Game Information

PSM Quote: "The Playstations most polished and playable F1 sim to date."
PSM Score: 8/10

Price: £29.99
Released:
March 1999
Extras: 2000 season stats

The great thing about this game, is the fact that you can race the entire current season as it happens, a first for any F1 racer, ever! The F1 season is now well and truly underway, and what with Coulthard putting in some great moves and winning his home GP, Jenson Button surprising us all and the Ferraris being just as fast as the McLarens, well...Formula One has never had it so good!

Therefore, its almost impossible to get the sheer excitement, tension and drama of Formula One racing onto a computer game. EA Sports F1 2000 however, comes as close to the real thing as you could wish.

The visuals are beautiful throughout, with some of the best looking tracks on the old grey wonder. Each track has been crafted to perfection, the only minor fault is that there are a few EA sports hoardings around the tarck, which don't appear in real life, no matter! Add to this some of the best looking F1 cars, all with real advertisements, some stunning special effects and the best implementation of damage ever, and you have the best looking F1 racer on Playstation. It's not up to the standard of the DC, and up close the visuals look poor when compared with F1 WGP2 on the N64, yet this game plays better then both, put together my friend.

"at times you'll feel as if your out on the track yourself...pushing to your and the cars limits!"

The thing has a great sense of speed, there are a multiple of views, including a great cockpit view. When playing with this view the scenery flys past at a great rate of knots. In fact, at times you'll feel as if your out on the track yourself...pushing to your and the cars limits! There is no pop up what so ever, and it all makes for a realistic looking and feeling game.

The presentation is stunning, the usual EA Sports Style with Jim Rosential at the helm to give his ITV style pre-race build up! Whislt you select your options, F1 video footage plays...and if your a true F1 fan, you can't help but smile at the sheer detail and amount of time that so obviously has been put in here. It makes you want to get out on the track and start pushing...

The sound is of an equal high quality...what with some world famous sound tracks beefing up the main menu and some amazing engine and down shifting sounds. Good old Murry Walker is sadly missing, but you are kept up-to-date with yours and your rivals current positions and conditions via a nifty pit radio bloke. Much like F1 WGP II on the N64, as good as this is, and it is good, it's no match for our Murry but hey you can't have everything!

These visuals and sound have been fine tuned to perfection, to make you feel as if you really are there. The best example of this, can be found at the German GP. This curcuit has long long straights, that seem to go on forever, followed by a tight twisting complex at the end of the lap, which is filled to the max with the grandstands and the passionate F1 fans.

In this game, it's almost as if the crowd are really there, as you run down the last long straight before the complex, you begin to hear the crowd cheering. Then, as you lock up and slid around the final corners...the crowd go crazy and the place almost erupts, you really feel like they are cheering for you! It's an amazing feeling which is hard to describe.

The attention to detail is great...wing mirrors that work, wheels falling off so realisticly it hurts, plus the great computer controlled AI! If you take a big knock, your wheels will become lose. First they wobble, then they fall to one side before they finally fly off the car sending you spinning down the track! Cars blow up, others crash pusing to their limits , it's all in here, and it makes you feel as if your racing with the other drivers.

"some even crash off in front of your very eyes, going off in a plume of smoke leaving black marks down the track"

You see, F1 2000 has some of the best computer controlled AI seen in a racing game, let alone an F1 sim. Drivers actually race you...they dont just stick to the racing line as in Psygnosis F1 games. They duck and dive around, running wide, getting sideways, spinning, sometimes even crashing in front of your very eyes, going off in a plume of smoke leaving black marks down the track and bringing a smile to your face!

Sadly the same can't be said of the 2 player mode, which is poor to put it mildly. The thing is slow, jerky and to be honest totally unplayable! The sense of speed is lost, and you simply can't judge your braking points. In short, the 2 player mode is pants, but then we have Gran Turismo 2 for that dont we!

There is one main factor of a driving sim, but more importantly an F1 sim, that decides if the game is a success or not! Yep, you guessed it...the handling! It doesn't matter what the game looks like, or whether or not the game has an official FIA license, at the end of the day if it doesn't play and feel right, then it isn't worth the effort. You will be ohhhhh so pleased to hear therefore, that EA sports first F1 racer has the best handling this side of Gran Turismo 2.

You can really push to the limits, running wide here and there, and yet you always feel in control. Thus if you do go off, or end up spinning, you know it's your driving that's the problem. There's non of this, "The bleeder won't turn" nonsense as in other F1 'sims'. However, it isn't necessarily easy, you do have to learn how the cars react and just how far they can be pushed, before going over the limit. For once you lose your front wing, or your wheels, these F1 cars become pigs to handle and you have to make it back to the pits, a challenge in itself.

Asides from the 2 player mode this is da bomb! It may be a little too easy, in that the computer controlled cars always seem to qualify about 1 second behind you, but stick the difficulty up to expert, put damage on full, start from the back of the grid and you'll be in for one of the best racing experiences ever!

Sadly this isn't the best F1 racer out there, that honour still belongs to GP2 on the PC, even after all these years. However, this is without doubt the best F1 racer currently available on the Playstation, no questions asked. It beats everything that has come before it, the visuals, the sound, the feeling of being there, the speed, you name it...it does it better then all it's rivals! The fact that this game has 2000 stats is just the icing on the cake, and my goodness is it a nice cake!

Kevin Preston

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