F-1 World Grand Prix is the second game based on the 1997 Formula 1 season to hit UK #1, after Formula 1 97. It even has Jacques Villeneuve missing too, although his replacement Driverone Williams has shortened to Driver Williams. Two video games of the same season is a less common situation for F1 than with football games, partly to do with different licensing approaches but mainly to do with a less enormous level of demand for games based on the sport. It’s the only time such a doubling up has happened to date. There are a few circumstances that act as explanation, though.
Most importantly is the different consoles explanation, along similar lines to Brian Lara Cricket and Super International Cricket back in 1995. Sony’s hold over Psygnosis meant that the PlayStation was the only console to get Formula 1 97, while for the first year of its life F-1 World Grand Prix was a Nintendo 64 exclusive. Their audiences mostly didn’t overlap. The N64 game being the second one out also explains how F-1 World Grand Prix could get away with being a year late. For one, N64 owners not only couldn’t play Formula 1 97 but also couldn’t just play Gran Turismo or Colin McRae Rally instead.
Lack of competitors in its exact space aside, the N64’s strengths mean that F-1 World Grand Prix has a strong differentiation by having far crisper visuals than Formula 1 97. I personally took a strong aesthetic dislike towards the Formula 1 games compared to Geoff Crammond’s grand old Grand Prix games, but I find it hard to imagine anyone not preferring F-1 World Grand Prix’s smooth prettiness. In visual terms, anyway. The way the same feeling extends to the way it races is less welcome. It gets across a sense of speed very well, but not so much that of a car gripping the road. I felt almost like its cars were flying even before discovering that developers Paradigm had got their start working on Pilotwings 64.
That significant handicap aside, F-1 World Grand Prix does a good job with its source material and strikes a far better balance between casual players and big F1 fans than Formula 1 97. There are many people who want to act out part of Formula 1 but don’t want to sit and play a full length grand prix for an hour and a half, and there are different ways of trying to satisfy them. Rather than shoehorning in checkpoint arcade racing like Formula 1 97, Paradigm have a much cleverer idea for providing quickfire racing.
It offers a set of scenarios based on real events where you, for instance, take over as Giancarlo Fisichella, running in 5th towards the end of the Canadian grand prix on more worn down tyres to everyone else. You then try to make up places, or defend your place. Now, after 23 years I didn’t remember anything about Giancarlo Fisichella’s exploits in the 1997 Canadian Grand Prix. But it’s still easy to grasp the stakes and get involved in an important battle that feels like it counts for something, and finishing second felt great. The scenarios are nicely set out in a grid that you gradually unlock too. It’s not the first sports game to offer this kind of mode — International Superstar Soccer had a bunch of Euro 96-derived scenarios — but it’s a particularly good demonstration of its utility and the reasons why it’s something that has lived on.
