A Brief History of the F1 Video Game

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Ever since people realised that looking at pixels on a screen was fun they have had racing games.

One of the 1st was Gran Trak 10 in 1974. Although it was only white pixels on a black screen its simple format was futuristic compared to pong and the other early games.

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Atari expanded on the format and added an extra gear and released Le Mans in 1976

As computers became more powerful so did the games. In 1981 Sega produced ‘Turbo’. This was the 1st game to give us the traditional 3rd person view and formula 1-esque cars even if the colours were a bit on the harsh side.

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A year later ‘Pole Position’ followed and with it came the 1st real life circuit at Fuji Speedway in Japan and the 1st cartoon spinoff. A sequel followed in 1983 which added additional tracks and music. An improved version of this is now available for iPhones.

Games were becoming more and more realistic. In 1984 REVS brought the gamer to Silverstone for the 1st time and introduced us to Geoff Crammond. This was the 1st to bring us 3D polygons and total freedom when driving. This meant I could never get passed Woodcote on the pre-lap warm up but I was only 7 by the time I played it but it was my 1st experience with racing.

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Sega were dominating the arcade racing market with games like Outrun and Virtua Racing but for the Home gamer there was only one game of choice.

Geoff Crammonds Formula One Grand Prix.

This 1991 title gave us a full racing season and driver line up and more importantly realistic driving. I have many memories of multi-car pile ups on the 1st corner of Monza, usually with the driving aids on so while most of the opposition lost wings and wheels I came out the other side unscathed.

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There were 3 sequels to F1GP;

GP2 was made under official FIA license and brought us all the circuits, drivers and sponsors from the 1994 season based on the line up at the British and German GP’s due to the number of driver changes and tragedies during the season.

GP3 in 1998 brought us wet weather for the 1st time and damage caused by debris on the circuit.

The final Microprose F1 Game was GP4 which brought us the finest simulation seen to date with updated physics and weather and network play over LAN.


While Microprose was dominating the PC market the consoles were not missing out on their piece of the racing pie.

Sony along with Pysgnosis brought us the Formula 1 series in 1996 for the playstation.

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This gave us a chance to race in the 1995 season with commentary from the Legend that is Murray Walker. This proved to be a popular game series for the fans and broadcasters alike.

When ITV took over the coverage of F1 in the UK they used footage from the 1997 game with commentary from Martin Brundle to demonstrate the course before the race.

The series released titles every year up until 2002 when the PS2 version was released, This was to be Murray’s last F1 game he commentated on as James Allen had taken over the duties on ITV.

A new version of the game was released each season reflecting rule changes, new circuits and driver line ups. Jacques Villeneuve had copywrited his name and image and did not give developers permission to use him in F1 games.

In 2007 Sony released their final F1 game. This time for the Playstation 3 this was essentially the 2006 PS2 game with enhanced graphics.

For the 2 years that followed there was a no major F1 game released on any format until Codemasters brought us F1 2009 for the wii and PSP.

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This was bundled along with a steering wheel and featured all the drivers and tracks from the 2009 season. It has multiple game modes from quick race up to a career mode where you start in the Toro Rosso and have to work up to a place in a faster team if you are fast enough. This title also had driver aids similar to the F1GP series as well as KERS even though all cars have this ability in the game.

The future lies with F1 2010.

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This will be released for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Windows platforms. It will feature "the most complicated weather system ever seen in a racing game". Standing water will appear on the track and the amount of rubber on the track will also affect grip.

It will feature 24 drivers and the 12 teams in the current season although it’s not known if Yamamoto or Chandhok will be used for HRT.

This promises to be the most advanced F1 game ever released. Along with internet play I can see F1 staying a popular genre for years to come.

This concludes my brief history with the F1 video game. While the advancements in technology has brought us more accurate simulation than ever before with games like rFactor, I’ve always enjoyed the gaming side more and I’ll look forward to seeing some of you online.
 
Ahh nice. I still remember playing on the original game of pong. Likewise, on Geoff Crammonds Formula One Grand Prix, where you had to wait for the graphics to build at the start of every race.

To be honest, I've never really been that big a fan of the F1 racing sims. Saying this, I think I will purchase F1 2010, it obviously looks awesome will look forward to playing it. Not that I will be any good of course :D
 
Played and enjoyed most of them. Except for F1 07 on the PS3 (which is lots of fun as an arcade-ish game), pretty much all other console offerings have been poor.

I remember Geoff Crammond was considered a god in the heyday of the Microprose games. With the king of the castle being GP2. That goliath of a game that spawned literally thousands of homebrew content for years afterwards. Still today I would consider it the best all round F1 simulator ever produced on the PC.
 
I still have GP3 and GP4, the wet weather effects are amazing with drying lines appearing and whatnot, i remember having a wet start at Monza for a 100% race but it was only raining for the first few laps so i planned a 3 stopper to accommodate changes from wet-inters-dry, and it worked perfectly, i hope Codemasters recreate that
 
F1 2009 is also available for the iPhone.

Graphically very similar to the wii which is excellent for a hand held device.

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Nobody has mentioned my first experience in F1 video gaming - the wondeful Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco Grand Prix on the Sega Mega Drive complete with voice overs from the man himself.

You couldn't win anything in Master Mode unless you used the manual gearbox and (for me at least) this was impossible with the standard Mega Drive controller - the purchase of a joystick controller sorted this and I won every race other than Monaco (always crashed at the swimming pool :()
 
FB said:
Nobody has mentioned my first experience in F1 video gaming - the wondeful Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco Grand Prix on the Sega Mega Drive complete with voice overs from the man himself.

You couldn't win anything in Master Mode unless you used the manual gearbox and (for me at least) this was impossible with the standard Mega Drive controller - the purchase of a joystick controller sorted this and I won every race other than Monaco (always crashed at the swimming pool :()

Its not a game I ever played. I always always an Amiga fan and didn't play the mega drive much apart from Sonic and the usual early games.

I always struggled with Monaco as well when playing F1GP, always used to crash just before the tunnel and at the swimming pool and again at rascasse, infact I used to crash on nearly every corner. It was a good job the driving aids kept my car intact!
 
Just a small update for those people who have been living on mars the last few weeks.

F1 2010 is out this Friday 24th September!!!

If you are unlucky enough to not have seen the trailer yet here it is:


It looks and sounds amazing, the only thing I've noticed missing is damage... I'm not quite sure how that is going to work in the game.
 
Sorry, but that is so unrealistic. That Red Bull's front wing is hardly flexing at all! LOL


Looks really good, I might have to dig out the steering wheel for my PC.
 
I need a new PS3 before I can play it. I could get one at the end of the month but the 320GB version is out the same time as GT5 so I'm resisting till then but I will be purchasing F1 2010. Now I just need something to keep the other half busy for a few months.
 
McLarenSupremo said:
Anyone else got a PS3, perhaps some CTA racing on F1 2010? :D

I have one and have pre-ordered it for it. Hopefully Amazon will do what they usually do with pre-orders and I'll get it a day or so early.
 
Speshal said:
Didn't quite know where to post this so here will do.

Build your own racetrack in Google maps then go and race around it (I found it bloody hard to control but then again I am a spaz when it comes to driving games)

I had a play with this last night, the cars are very hard to control, nothing like any racing game I've ever played. The concept is good but it would be better if they could of used images from google street view as well instead of just plotting a course using maps and generating random 3D buildings along the course.
 
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