Grand Prix Challenge

by Melbourne House

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000083GIP
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: March 4, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #31,397 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Enter a universe born of speed, power and excitement!

Grand Prix Challenge offers 5 addictive game modes that will keep you coming back for more, from championship mode where you can live all the thrill of a full championship season to frenzy multiplayer races up to 4 players in split screen. Formula One gaming has never been so much fun.

Game Features:

• 5 addictive game modes
• 22 cars to select from and 17 unique tracks
• Interactive pit stops
• 3 different levels of handling
• 4 different levels of artificial intelligence
• Multiplayer races up to 4 players in split screen

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Absolute Best F1 Racing Game to Date for PS2!!!!!, March 9, 2003

By 

James M. Stafford III (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Grand Prix Challenge (Video Game)

Grand Prix Challenge is the latest F1-based game to come to the North American market, and it is definitely one of the best the PlayStation2 has seen to date. EA Sports has dominated F1-based PS2 games in North America, but with its great F1 franchise coming to an end, Atari has come up to the starting grid with Grand Prix Challenge, which is both friendlier to the newcomer to F1 racing games and adaptable enough to accommodate a nice array of F1 gaming experience.

GAMEPLAY MODES
There are six gameplay modes available in Grand Prix Challenge. Each has its own 'quirks,' whereas some features are common to most if not all of these gameplay modes.

Quick Race: Here, the player can participate in a single race, but the player will automatically begin the race in last position. Beforehand, the player can select a race venue, AI and handling difficulty, a team, and a driver. In Quick Race Mode, car tuning is not permitted, which could give the player a severe handicap compared to the rest of the cars in a race depending upon the car/team and the circuit selected.

Grand Prix: This is a full grand prix weekend, from practice to qualifying to warm-up to the race itself. Beforehand, the player can select a race venue, AI and handling difficulty, a team, and a driver.

Championship: This is the entire 2002 F1 season in order; essentially, this is a set of seventeen consecutive Grand Prix Mode events.

Time Trial: This gameplay mode is useful for learning a circuit and for testing vehicle set-ups by racing against the clock with no other vehicles on the selected circuit. The player can select the number of laps permitted; the more laps a player chooses to use (up to Unlimited), the longer the player can stay on the circuit trying to score lower and lower lap times, allowing for the player to see how the chosen team's car will handle on long runs during a race as the fuel is depleted, the tires become worn, etc.

Grand Prix Challenge: This gameplay mode presents ten challenges; each challenge must be successfully completed (by having the most points at the end of the challenge) in order to unlock the next challenge. See the Grand Prix Challenge section below for more specific information on each of the ten challenges in this gameplay mode.

Multiplayer: Here, two players can race simultaneously with split screen action. All circuits are available, and the players can choose to work through an entire grand prix weekend (practice, qualifying, warm-up, and race).

TUNING
Diehard F1 enthusiasts may be disappointed that there are not many tuning options available. Further, there is not the precision of tuning as is available in EA Sports' F1 2002. On the positive side, however, Grand Prix Challenge DOES permit the use of Intermediate Tires, which has been severely lacking from many other F1-based games.

Also added in Grand Prix Challenge is the ability to use traction control. Whereas the real-world F1 season in 2002 did not permit traction control to be used until the fifth race of the season (to allow those teams with smaller budgets to have more time to develop their traction control systems), Grand Prix Challenge allows the use of traction control in all seventeen events of the season.

Traction control (as well as anti-lock brakes) can be toggled on and off, depending on the chosen handling difficulty. In some cases, traction control can also be toggled between low and high sensitivity. This allows for plenty of experimentation, to determine how using a given traction control setting in different corners or different racing situations will affect vehicle handling and lap times.

GRAPHICS AND LOADING TIMES
The release of Gran Turismo 3 was greatly anticipated, in part due to its announced photorealistic graphics. Grand Prix Challenge does not have photorealistic graphics, but nonetheless has the absolute BEST graphics of any racing game yet on the PlayStation2. While it is apparent from the airbox camera view that the driver's helmet is not truly round, enough polygons have been used to make virtually everything in the game appear in its real-world dimensions and shapes.

Also, the fact that the game runs flawlessly at 60fps - even when there are fifteen other vehicles ahead all spewing tire smoke under severe braking at the start of a race - WITHOUT DROPPING A SINGLE FRAME is a truly marvelous programming feat. This high quality of graphics and framerate is maintained throughout the game, whether in a race, a circuit overview, demos, or the movie-like backgrounds of menus.

