We are still waiting on a suitable Amiga AGA emulator with robust recording features before tackling such games.
Formula One Arcade
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Screenshot |
Player's Review
Formula One Arcade, Developed by Studio33 and released by Sony in 2002 and is a PAL only release. The game is based on the 2001 Formula One season. The game makes use of the PAL hires mode 512x256 when racing so you may want to aspect correct the video to 16:9 for TV Aspect viewing.
The game seems to be a last ditch effort to get one last F1 game out in the final days of the PS1 era as the PS2 taking over now. Studio33 Created F1 99,2001 and 2001, each game a slight upgrade over the other although I think the game peaked with the 2000 game. In 2002 they reused the aging game engine, rejigged the arcade mode of the 2001 game and made it a standalone release.
Formula 1 and F197 by Bizzare Creations are superior games to those by Studio33 and there is a reason f197 is the more fondly remembered. Although F198 might represent the lowest point of the f1 games on ps1, I find that 99,2000, 2001 Grand prix modes are mostly un-driveable/unplayable. They forget that they are games and focus to much on overly realistic simulation that the ps1 isn't really capable of representing through its joypad. You need to brake so early allowing the other cars to fly past at warp speed if you want any chance of getting around the circuit intact. Or maybe I just suck .... either way I can not reliably record those gp mode games although 99 and 2000 really do look like they are pushing the system in graphic fidelity and presentation on ps1 hardware. 2000 and 2001 also feature an Arcade mode which is easier to handle so I may record one of those. F1 and F1 97 have a much more manageable grand prix mode, remembering it is still a game. It's not by any means easy, but controlling the cars in much more manageable.
Back to F1 Arcade. It seems graphically cut down in places, slower framerate and has a more vivid arcade palette over the 2001 game. The cockpit view has been tripped out so you only get one chase camera or bumper cam. The game features single race mode where you can race across 17 tracks once they are unlocked. each race has power up in the form of shields, turbo boost, extra grip, extra time, Super repair and auto pilot. Extra single race modes are also unlocked by Completing races in the Stage Mode. Each race also starts you off with Steering assist enabled. You can manually enable/disable at any time during the race. Turning it off gives you greater freedom of movement to be able to get the pickups that are more to the sides of the track. It is more beneficial to keep it on as it keeps you on the racing like which need for the Driving Quality grade. Its cheap, but the game is more manageable with it on as the opponents will pull away and leave you if you stop or crash.
Most of this longplay takes place in the Stage Mode. 3 leagues of 7 tracks, although only 5 need to be raced to unlock the next league, and 7 to be played in the 3rd and final league. I do play all 21 races though and collect the mascots collectables on every track (by collecting x amounts of pickups). I am not sure if the 4 repeatable races from the first 2 leagues need to be played for completion or not, although they are needed if you want to get the A Grade overall for each league. Shockingly, I found completing the 3 leagues unlocks a PRO mode and am required to play all 17 tracks again to unlock the remaining bonus mode for single race play.
Completing PRO mode I am shocked again that there is no kind of ending or credit roll. I complete the remaining 4 races in the first two leagues just in case they needed playing, but still nothing. Between the two difficulty modes I show off one race in the two unlocked bonus modes. One was unlocked for collecting all insignias in Normal mode. I don't know If I needed to again in PRO mode, but I did anyway. I then show off the unlocked bonus pursuit mode which the instruction says to last 10 minutes in a pursuit so I was surprised to see a game over after 10 mins. The other options was to take over the car in the first 8 seconds which would have counted as win so I dunno .....
I thought it was odd that the game had no Intro sequence considering its an officially licenced game. But to have no ending or credits... Is the game so bad that developers didn't want there names anywhere on this game? Maybe the game was an after thought and the developers didn't even want to put it out and only exists due to publisher pressure. Well I certainly feel my time was wasted and didn't really achieve anything playing through this game. I did try other things to see if the credits were hidden somewhere like the demo mode or in the options. I also re-raced some tracks to get all A rating, but still nothing....what does the game want from me!
00:00:00 Stage Mode League 1
00:40:30 Stage Mode League 2
01:26:55 Stage Mode League 3
02:23:55 Single Race - Bonus Unlock - Car Tag
02:26:20 Single Race - Bonus Unlock - Mascot
02:29:50 Stage Mode PRO League 1
02:56:40 Stage Mode PRO League 2
03:27:55 Stage Mode PRO League 3
04:23:35 Stage Mode PRO Cleanup of remaining races.
