Grand (Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix 4 (PC))

Member Name: JPShooter

Product:	Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix 4 (PC)
Date:	18/09/02 (493 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very realistic, good sound, good control

Disadvantages: Only for high-end machine, can be complex, it's still missing things

I was originally surprised about the fact that no-one had written a review of Grand Prix 4. Then I realised that this was dooyoo, and they employ monkeys to design their website to make it impossible to find anything except adverts.

Grand Prix 4 is an excellent game. I was prepared to wager £34.99 on this fact, which is something I rarely do as this is a lot to spend on something you don't really need. The one thng that did please me upon opening the box was the fact that it came with a paper manual and not a let's-play-at-manuals .pdf one. It's a shame it doesn't come in a DVD box though, this would make it easier to store.

The game takes quite a bit of installation, in terms of time and hard disk space. However, the graphical user interface is well organised and easier to follow once the game starts. The same options are avaliable that were in Grand Prix 3 - quickrace and main menu, however there is a new option for the gpaedia, which owners of Grand Prix 3 2000 season may be aware of. This is a small bunch of html pages that explain the basic functions of a F1 car and how certain conditions amy dictate setup. This is useful for the absolute novice, but for for experienced petrolheads this will not be telling you anything you don't already know.

Quickrace is an often used function by myself, so I will cover that first. Quickrace allows you to start on the grid at any of the 17 racetracks, in a position and car that you specify in the options screen. Laps are set default at about 3 or 4, depending on the length of the track. This is good for a quick spurt of racing without have to sort anything.

The main menu allows you to set the options, such as grphics, sound and controllers, as well as the options of running a championship season, single race, practice or quickrace. The championship season does what it says, allows you to run in the car of your choice for the 17 races. This is the best way to
experience the entire game, exploring all options.

A non-championship race is just what it says, and is for one race meeting including practice, qualifying, warm-up and the race itself. This is basically what you have during the championship season.

The options menu is the most important screen in the game. This allows you to set your graphics, sound and controllers. Sound wise, the game is excellent. The 3D sound is lot better than some I have experienced, and does allow you to realistically hear where other cars are in relation to you. however, this does all depend on the various volumes of the different sounds. Obviously, if your engine volume is huge and your external sound is low, you won't appreciate it as much. And it goes without saying you need surround speakers!

The controller support is also good. It had no problems finding my Guillemot Force Feedback wheel and setting the options was fairly easy. However, the force feedback in the game is not massive, but then it wouldn't be on tarmac. Even in gravel though it is not that bumpy.

Graphically, the game is very good and very porr at the same time. You really do need a high end machine for this, and I mean high end. I have a Athlon xp 1700+ with 512MB DDR RAM and a 64MB graphics card (a review which I'm sure you've already read - if you can find it) and I can't run anywhere near the maximum options. It utilises a function which calibrates the game to your graphics card, but this does make allowances and the options can be pushed a little harder without affecting game speed too much. However, due to the sheer depth of graphical detail (they've got videowalls for God's sake) then it really does strain the processor.

Enough of all this, let's get to the actual game. Gameplay is excellent. The game has successfully kept the features of Grand Prix 3 that were good, such as various levels of help for steering, gears, and b
eing indestructible to name a few. The car drives as you'd expect - you turn left and you go left. But it's the little differences, as Vincent Vega once philosophised. The way you can jump the start and get penalised, the sound of the engine, the detail of the mechanics in the pitlane. In this vein, they have implemented some of the little things about the Grand Prix weekend, such as driving back to the pits and being pushed into the garage and seeing times on the video screen in front of you. However, they are still missing certain things, such as a parade lap, or a safety car, or any kind of pit penalty (such as drive-through or 10 second). Also, crashes are still not as spectacular as they could be. Driving into a concrete wall at 160mph rips the nosecone off.......and that's it.

They seem to have captured some of the personalities of the drivers, such as certain drivers (Ralf for one) will be more aggresive when overtaking or defending position. The AI of the drivers also seems to have been improved - they're more likely to pass you if you're dead slow for example.

In conclusion, I apologise for the rather disjointed nature of this opinion, but this is in protest at the disjointed nature of dooyoo.co.uk. Please guys, change it back to what it was when we could find things.

But Grand Prix 4 is a an excellent driving simulation, but it's catchment will be significantly reduced by the high-end minimum specifications. If you did have a mega machine, this would probably be the best game in the world, ever. However, until I buy a new machine in about 2 years I'll put up with great, but not best ever. Contrary to many people's opinions, I believe that Grand Prix 4 leaves amateurs like F1 2002 in it's dust - but many people don't appreciate how realistic it actually is. F1 2002 might be a good driving game, but is it accurate to F1? Non-one other than 22 people in thw world will be able to
accurately answer that question, but Grand Prix 4 wipes the floor for me.

Summary: