I have spent the New Year holidays playing Team F1 by Ascaron
Software (and published by Electronic Arts). I did not find any
reference to this game on the Net, and decided I'd buy it anyway
then post my opinions (I wouldn't dare call it a
review).
Team F1 is a Formula 1 management game a la Grand Prix Manager
by Microprose, so excuse me if I compare a lot. The player
hires/fires people, buys/develops parts, interacts with
sponsors/banks then sets up the cars and watches his cars win.
The game starts on January 1st, 1995. It is impossible to rename
teams (but the player's own) and drivers. You can start a team
from scratch or choose to manage an existing team. One big
difference with GPM is that this game is real-time. Yes, a
real-time management game.
At the start one has the choice between 3 difficulty levels:
easy, medium and difficult. Those 3 levels differ by the amount
of money the player starts with and the speed at which the clock
ticks. The latter is incremented by five minutes every 7, 5 or 2
seconds, so one 8-hours work day in the game lasts 11, 8 or
minutes of real-time depending on the difficulty level. When I
read that I thought I'd return the game right away (the box did
not mention real-time at all, but when I got into it I even
liked it. Even on the hardest level one has plenty of time to do
everything, and real-time adds a new dimension when the player
replaces parts, overhauls the car, etc.
To get a break from GPM where I took existing teams, I decided
to start a new one from scratch at easy level. I did not find a
way to choose my team's nationality. So the new scuderia 'Kate'
is Brazilian, but has Monza as test track (the name of the test
track is not given, you just 'go do a test', but Monza can't be
mistaken).
When I started the game on the hardest setting I found myself
with the same amount of money as on the easiest level, although
the manual states I should have had none. So the rate at which
game time runs is the only difference I found between the
difficulty levels.
To build cars in his new team the player has to buy parts from
other teams or suppliers. It is possible to design proprietary
parts but a design department has to be set up first, then a
deal has to be made with some independant supplier to build
those parts (GPM allowed to build proprietary production
facilities and wind tunnel, this is completely missing in TF1).
It takes some time to hire a design department, as usually 1-3
people send resumes per month, and the offices at the start of
the game are cramped (about 6 months are needed to expand the
building so more than 6 designers can be hired - I'd let them
work at home :) An interesting thing is that I can buy parts
from other teams that they use in this season. Like I can buy
carbon brakes from Williams, the 1995 model, even when I am a
few positions ahead of them in the team championship.
Since all big drivers were under contract, I hired Fittipaldi
and Zanardi. My cars are a mix of 1994 and 1995 parts from
Williams, Benetton, Tyrrell, Sauber, etc. Yet on my first race I
get pole and second position on qualifying, and get 1st and 2nd
in the race. This on the hardest level. I thought I'd get fun
trying to bring a new team with hybrid cars and 'average'
drivers to finish races, but now I'm tired of winning races.
After 6 races, with FIA race and sponsor bonuses I got richer
than Williams and Ferrari. I am far from being a genius, it's
the game that's screwed. Even if I didn't know the game
developers were german I would have guessed it. The tops
positions are being disputed between Schumacher, Coulthard and
my 2 drivers; Hill rarely gets into the points, he's mostly
lagging behind 10th position. How often did we see Minardi and
Ligier getting poles at Monaco, or Forti and Tyrrell poles in
Argentina, with >1 sec better than others? Or Inoue in his
Arrows overqualifying Hill by 2 seconds? I understand things
happen, but not as often as in TF1. Another example: qualifying
times at Montreal are around 1:50-1:55; at the same race lap
times revolve around 1:33 (best lap 1:29). This happens at all
races. I am sure I am using the 'Authentic' opponents level
setting. Am I missing something here?
The race, qual and training can be viewed in different views: a
3-D view or a top-down view a la GPM. The 3-D view is crappy,
320x200 with horrible colors. 10 cameras around the track are
supposed to show your car but miss it most of the time:) All
cars look the same, only Ferrari is easily distinguishable.
Fights between Kate, Benetton and Williams cars are a mess, it
wouldn't be possible to know where your car is without the
position digits at the bottom of the screen. If I wanted to just
a race between seasons I'd run a tape in my VCR or run a
computer controlled race in GP2.