04:47:40 Single Race - Bonus Unlock - Pursuit
If there is meant to be an Intro/Ending or credit role, I do not know how to unlock them.
The game seems to be a last ditch effort to get one last F1 game out in the final days of the PS1 era as the PS2 taking over now. Studio33 Created F1 99,2001 and 2001, each game a slight upgrade over the other although I think the game peaked with the 2000 game. In 2002 they reused the aging game engine, rejigged the arcade mode of the 2001 game and made it a standalone release.
Formula 1 and F197 by Bizzare Creations are superior games to those by Studio33 and there is a reason f197 is the more fondly remembered. Although F198 might represent the lowest point of the f1 games on ps1, I find that 99,2000, 2001 Grand prix modes are mostly un-driveable/unplayable. They forget that they are games and focus to much on overly realistic simulation that the ps1 isn't really capable of representing through its joypad. You need to brake so early allowing the other cars to fly past at warp speed if you want any chance of getting around the circuit intact. Or maybe I just suck .... either way I can not reliably record those gp mode games although 99 and 2000 really do look like they are pushing the system in graphic fidelity and presentation on ps1 hardware. 2000 and 2001 also feature an Arcade mode which is easier to handle so I may record one of those. F1 and F1 97 have a much more manageable grand prix mode, remembering it is still a game. It's not by any means easy, but controlling the cars in much more manageable.
Back to F1 Arcade. It seems graphically cut down in places, slower framerate and has a more vivid arcade palette over the 2001 game. The cockpit view has been tripped out so you only get one chase camera or bumper cam. The game features single race mode where you can race across 17 tracks once they are unlocked. each race has power up in the form of shields, turbo boost, extra grip, extra time, Super repair and auto pilot. Extra single race modes are also unlocked by Completing races in the Stage Mode. Each race also starts you off with Steering assist enabled. You can manually enable/disable at any time during the race. Turning it off gives you greater freedom of movement to be able to get the pickups that are more to the sides of the track. It is more beneficial to keep it on as it keeps you on the racing like which need for the Driving Quality grade. Its cheap, but the game is more manageable with it on as the opponents will pull away and leave you if you stop or crash.
Most of this longplay takes place in the Stage Mode. 3 leagues of 7 tracks, although only 5 need to be raced to unlock the next league, and 7 to be played in the 3rd and final league. I do play all 21 races though and collect the mascots collectables on every track (by collecting x amounts of pickups). I am not sure if the 4 repeatable races from the first 2 leagues need to be played for completion or not, although they are needed if you want to get the A Grade overall for each league. Shockingly, I found completing the 3 leagues unlocks a PRO mode and am required to play all 17 tracks again to unlock the remaining bonus mode for single race play.
Completing PRO mode I am shocked again that there is no kind of ending or credit roll. I complete the remaining 4 races in the first two leagues just in case they needed playing, but still nothing. Between the two difficulty modes I show off one race in the two unlocked bonus modes. One was unlocked for collecting all insignias in Normal mode. I don't know If I needed to again in PRO mode, but I did anyway. I then show off the unlocked bonus pursuit mode which the instruction says to last 10 minutes in a pursuit so I was surprised to see a game over after 10 mins. The other options was to take over the car in the first 8 seconds which would have counted as win so I dunno .....
I thought it was odd that the game had no Intro sequence considering its an officially licenced game. But to have no ending or credits... Is the game so bad that developers didn't want there names anywhere on this game? Maybe the game was an after thought and the developers didn't even want to put it out and only exists due to publisher pressure. Well I certainly feel my time was wasted and didn't really achieve anything playing through this game. I did try other things to see if the credits were hidden somewhere like the demo mode or in the options. I also re-raced some tracks to get all A rating, but still nothing....what does the game want from me!
00:00:00 Stage Mode League 1
00:40:30 Stage Mode League 2
01:26:55 Stage Mode League 3
02:23:55 Single Race - Bonus Unlock - Car Tag
02:26:20 Single Race - Bonus Unlock - Mascot
02:29:50 Stage Mode PRO League 1
02:56:40 Stage Mode PRO League 2
03:27:55 Stage Mode PRO League 3
04:23:35 Stage Mode PRO Cleanup of remaining races.
04:47:40 Single Race - Bonus Unlock - Pursuit
If there is meant to be an Intro/Ending or credit role, I do not know how to unlock them.
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