Customer Reviews

Grand Prix Challenge

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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!

I've been a fan of F1 sims for a long time. I started with Geoff Crammond's World Circuit in 1993 and have played every sim that's come along since for both the PC and the Sony PlayStation. Some have come close to perfection, many have failed miserably. Grand Prix 3 was my most recent sim, and it certainly had its drawbacks. A locked frame rate hampered any sense of speed and a dated graphics engine made the game look poor - despite the great realism and good AI.

Grand Prix 4 was widely hailed as the ultimate successor to the F1 sim crown, but the game is so difficult to come by in the States and the rampant price gouging by used sellers on Amazon will leave you to pony up $90 for a five year old game that retailed for $49.99 back in 2002.

And unless you've got a PS3, there's not really many other options for good F1 gaming. The "Formula One" series of titles for the PS2 have only been released in Europe in recent years and EA's horrible line of F1 games has come to an end. Thankfully we have Grand Prix Challenge. It presents a great balance of fun, realistic game play, good physics, a forgiving damage model, and an amazing sense of speed. You'll see a full grid of 22 cars blast off the line, tire smoke and all, at a ripping 60 frames per second. The feeling of speed is enough to make you tense and your palms sweat as you fling your 800+ hp machine around the track.

Let me be clear though: Grand Prix Challenge is not an ultra realistic hardcore simulation - but it's not too far off from being one either. While it does't have the intricate set up system from the Grand Prix sims - this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Set up is sufficient to change what you need to get the most out of the car and get back out on the track. The physics model is realistic enough to be convincing and give you the feel of driving an F1 machine. It's not overly touchy and the added ability to adjust your level of traction control over the course of a lap is an added bonus. The main point here is that it feels right - and it's getting the feeling of driving an incredibly nimble and powerful car that the game has in spades.

The AI and damage model aren't perfect, but they are more than just the sum of their parts. The AI is challenging, especially on the Hard level - you'll be hard pressed to keep the likes of Schumacher behind you in anything less than the sister F2002. They will charge down the inside if they feel they have an opening, and will certainly push to outbreak you into a corner. They don't mind banging wheels with you either, but it's not the abhorrent bashing fest seen in EA's line of F1 titles. The damage model is more than forgiving and it will take the most brainless of moves to destroy your ride. Bumping on the track will accumulate minimal damage over the course of a stint - all of which is repaired during stops. Neither is completely perfect, but neither really detracts from the game either. They balance each other out and make for an incredibly satisfying and intense racing experience.

The graphics are simply gorgeous, even for a PS2 title. They are easily on par with Gran Turismo 3, which came out around the same time. Tracks are beautifully detailed, realistically modeled, and shine with great extras - from the yachts at Monaco, to the smoke bombs in the middle of the stands at Monza, to waving flags, flashing cameras, and the cheers and air horns from the thousands of fans gathered to watch you race. Bang wheels with an opponent as you blast by a grandstand and you'll hear the crowd roar to life with excitement. The rain graphics are also very well done, and the added lightning flashes and thunder make a wet race a harrowing experience. The graphics and added details like those I've listed really add to the feeling of being there.

Lastly, the pit stops are a nice added feature. There is a quick minigame you can opt for while cruising down the pit entrance. If you select it, you'll have a quick timing game - similar to the swing meter in the Tiger Woods' golf games. Nail the timing and you'll get an extra fast stop by putting extra pressure on your pit crew to perform. Miss, and you'll lose valuable time; especially with Michael pushing that amazing F2002 to its limits to catch you.

What are the drawbacks? Well the damage model is a tad too easy. The AI is a little overaggressive - but as I said they still cancel each other out and never make for a frustrating experience. I wish the wet weather racing was a bit more challenging - I didn't feel too strong of a shift from dry grip to the feeling that I was hydroplaning in the wet. There are flags, but the AI doesn't seem to cause too many accidents on their own. There is also the omission of mechanical failures and the safety car. Also the music is definitely on the arcade side - reminiscent of what you would hear at your local Dave and Busters. It's not bad - but you're probably going to want to mute it while you listen to those engines scream - which is something else they also got nearly dead on. In-car sounds are fantastic, and track side sounds are nearly spot on, the engines just a little off sounding when they drive by. Ultimately the game rises above it's faults - while each of these technical issues would seem bothersome, they never really become noticeable while playing.

So there you go. Is Grand Prix Challenge the end all be all of F1 sims? No. Is it an immensely fun, playable, and extremely well balanced F1 game that replicates the feeling of competing against the worlds best drivers on fantastic circuits, in blazingly fast machines, and all while giving you a sense of speed so strong that it will make your head spin? Yes. If you have even a passing interest in F1, or, like me, you feel the disappointment in the overpriced gouging of Grand Prix 4 and long for something better, buy Grand Prix Challenge. It isn't completely perfect, but since when has a lasting relationship not been about compromise?