The only useful view is the 'medium' or top-down view. The
problem in this view is that the time runs a lot faster, a lap
is done in about 5 seconds at the slowest setting. The cars are
white crosses running around the track, on the players cars have
_identical_ markings on them. Only a table with relative car
positions is available - so much for control over the race. I
liked the only view GPM had a lot more, with lap times, times
between cars, etc. The only commands one can give a car are:
'come into pits', 'get out of the slipstream', 'block car' or
'let car pass'. No customizing like GPM's 'drive harder' are
available. So: the 3-D or 'Slow' view is really to slow when
tuning a car, time cannot be accelerated; the top-down view is
too fast, a training session lasts about 3 minutes where the
player has to assess results, make changes and wait for cars to
do their laps. The pits are a mess. When the player goes into
training or qual he is first asked if he wants to do changes for
both cars. After this cars go to some kind of Ascaron-invented
launchpad where they await instructions. The only available
instruction is 'Go'. So if in training I launch a car, then
after a few laps I decide that the fear ratio has to be
shortened, to do these changes on the 2nd car I have to launch
it too for one lap in order to access the garage. A car on the
launchpad cannot be brought back into the garage to make
settings. If that's not weird I don't know what is. In the
garage the player does not see race figures like max revs, lap
times, max speed, etc. You have to go to the launchpad to see
them, then make a useless lap to get back to the pits to change
settings. But if before going into the launchpad the player has
not specified that he wanted only one lap to be done, launches
the car then commands it to return to the pits - the car loses a
lap. I.e. whenever a car is ordered to get back to the pits it
does an extra lap, even if the command came when the car
received that order on the s/f line.
Also the program assumes that the player has to start his
qualifying run with 20 liters of fuel (and training with around
100). These values cannot be decreased, even if it takes 9-10l
to do 3 laps. Then the player must not forget to tell the crew
to load say 10l on the next stop, or he gets stuck with the
default 40. Nothing better to screw a qual session. The player
can go beyond the official 12 qual laps, though it is hardly
possible to run more than 4 four-laps rounds since the time runs
so fast.
Car setups: the player can manually change spoiler settings,
gear ratio and engine rev limits, or can hire a Race Manager to
suggest those settings. Usually those settings are OK, I am the
top team, but quite inexplicably every third race the RM
miserably fails. With his settings I get one car in the lower
half of the field and the other does not even pass the 107%. If
I fire the RM and use a consultant for that race I get about 5
positions higher. With all the money I have thanks to my
winnings in the previous GPs I sell all parts and buy new ones,
so I am sure it's not parts wear. The pattern of two races with
1st and 2nd position and then one where one car does not qualify
is getting boring. It is possible to set up the car manually,
but unlike in GPM it is not possible to fly to a track earlier
to test on location, the player is limited to the free testing
during the GP weekend. And due to the design problems I have
already related of what happens in training the player has to do
the old reload-reload-reload routine. In between races I might
want to check some car improvements on my Brazilian home Monza
circuit. When I ask the Race Manager for settings he does not
care, he always give me settings for the next GP race track. The
player can do it manually but again the interface on the track
makes it boring and time consuming.
I never heard any speech from the drivers or race experts as
advertised on the box, only completely useless speech from the
commentator, like 'Yes, he's done it, he's overtaking him', but
you don't know who did what since it's almost impossible to tell
one car from another.
The box says 'Real data, personnalities & facts from the FIA
Grand Prix season' (whatever that means), but in the 'Drivers
Championship Points (all-time)' table, there is Prost on pole
with 799 pts, and Verstappen and Lehto at the bottom with 10
pts, with no for instance Senna in between. (Gives a new
dimension to the Jos posts in rasf1;)
Enough of this, I'll go download the latest BC3K patch instead.
I'll return the game tomorrow, in hope the store has GPM2
already. Without the bugs GPM would have been a lot better in
terms of playability.
An interesting fact that no search engine has a reference to
Ascaron, and the Electronic Arts site does not feature Team F1
at all.
Summary:
* Good office interface (the only true statement on the box),
non-existant track interface
* Too easy (in terms of wins and money) on the hardest level
* Strange lap times
* Useless speech and 3-D view.
* Too fast top-down track view, making adjustments and assessing
values too difficult.
Now I'd appreciate it if someone posts a detailed
description of what is wrong with F1 Manager, or how debugged GPM2 is
:)
Sincerely, Karim
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