GRAPHICS AND TRACKS

The graphics are the same that you are used to seeing from ISI. I haven't noticed any change with the track textures or the general look of the sim. All the car models and textures are a lot better now though, thanks to the well known modellers in the community. The tracks haven't really changed, which means they're not the most realistic available. Some tracks are still very bad, but there are a few decent ones in there as well. It would be great to have realistic looking and feeling tracks one day, but maybe I've got used to it because I don't notice the inaccuracies that much anymore. One nice thing is that you get all the different versions of the tracks that have changed during the four seasons.

Bottom line is that F1C can look very good if you're able to turn all the details on and still get a good frame rate. On my system I have to turn some details off to get a good frame rate in races, too. My opinion is that N2003 is still the best looking sim when you have tuned both sims to get similar frame rates. Another thing about the frame rate in F1C; you really need to get at least 50 fps to have good control of the car. The lower the fps gets the more difficult driving becomes. So with this sim it's better to go for speed than eye candy.

SOUNDS

The sounds have received a lot of attention in F1C and it really shows. They are the best I've seen (or heard) in any sim so far. Especially the engine sounds are great, and very similar to what you hear in TV footage or onboard F1 videos. The engine sound gives you a nice rush when you're powering down a straight at 300 kph. The traction control sound is a new addition in F1C, and it doesn't disappoint you either. I usually drive with all driving aids off, but when taking one of the '02 cars for a spin I just have to turn on TC to hear the sound. I even bumped up the TC volume to hear it better. If you've heard traction control at work in the real F1 races, you know it sounds really nasty. Not in F1C though; it has been done so well that it almost sounds good just because of the realism of the sound.

The sound of a car or cars going by when watching a replay from the TV cameras is also improved, and I like it better than the external sounds in N2003 for one. It's not as powerful as the incar engine sound, but still quite good. It's hard to describe the feeling the new sounds give you, but sound is one of the most important aspects in a sim for me along with good physics and multiplayer. I'm happy to say that I'm very satisfied with the work done here in F1C. The skid sounds could use some work, but that's the only thing I can complain (a little) about.

MULTIPLAYER AND AI

I haven't had the time to do as much multiplayer racing yet as I would have liked so I can't give you detailed impressions about it. The feeling I have at the moment is that the multiplayer code is somewhat better. With small fields I've noticed less warping than in F1 2002, and you can now host bigger fields than before on a same type of connection. Even full field races should be possible on a mega server thanks to the new throttling code. So in this respect the multiplayer code has improved quite a bit. It's still not as good or robust as Papy's though, and there are still some bugs in it. The annoying pause when someone joins a session is still there, but fortunately you can prevent players from joining during qualifying so you don't have to worry about it ruining one of your qualifying laps. It's also possible to turn on recon and warmup laps now in multiplayer mode, which might be a nice feature for leagues.

I don't usually waste much time racing against the AI, so I'm not going to waste my time writing about it either. From the little time I've spent racing offline, the AI cars don't seem to do so many silly moves anymore as they did in F1 2002. But the racing just doesn't compare to multiplayer racing so I'm going to leave it at this. Sorry.

FINAL IMPRESSIONS

F1C is a nice step forward compared to F1 2002. The areas I'm most impressed by are the improved physics and sounds. The multiplayer improvements are nice too, but there's still work left to match Papy. Some of the tracks aren't really good enough, but since this is the last F1 sim by ISI that's the way they are going to stay unless the community steps up and improves them. The replays are better now, but the interface still needs work to make it more useable.

In summary, I'm positively surprised by F1C and I've been playing it more than any other sim the last days and weeks. Is it the best sim at the moment? I'd still give that title to N2003, but ISI are getting very close in some areas. It's difficult to compare the physics between the two sims, especially for an amateur like me, but in my opinion they are very closely matched there. Sound is better in F1C, but N2003 is still quite a way ahead in multiplayer, basic interface and replays.

F1 Challenge '99-'02 leaves me waiting in anticipation for ISI's next title, NASCAR Thunder 2004. It'll be very good if ISI can keep improving at this rate of speed.


System specs:

AMD Athlon XP 1800+
GeForce4 Ti-4200 128 MB
512 MB RAM