The best F1 game ever

[jimakos]

I would like to know which is the bast f1 game has been so far!
I like F1 so want to practice in some action!
Please help me...

[UltimateDanGTR]

well the latest console game will be F1 2009 for the wii. F1 2010 comes out next year on PS3 and Xbox 360. they're made by codemasters, so bound to be good. there hasnt been a console F1 game since 2006. up to then they were made by studio liverpool, but they were always dissapointing, although F1 06 and F1 05 were good games, just not good enough like they should be.

try F1 95 or F1 97 on the PS1-they were the only F1 games that didnt leave you a bit disappointed, very fun games and F1 97 was especially good.

however for the most realistic F1 experience you need a PC game. The Grand Prix series was a good one. it started with F1GP in 1991, and there were 3 sequels: Grand Prix 2, Grand Prix 3 and Grand Prix 4. GP4 was the last one and based on the 2001 season. however, you can download 'mods' for it, which are user-made add ons that give you extra stuff like differnet seasons, so you can do the 2008, 2007, 2009 season or whatever. from what i hear its very realistic and popular among sim racing fans. itll be hard to find, you'll have to get it 2nd hand but itll probably be worth it.

another option is to get a game called rFactor. this was released in 2005, and is a racing game with multiple vehicle types and races. like GP4, there are loads of mods for various F1 seasons, plus some classic ones like 1989 and 1979. plus, there are literally hundreds of different tracks to get as well, loads of different real tracks and fictional tracks, with everything from 1987 version of silverstone to foxhall stadium (a british 1/4 mile oval). plus, if you like other things apart from F1, you can get mods for that, DTMs, World sportscars, stock cars, touring cars etc. its a playground to just go race, but in very realistic settings


so there you are. for the most realistic F1 experience, GP4 and rFactor with added mods are your best bet. for sheer fun racing, F1 06 is ok and F1 95 and F1 97n are classics.

it depends on what you want, but theres a quick guide.

[F1boat]

Grand Prix Circuit - old, but gold :-)

[jimakos]

Grand Prix Circuit - old, but gold :-)

Too old mate!
I'm talking about something newer of course :D

[Lennat]

rFactor is much better than GP4 in my opinion. The 1979 mod amazing!

[HenryM]

using the keyboard and single player Grand Prix 4 for sure!
using a wheel and for multiplayer rfactor and the F1 mods...
and IMO this is a better experience than the sony games or the EA games..

we need to wait for the codemasters games, but seeing Grid and Dirt they look really well, but the physics arent THAT great, but since is a different game maybe they improve this...

also the old game (from 1998 I think) "grand prix legends" still very good... if you want the 60's F1.

[UltimateDanGTR]

we need to wait for the codemasters games, but seeing Grid and Dirt they look really well, but the physics arent THAT great, but since is a different game maybe they improve this...


thats because grid and dirt are arcade like games, albeit with realistic car damage. still, its great to win the 24 hours of le mans on grid among other things, brilliant game IMO!

[Alfica]

What game do you thing has better AI: F1 Challenge or GP4?

[woody2goody]

rFactor is much better than GP4 in my opinion. The 1979 mod amazing!

That's I good mod I've got that one :)

Just been having a spin in a 2009 Ferrari round Valencia trying to go quicker than Luca!

I was only 2 seconds slower than his best time in the race, and that was with no traction control for the first time ever.

It's not so hard after all :D

[Kevincal]

This is my favorite. :) And this is me driving. :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtdB2cGZUrI

Can someone tell me how to post a Youtube video directly into my reply!? In other words, so that it is watchable in my reply without having to follow the link etc?

[jonny hurlock]

formula 1 97 on the psx, formula 1 2001 on the ps2, formula 1 06 on the psp/ps2

[woody2goody]

IMO rFactor F1 mods are the best in terms of DRIVING, but for racing, I think it has to be F1 CE on PS3 or F1 06 on PS2.

The original 'Grand Prix' by microprose is still a decent game even 18 years later.

The handling is very basic but the action is deep and realistic.

As a side note, for a racing game full stop I'd go for GTR2.

