen to control the fuel system (for different fuel/air ratios). And these things MATTER. A worn engine or an unsuitable choice of tires can make victory impossible. Each course in the circuit is best taken on with a different configuration. Weather is also included. A wet track on a rainy day will require you to switch to rain tires, and take the corners much more cautiously. There are three levels of difficulty available. These control the driving skill of your computer-controlled opponents, as well as the likelihood of your car suffering a mechanical failure. At the highest level of difficulty, you must also do your own shifting (the program shifts gears at the correct times for you at the easier levels). But the race, of course, is the thing. You run each race against 7 other drivers, all controlled by the program. Before each race there are two practise sessions for familiarizing yourself with the course, two qualifiers (your pole position in the race is determined by your best lap time in the qualifiers), a warmup, and the race, itself. You may choose to skip these if you prefer, however. I usually skip the qualifiers and race from the back of the pack, since I find finessing my way through the other drivers to be the most exciting and challenging part of a race. The length of the race is settable, from a minimum of 18 kilometers up to a full-length Grand Prix, 2 hours. And the race IS exciting! The sound and graphics create the right atmosphere, and the sense of driving is extremely good. Attention to detail is excellent. You can hear the other cars throttling back and downshifting as they approach a turn, giving you valuable feedback on when to start slowing, yourself. You can even see flame from the tailpipes of the car ahead each time he downshifts, another valuable cue. The rear view mirrors keep you informed of any car breathing down your neck, as well as letting you watch for wear on your rear tires. Control of the car is via the mouse. The right mouse button is your gas pedal, the left is your brakes, and you steer with left/right movement of the mouse. There are keyboard controls for shifting (at the highest difficulty level) and for control of your turbocharger - higher settings give you more horsepower, but cost you on mileage and engine wear. At your home base, Fiorano, there are some extra facilities not available at the Grand Prix tracks (which all have garages for work on your car). Fiorano has a test stand for checking your engine, and a wind tunnel where you can test various settings of the wings (by the way, if any of the Gentle Readers are surprised by wings on a car, look at a formula 1 racer - they have 'em, front and back). Playability is excellent. I've probably put about 30 hours in behind the wheel, and can now usually win the races at the two lower levels of difficulty, but the highest level is still very challenging, and I suspect I will have to drive many more hours at that level to become a top competitor. Successful driving techniques are basically the same as they are in real life, as are penalties for sloppy driving. Skidding onto the shoulder in a turn will cost you much speed, and can lose you anywhere from a fraction of a second to a few second's time, depending on how far from the course you stray. A spinout will cost you even more time. And worst of all is a collision. A collision can put you in the hospital long enough to miss many races. When I raced the full season's events for the second time, I was struck from behind seconds after the race at Hockenheim began, and penalized with 47 days in the hospital, causing me to miss the next three races as well. You are not actually constrained to run a regular season, with all the races in order, but it adds to the excitement as you strive to achieve the best record for the year. The program accumulates the points for all the drivers over the course of the season, as well as a few other useful statistics in individual races, like best lap time. Well, any good review should include the negatives, as well, but I find it difficult to think of many. Closest thing to a bug I discovered was to have the frame rate slow way down when I was running practise laps a couple of times. It would slow for a few seconds, then return to normal, then do it again. But this has happened only rarely, and has yet to occur while I was in an actual race. I've had the program running all day at times, race after race and lap after lap, and have never had it guru. It's difficult to say if this is as good as a driving simulation could get on an Amiga. My guess is "no", but I hope no one ever asks me to write a better one! It would be great if the frame rate were even faster, and there are a couple of additional features I would have liked. One would be a two-player mode, a la "Firepower" or the Amiga versions of Flight Simulator and Jet. Another would be the option of designing your own race track, or modifying your car to something outside the formula 1 rules. Also, the program doesn't seem to know about yellow flags, marring the realism slightly, and hills seem to be unknown, or at least not indicated by the graphics; same for banked tracks. Lastly, the program for some reason does not make you worry about your brakes. The other major systems which are subject to wear have this wear simulated, but your brakes are always fine, and require no maintenance. One really neat improvement would be if someone built an automobile-style controller that could be plugged into the mouse port - something with brake and gas pedals, and a steering wheel. I think that "Ferrari Formula One" made an excellent choice of controller in using the mouse the way they did, the best choice possible using the Amiga's standard hardware, but a mouse is not a steering wheel. Any ambitious hardware types out there? Last but not least, some basics: the program is copy-protected, using a key disk system; it can be backed up, but you must insert the original on request when you boot the copy. The program runs fine in 512K or in systems with expanded memory, but it takes over the machine - multitasking is out. I have not had the opportunity to run it on a 500 or a 2000, just a 1/2 meg and a 1 1/2 meg 1000, but I would assume it runs equally well on all three machines. Some people don't care for driving simulations. If you're one of those, I'm incredibly flattered you've read this far. For everyone else, this game is recommended. - From the Crow's Nest - Kenn Barry NASA-Ames Research Center --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ELECTRIC AVENUE: {most major sites}!ames!eos!barry ARPA: barry@eos