F1 Simulator

F1 Simulator from 1993 is exactly what it promises — a Formula One simulator without major ambitions for a big show. It's not a looker like Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix, but why would I even bother looking at it?

You've got a decent enough racing simulation here. You pick a driver, a team, a circuit, and off you go. The game knows its classics — Monaco, Monza, Silverstone. The physics are straightforward, the mouse or joystick controls are pleasantly responsive. It's not arcade stuff, but a simulation without excessive demands for accuracy.

So what's the catch? The graphics are stiff and vague, polygonal mush doing whatever it wants. The circuits look like faces dragged through sand. The game lives off textures and lines, not spatial illusions. Engine sounds are acceptable, menu music is dull. The driving itself alternates between moments of tedium (cruising through slowness) and times when you can drive straight into a wall and discover the game simply resets without drama.

In the nineties it was fine as a forest fox — Formula simulations were rare and at least this one was official. Today you look at it like a stain in history, covered over by better titles. Even back then other games came along and handled F1 properly. This is more of a calling card that tells you: Here was the feel of Formula, but nothing more.

If you want to play an original computer racing simulator from when graphics firepower was reality, not a dream, and you can tolerate simplicity, you'll find a few minutes here. As an essential piece of engaging nineties nostalgia it isn't. Rather, it's a curiosity — proof that even things looking modest today had their weight back then.