Formula 1 Championship Edition

Formula 1 97 (known as Formula 1 Championship Edition in the United States) is the second game in the Formula One video game series, released in 1997 on the Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Windows. Developed by Bizarre Creations and published through Psygnosis, the game depicts the 1997 Formula One season.

The game has quite a few upgrades all round since the previous game. The damage model is much more delicate in that a slight knock can rip off your wings causing you problems for the remainder of the race. The ai drivers are suitable damaged at the same time however. Flag rules have been introduced and more added in the way of car customisation. The game soundtrack is not nearly as memorable as the previous game though. The cockpit view adds dirt for the helmet visor which you can use the tear off strips in order to clear. I show this a little in Arcade mode as I didn't enable for the gp mode. the graphics have also received a notable bump in resolution. You can aspect correct the video to 16:9 if you want a more original tv aspect. The overall presentation of the game however seems to have taken a hit with a poor ending animation and no credit role other than what is found in the demo mode and another one in arcade mode which repeats for all the difficulty levels.

In Part 1, I record the Gran Prix mode. Before each race I do a lap or two for a qualifying time before proceeding onto a 5 lap race. Tyre ware is not as punishing as in the previous game so it is still enabled here. Wet races can still be an issue in that the ai racers do not need to go into pits to change tyres and race round like the wet means nothing. If I don't change back to dry tyres when the rain stops, my car seems to be at a massive power disadvantage. Car customisation should probably have been best left alone unless you spend the time to find the best settings. Setting them blindly as I do in the video to try out different setups does me far more harm than good and costs me the race occasionally. Difficulty wise, I try to set it up so that I can complete the longplay in good time without being perfect while still offering some challenge.

Part 2 shows the Arcade mode. This is massively different to the previous game and takes a little adjusting to. Jumping back to gp mode right away suddenly feels unplayable after the high speed drifting you get away with in Arcade mode. Music is used in this mode although as mentioned already, its not that memorable but quite bass heavy. At the end of both modes, I show the unlocked bonus tracks. These are tracks that were in the previous game but not part of the 97 season as well as a mirror of the unlocked bonus track in that game as a 60s mode around silverstone.

Part 1: Grand Prix Mode
00:02:31 - Round 1
00:13:22 - Round 2
00:24:10 - Round 3
00:34:00 - Round 4
00:44:35 - Round 5
00:55:00 - Round 6
01:07:26 - Round 7
01:19:05 - Round 8
01:30:10 - Round 9
01:41:10 - Round 10
01:54:02 - Round 11
02:03:50 - Round 12
02:17:20 - Round 13
02:27:55 - Round 14
02:38:12 - Round 15
02:49:55 - Round 16
03:02:28 - Round 17
03:12:34 - Round 18
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03:25:30 - Adia
03:32:56 - Edialeda
03:41:00 - Sunob
04:48:43 - Sixties

Part 2 - Arcade Mode
00:00:00 Easy Championship
00:39:45 Medium Championship
01:14:17 Hard Difficulty Championship
01:52:18 Epic Difficulty Championship
02:13:46 Bonus Levels