[pino]

This is my favorite. :) And this is me driving. :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtdB2cGZUrI

Can someone tell me how to post a Youtube video directly into my reply!? In other words, so that it is watchable in my reply without having to follow the link etc?

put youtube add the text after v= in this case redb2cGZUrI then youtube again and remember no space between [] [/] and the text, and voilá ;)

rtdB2cGZUrI

[Kevincal]

Thanks Pino! :D

[Bruce D]

What game do you thing has better AI: F1 Challenge or GP4?

I'd say GP4.

Just played the F1 1988 mod for GTR2 last night - its bloody brilliant! The best F1 mod by miles.

[Sonic]

The GP series is awesome of course. I still enjoy a quick blast on every now and then, but this thread made me go and dust off my old sega megadrive of off the 90's. There was a game called Domark F1 based on the '93 season. It stilled worked so I thought i'd challenge my 12 year old self to a duel! A 51 second lap at Brazil to beat! Hardly realistic but great fun, I played for two hours and was still 5 secs off my childhood best! I clearly had way too much time on my hands!

[Storm]

I had a F1 98 Demo version...Just 5 laps but on my crappy old PC back in 1999 that was the best I could hope for.
Was fun driving around in a yellow shark/snake painted B&H Jordan!

I haven't tried a decent F1 game in ages. Maybe I should get one.

[wedge]

Geoff Crammond's GP series beats all hands down.

F1GP and GP2 - which is why I still have my old 486

GP3 was the worst. The physics engine was suspect: horrible mid-corner understeer which I found difficult to dial out.

GP4 was best of the lot.

Surprised no mentioned Grand Prix Legends. That was thee game to have for F1 aficianados in the 90s. Fetches a bit of money on Ebay these days.

[speeddurango]

If you solely look for best F1 game ever without the context of its simulating the modern era, then GPL hands down.

For the modern ones, mods on rFactor should be your choice in most areas. Only when you look for greater AIs, should you look for GP2 and GP3. GP4 is overrated in many ways, its AI is in no competition with the former 2, and its physics was quite irritating.

But really, there hasn't been one single F1 game out there which resembles the modern F1 that is truly great.

[Bruce D]

I agree with Wedge about the GP3 understeer issue. It used to be very difficult to dial that out, almost impossible actually. But the AI in that game was the best I've ever seen in any racing game, full stop. The "dog fights" you could get into against the AI was incredible.

[woody2goody]

I'd say GP4.

Just played the F1 1988 mod for GTR2 last night - its bloody brilliant! The best F1 mod by miles.

That's a good one. The cars sound amazing!

[Bruce D]

They sound amazing, the physics are great, I love how violently physical the whole thing is. And you can just feel the power. I did a race at Paul Ricard the other day and thought it was truely realistic.

[DexDexter]

Does anyone know if there is ANY racing game for Linux, since I've finally thrown Windows into the bin. I used to play GP1 for hours and hours back in the good old days :) .

[ioan]

Does anyone know if there is ANY racing game for Linux, since I've finally thrown Windows into the bin. I used to play GP1 for hours and hours back in the good old days :) .

You can install any Windows software on Linux with the use of a crossover interface.

[DexDexter]

You can install any Windows software on Linux with the use of a crossover interface.

Wine, I know but some of the stuff doesn't work. Spotify does, which is great :)

[woody2goody]

They sound amazing, the physics are great, I love how violently physical the whole thing is. And you can just feel the power. I did a race at Paul Ricard the other day and thought it was truely realistic.

I don't know about you, but I absolutely love the sound of that Minardi. :)

[Bruce D]

Yeah it does sound great, kinda wished it revved a bit higher. After driving the Cosworth cars it feels a bit lacking. Mind you, I suppose it was just a Minardi.

