are a few points ive taken from the game: First of all here are my system
specs and what detail i ran the game in
P3-850
256mb ram
64mb GF2 Mx400 (28.32 + DX8.1)
LWFF
Cable
Windows XP
I ran the game at - 1024x768x16. Cars were set to full detail, the rest was
high except for effects which was set to medium
*New menu colors look nice but the menu system is basically the same. The
options i think are worse to select now because they are on a scroll-down
menu where as before where they were all listed on 1 screen, all at once.
*You can set how digital controllers's rates are.. eg if u use a button for
clutch, how it slips
*It has launch control. But i havent been able to figure it out
*Traction control override button
*Track selection screen is nice. It displays a small thumbnail of all the
tracks or you can click on a zoom map info button.
*Car/Drive selection. Terribly insanly shitly bad. You have to go into the
player selection screen (asin you the player), the goto edit player, then
select the team, then select the driver. All this while not being able to
look at the cars. This will make it terrible for the FIA GT mod because you
cant browse through the cars looking at them
*Tracks. They are 90% the same except a few small things like nicer textrues
and the removal of the jumps or bumps, whatever you would like to call them
from the F12001. Some are still there but small enough now that the cars
dont bounce in a straight line
*Framerates. Worse... that im really dissapointed about. I havent done a
race with AI but multi had slowdown even with around 6 cars. The game had
also chosen for me to use low car textures so i dont know how it will be
otherwise. Testing seemed great but as its been a long time since ive driven
F1 cars in F1 2001 i cant really give a comparison. To put it this way, with
my system, framerates like that are 1/2 to be expected.
*Car setup. Dont have to save a setup each time to drive it. Looks nice but
its basically the same.
*Multiplayer was the big suprise for me. Being a big fan of GPL and N2002
online i was very interested to see how it would compare. On the server list
i was getting pings of around 45 to places like sweeden (im in Australia on
cable). Lag isnt too bad, but for a server with a ping of 45 was pretty
crap. Annoything things ive found is that no matter what game you play, and
they are already in F1 2002, there are bad drivers haha. Ive had 2 races and
been taken out of the lead in both of them on the first lap, reminds me alot
of N2002. When a player joins the server when your driving, it displays as
normal that somebody joined. The annoying thing is that it pauses for around
2secs on my end. This makes it basically un-driveable! Nothing like going
330kmh into a braking area and missing it by a few secs... Also i got some
warping on MY end.. I was driving down the straight and re-appeared on the
other side of the track without a blink and as if nothing was wrong, albiet
i had a bad ping on that server.
*Physiscs - Far better! Everything seems better in the handling department,
except now when you spin, you can do the 'ole GPL trick of slamming the
brake and throttle together and it pulls the car from almost any spin. Dont
remember it doing that in F1 2001.
*Sound is basically the same.
Things like pit-crew animations are nice, guy waving you out as you exit
your pit box. Also the weather effects are good.
Im really hoping the framerates wont suffer too much with a full grid but
expect they do, all in all im left a bit unsure which is not that good, but
in some ways not too bad. I'll proberly buy it, but only for the same reason
i bought F1 2001... the mods! (F1 racing is dull, sorry!)
--
Luke
-=87=-