Grand Prix Challenge is a DVD-Rom based game. As such, a lot more data can be stored on a single disc. While one might expect that all this "extra" data can take a long time to load, loading times for Grand Prix Challenge are extremely short overall. In many cases, the time required to load the next segment of the game is virtually unnoticeable.

OVERALL
Without question, Grand Prix Challenge is the absolute best F1-based game to come to North American shores for the PlayStation2 console. While some "extras" such as interactive circuit driving instructions and license/driving tests would be nice, this game is still extremely fun and provides good, varying levels of challenge. If only the AI were better in wheel-to-wheel racing situations, Grand Prix Challenge could shine even more. Those who adore simulation games may be slightly disappointed, especially at the lack of tuning options and specificity, but the gameplay itself more than makes up for these shortcomings.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Updated review, January 18, 2004

By 

Alfredo Campos Mejia - See all my reviews

This review is from: Grand Prix Challenge (Video Game)

I give this game 4.5 stars.

My impressions after 2 weeks

THE GOOD IMPRESSIONS AT FIRST:

- Real and exciting F1 car sounds, when accelerating and when slowing down.
- Great graphics, the cars look great and the tracks look very good, almost as good as GT3.
- Magnificent replay. You can watch the race from the view of a TV camera and from any car. There are 6 views per car (including rear view). In replay mode you can get very useful information about top speed of any car, the line the drivers follow, where they brake, etc. So you can use that to tune up your car in the next race properly and improve your driving.

THE BAD IMPRESSIONS AT FIRST:

- Difficult to follow a line in the track with the dual shock controller, so my car seemed to be driven by a drunk driver. That was frustrating.
- The right analog stick to break-accelerate the car is too sensitive, so it's difficult to keep speed constant in slow turns.
- A few options to set you car: Downforce, Gear box ratio, tires, suspension and break balance. I was used to adjust more things in Formula One 2001.

Now that I have played the game many hours I want to tell you what I think.

FLAWS:

- The accelerator is very sensitive.

THINGS I'D LOVE TO HAVE HAD IN THE GAME:

- It'd have been cool to have pit crew members. Ghosts change the car tires, like in Gran Turismo 3.
- Radio communications, like in Formula One 2001.
- Rear mirrors.
- More realistic car behavior when crashing or hiting another car and to lose control of the car if the impact is strong.

MY IMPRESSIONS NOW:

- The learning curve at first is steep. After first frustration I can now control the car, follow a line and avoid contact with cars. It took many hours, but is rewarding.
- Taking a bad line will put you out of the track or make you lose time. That's what I love, a simulation, not an arcade game, so you can learn and improve a lot in this game.
- You have an option to improve your times alone in the track and you can see a ghost car of your best lap and that is really useful to drive better and improve your skills.
- The game is addicting. I have so much fun with it. I just want to keep playing. I have Formula One 2001 (Sony), F1 2002 (EA), and this game is the one I like to play more.
- It's OK to be able to set only Downforce, Gear box ratio, brake balance and tires. The game is so fun anyway.
- Awesome sense of speed, excellent framerate. You feel you are really racing.
- The crowd cheers and "ohhhhhh" when you crash. Turn the traction control off, make some donuts (spins) in front of the crown and listen to them cheering at you :-)

I've heard you can use a Force Feedback Wheel with this game and that using it is a superb experience and give you a great control of the car handling and speed, so I think I'll buy one when I can.

I even enjoy playing in the most difficult level. I'm always in the last position, but it's fun, because you try to reach the cars, a Minardi, and is real, very difficult, and you feel like someone give you the opportunity to race with the big guys and discover that is really hard what they do. I love even more F1 now.

My recomendation is: Buy it if you like F1 and love racing. You'll admire even more what that drivers do in real life and will know the difficulties that every track has when you watch the races on TV.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best RACING SIM on the PS2 or anything else., May 5, 2003

By 

Stephen M. Reese (Napa, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Grand Prix Challenge (Video Game)

Wow! What an awesome game. The controls take a few hours to get used to but once you do this thing rocks! I have never raced a game where I actually felt like I was racing other people (except online of course) or had the adrenaline rush this game gives. I actually have raced professionally (i.e. I got paid) and still instruct so I'm in real formula cars on a regular basis. No this game doesn't have the ultra-realistic physics of say GP4,GPL, or even GT3 but it does have in abundance the feel of being in a real car in a real race. The replays are sick, the sounds, the frame rate, the AI dukeing it out its all good. For 4 times the amount of money you aren't going to find a better RACING title. P.S. I like it so much I wrote this review something I never thought I would do. Buy it!