[UltimateDanGTR]

Official: F1 95 best F1 game ever IMO. after getting bouts of nostalgia from this thread, yesterday i decided to dust off my ps1 and F1 95 and play it. I ended up doing an entire world championship with michael schumacher and his bennetton, and it was an absoloute blast! with damage on, you can only damage and lose your front and rear wings. and because of no mechanical failures, the result is usually very simular to the grid, which means that without my help only bennetton, williams, ferrari, mclaren and jordan would be able to score. enter me, with occasionaly destroying the big teams races by taking off their rear wings so the other teams like sauber, ligier, footwork, tyrrell and minardi could score points. i didnt bother with trying to get pacific, forti and simtek to score-that would have been nye-on impossible. so the first 2 races of the season i proceeded to crash into the big teams, and then win both races. so i had a big lead already. but a distastirous imola when i ended up with no wings ruined my race and i finished out of the points. alesi won. a low scoring race in spain while coulthard won with hill 2nd hotted the championship up. hill won in monaco with me finishing second, as was the same result in canada, after me trying to stage a photo finish went a bit wrong......
speaking of things going wrong, france was mental. last lap i outbraked myself and hit leader coulthard at the hair pin. we lost our wings and i came to a complete stop, meaing a ferrari and hill crashed into me aswell damaging their cars. so we all proceeded to tip toe around to try to get to the end, me with no wings at all spinning twice before the finish. i finished 12th in the end, and barrichello overtook all the damaged cars to win. I was back on form in britain and germany with 2 straight victories, with germany being wet and me winning by 16 seconds. hill won in hungary as me and the 2 ferraris ruined each others races (not delibrately). in spa i came from last on the grid to 3rd with alesi winning his second race of the year and hill 2nd. i won in estoril, hill won at the nurburgring while i had another non scoring race. my championship lead ahead of hill was down to 4 points. in aida, i started last, got up to 4th before berger chopped me up, i spun and lost my wing asd was crashed into, i retired there and then. with coulthard winning and hill second, hill led the chmpionship by 2 points. another last on the grid start at suzuka (starting last is always fun as you progress through the field), i delibrately finished 2nd behind coulthard because 3rd was hill, so we were equal on points going into the last race of the season: australia. i claimed poll, hill was second and this was it. he got a better start and took the lead. i retook the lead, stayed there and won to win the world championship.

it was with the world championship winning ending screen that i realised id never actually completed a championship on F1 95, so with that surprise i was very happy.

F1 95 was so fun. it combined realism with fun perfectly and i had a great world championship battle. forget the graphics of Ps3s and Xbiox360s, F1 95 is brilliant. always has been. always will. I had such a good time, i decided to tell you all about it!


as a side note, F1 95 is the only f1 game where sub drivers are used, in their correct races since the game was made after the season had finished, so that enhanced the realism as well.

i urge anyone to go onto ebay and buy a copy of F1 95 and a ps1 if you dont have one (or a PS2, and they also work on PS3) best console F1 game ever. without doubt.

[Kevincal]

Sorry but you can't beat Studio Liverpool's F1 games on the PS2... The Logitech Driving Force and DF Pro steering wheel / pedals are godly when used with these games (Formula One 200X series). With the force feedback coming through the steering wheel, it feels like you are really driving an F1 car... It just sucks they stopped releasing them in the US after Formula One 2001! I despise the EA games F1 200X series. I bought F1 Career Challenge and it totally sucked compared to Formula One 2001, which is much older but still awesome. I just had a marathon session tonight trying to start at the back with a Jaguar at Melbourne and come to the front in 5 laps. Hard as nails but insanely fun. Too fun infact. I stayed up WAY too late and made, I'm not kidding, FORTY YouTube videos of my trials and tribulations HAHA.. ;-)

[UltimateDanGTR]

i hate the ea games as well. F1 2002 EA games was awful! unbelievably rubbish! F1 arcade was more realistic! The Studio liverpool games were ok, but i think they could have and should have been better. i didnt use a steering wheel mind. has anyone played F1 racing championship? based on the 1999 season, awful game. the cars are sooooooooooo slow! there are great f1 games, and awful ones obviously...

[woody2goody]

as a side note, F1 95 is the only f1 game where sub drivers are used, in their correct races since the game was made after the season had finished, so that enhanced the realism as well.