I have been an F1 fan for many years and therefore, Ive followed closely each and every release of F1 Titles. I have not had so much fun playing an F1 game since the first Formula 1 game that came out for the original Playstation about 6 or 7 years ago. Actually all these new versions for the Ps2 prior to GPC (EA F1 and Sony's versions) were very discouraging.
The gameplay on this one is amazing, the handling is just as good as the Gran Turismo series, and the detail is quite nice. The computer does not cheat and its always fair and competitve.
If you are looking for graphics, get the EA F1 game, but that game is dull, repetitive and simply does not measure up.
GPChallenge is by far the most fun Ive had playing a full season and for all those gamers who enjoyed the First two versions of Formula one that were released on the original Pstation, this is a must and you will remember this after you play it.

No, the graphics aren't near as good as GT3, but they're more than adequate; especially when you factor in the realistic driving models. I have no idea what it's like to actually drive a state-of-the-art Formula One Race Car, but from watching them on television this game seems to have made it possible for me to get as close as I ever will.

It's great for beginners and experts alike. There's three different levels of difficulty; Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert. Word of advice, don't choose the expert level unless you are one, or you'll be nothing more than a backmarker.

If you're looking for a casual arcade type racing game, don't buy it. If you're looking for realistic F1 racing, buy it. You get to race at all the great tracks; Monza, Interlagos, Monaco, etc... By the way, Monaco doesn't look all that different in this game than it does in GT3.

Bottom line, there's no better F1 sim available, period.

This game is a nice surprise... but it's still not a simulation. Which is okay, since nothing can be a simulation using a game controller.

The graphics and sound are wonderful. Not as good as GT3 but very close. There is no slowdown whatsoever with 21 cars ahead of you. The control is great. It is not nearly as touchy as the EA F1 series. Maybe this isn't realistic, but a little leeway is nice since the majority of gamers are using a handheld controller.

The reason this doesn't get a five star rating is because of three primary reasons. No rearview mirror. I can understand this to a large degree because the framerate is fantastic. But the game also lacks in car audio. This is big because without a rearview mirror you simply don't know who is around you. You have a look back button, but you really can use it only on straightaways. This may be the reason the damaging model is so forgiving. You can bump with your competitors which would put you immediately out of a real race. Since you don't know who's around you this allows you to continue to compete after the first turn. I'm okay with this... but it's a strike against the "pure sim experience."

Also the car set-up is miniscule. An option for more detailed set-ups (with the corresponding result) would be nice.

As with an cosole racer, if you want a pure racing sim you need to own a good PC. That's not a knock on this game, but console racers have to appeal to a younger crowd that won't get as frustrated as with a PC sim.

That's really it. And the fact that it's a 30 dollar game probably is justification for overlooking the flaws I see and give it a 5 star rating. But since you can buy many used games for cheap prices I didn't factor this into the rating. Overall, great job Atari. Sony has a lot of work to do to improve on this game since they now have the exclusive F1 license.

F1 feel, sounds.....yes it's actually like hearing them live. The frame rate processing surpasses all other PS2 F1 sims.
'Keep it Simple' is how I live life. This game is simple to set-up. No heavy thinking...just basic set-ups and you're off.
.....Yes, you hear that Traction-control rumble.....
.......Yes, you can drift as mighty as schuey and Villeneuve!!...
I live near Indianapolis, I apply what I saw with the live cars and NAILED the feel....I'm Fo' Real, guys.. this game is tops!!
No choppy-frame annoyance!!!
As smooth as GT3, even with multiplayer.
It can rain all it wants...you can still have incredible frame-rate!!
Though this game is dominant, let's pay homage to all others B-4
Atari GP challenge...80's
Sega
Ninetendo- Al Unser Jr., Michael Andretti Racing on old systems, Nigel Mansell's F1 and Indy-car Sims. F1 World Grand Prix Championship(64)
PS1 F1 Games by Hypnosis
PS2 EA sports 2000, 2001, 2002.

Atari has nailed it as should be!!!
Especially for this 37 yr. old wannabe
Peace, FormulaET

If you follow F1, you'll know that the 2002 season (this game is based on the 2002 F1 season) was a different line up of courses, not to mention there are several NEW tracks on the schedule now that didn't even exist in 2002. But for a PS2 game, it's a pretty good attempt at a pure F1 enthusiast race simulator. You can easily spend days just getting used to the 'feel' of a car. The responsiveness is VERY critical, frustratingly so at times. So, as with most driving games, you need to pick a car and stay with it, so if you want to be competitive in the simulator, just pick one of the Ferraris and be done with it. And you should have a steering wheel controller for this or any drive simulation game. using the joystick is just a waste of time.

Of course, the 2010 F1 game for Xbox360 is out, so why is anyone looking at this game?

This game has very good high resolution graphics and very fluid animations, it is a little difficult, but I still recommend this game to anyone interested on a racing game. One thing I could say is not very good on this game is its music, I feel is a little simple if we compare it with the music in other games. I really recommend this game.