Hiya all those waiting for GP 2.
My brother went to the European Computer Trade Show in London today,
and here's what he found out about Grand Prix 2 ...
- The official best attempt at a release date is now sometime during
June (1996 for the sceptics)
- The game itself is complete, they are just optimising code and working
on Windows '95 compatibility. Apparently, to run under Windows '95
you will need 16Mb, or 8Mb to run it under DOS.
- A new demo was being shown. On a P120 it ran "adequately" in VGA mode
with all the texture maps switched on. The difference in speed between
SVGA and VGA wasn't as large as might be expected. On the P120, with
all the textures switched off, SVGA mode was super smooth.
- Crashes were implemented, wings and tyres fall off like in Indycar II.
Actually, my brother tells me the crash effects are done a lot better
than on Indycar II. If a wheel falls off, the car dips down in one
corner.
- Computer cars can lock wheels, which is apparently a very impressive
effect. There are also sparks when the back of the car hits the ground.
- The engine sound of the game is currently quite similar to Grand Prix,
except maybe a bit stronger sounding. There are sound effects for
hitting the rumble strip and going off in to the sand trap.
At the same time, the Sony Playstation F1 game didn't look as good as
expected. Compared to Grand Prix 2, the cars looked very bland and badly
designed. The tracks also looked very "stylised". The promised Murray
Walker comentary, while a nice idea, seemed to repeat very quickly. On
the rolling video demo, the player left the track on two consecutive
corners - both times Mr.Walker said "Oohh .. spin!", followed by "He was
lucky to get out of that one". Admittedly, this video was running on
the PsyQ development system stand - and probably showed an early version.
Not as good as Grand Prix 2 though.
He's going to add a full report to his WWW page. I'll post the URL when
it's done.
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