The only other one which I'm aware of was F1 Career Challenge for PS2 (and original Xbox as well I think), which had all the correct drivers at the correct races, such as Sarrazin standing in after Badoer injured his hand in Brazil 99, all Salo's races for Ferrari, all the driver changes in 2001 between Prost, Jaguar, Jordan and Minardi, and Anthony Davidson's one GP of 2002.

Very accurate game, just a shame the handling wasn't better.

[speeddurango]

has anyone played F1 racing championship? based on the 1999 season, awful game. the cars are sooooooooooo slow!

If you meant the AIs being slow then it's the basic setting you did wrong, if you refered to your lap times being slow then you need to practise more. F1RC was great in its time and then largely overlooked by sim racing community because of its poor modibility.

[UltimateDanGTR]

If you meant the AIs being slow then it's the basic setting you did wrong, if you refered to your lap times being slow then you need to practise more. F1RC was great in its time and then largely overlooked by sim racing community because of its poor modibility.

Im talking about both actually. the acceleration of the cars just seems so sluggish, (on PS2, not the PC version) good job i got it used for only £6 at Cex used game stores! mind you, most of that was with the BAR, which could explain some of it, but even competitive cars seemed slow. never mind about turning corners, seems to me straight lines are the problem there.

interestingly, when i compare say a ferrari in F1 racing championship, and a Forti in F1 95, the Forti seems faster. (in terms of acceleration, and that forti is usually 10 if not more seconds a lap off the pace in AI, and when im driving it its a tough one to win in, although not impossible.)

[lugnut_usa]

GP2 is still fun, I've got it running in DOSBox on a flash drive so I can take it anywhere...currently playing with the 2009 cars :P

http://grandprix2.de/screens/nl209/nl209_1.jpg

[UltimateDanGTR]

good to see the older games are being kept alive by mods. and those graphics look quite good for their time, better than F1 95 which was released at the same kind of time.

[goodf1fun]

Buy Rfactor And Download Mods From Mmg Ans Fsone 90% Real

[christophulus]

GP4 for me too, spent so many hours on that back in the day.. Plus they released a mod with the 2008 (I think) cars on so it's still being updated by the fans.

[Hawkmoon]

Any good F1 management games? They're thin on the ground with Grand Prix World the last one I can think of that was any good and that was based around 1998.

[Sonic]

Ah manager games. Even more of my youth wasted on those!

I think I had two. The GP world and an earlier on GP Manager (maybe) based around '95. It was awesome. You could alter all the driver skill levels, team budgets, even the points structure! Did make the mistake once of setting Mansell as my lead driver plus altered the scoring system to 100 points per win. Only problem was when you reached 999 points it reset to 0, meaning I finished stone dead last in the constructors having just tipped over the 999 mark in portugal!

Brilliant fun. Now where is it? Going in the loft to find it!

[HenryM]

GP2 is still fun, I've got it running in DOSBox on a flash drive so I can take it anywhere...currently playing with the 2009 cars :P

http://grandprix2.de/screens/nl209/nl209_1.jpg

this game was great, it's nice to know that there is still a mod comunity alive,
I remember my brother made a carset of the 1996 season I think,
but in dosbox you are playing only in VGA mode I think

[lugnut_usa]

No, SVGA mode runs fine in dosbox.

[Kevincal]

So I've been having a BLAST playing Formula One 2001 on my PS2 (Using a Logitech Force Feedback wheel & pedals) lately, and decided I want to try to win races starting from dead last and make videos of this. :) For this one I picked the Jaguar (midfield car at best) and wow, it is REALLY hard to try to get first in 5 laps HEH.. I almost did it this time, but I screwed up, which is so easy to do without traction control or ABS!

ycxDsGAL-2c

[blito]

2 choices for me -

for wheel users - Grand Prix Legends.
this game had (still has) a great online following with regular leagues and plenty of juicy updates for the Gfx/sfx. those 1967 cars are a real handfull to master, handling majors on initial understeer leading to snap oversteer which is hards to master but great fun

for pad users- rfactor
1979 f1 mod is fun (if bloody hard work on a pad). i play the megane mod mostly - those megane racers are great for close online action.

btw rfactor types - i hang around the "chillwithabeer" megane server most saturdays, come have a go - its a blast!