Bizarre Creations' Formula 1 is one of the best-selling PSX games in
Europe - a phenomenal success for a first game of a development
group. Still, F1 fans wanted even more options, even more realism,
they wanted real crashs and real pit strategies. And Bizarre Creations
promised to implement all this in their now released sequel: Formula 1
'97.  Did they keep their promises? Read on to find out.

F1'97's graphics doesn't differ a lot from its prerequel.  In fact
it seems that Bizarre Creations solved a lot of problems that didn't
exist instead of trying to cope with the real faults of the original
F1. F1'97 runs in a higher resolution now, the cars consist of more
polygons, additional cute effects like brake discs that glow when
you're braking hard or thunderstorms have been added. But the
resolution was adequate before, the cars looked better than in all the
other racers and there were plenty of nice effects present in F1. Have
the real problems that plagued F1, very obvious polygon borders and
slowdown in tight corners, been addressed? Not really. In fact in some
situations like Monaco's tunnel the polygon borders have gotten worse,
slowdown is just as it was before despite the new "dynamic drawing"
technique the designers implemented. These problems get the more
obvious the lower the camera view you're using is which makes the new
cockpit view rather unusuable. All in all F1'97 looks slightly better
than F1 most of the time and worse at some occasions. If you don't
know how the original Formula 1 looks be warned: F1'97 doesn't
provide the same quality of graphics like other current racers (eg.
Wipeout 2097 or V-Rally.

F1'97's sound is excellent and improved upon the already outstanding
sound of F1 in several areas. Every car's engine sounds different and
even changes a lot depending on the viewing perspective. A complete
pit communication system has been added. If you should enter the pits
to change tires, replenish your fuel or repair serious damage you'll
be reminded by a spoken message. F1 IMHO had the best commentary of
every racing game out there. Still, Bizarre Creations was able to
expand and improve it even more. It's still not perfect but usually
provides interesting information like the current lineup or
information about if you're faster/slower than the best lap, F1
background stories and so on. In training mode the commentary even
gives you a complete coverage of each turn of each track which helps
me a lot remembering the track (eg. "now he's heading into the
mirabeau").


The gameplay of F1'97 includes every feature you might hope for in a
F1 simulation, yet Bizarre Creations failed to merge all the parts
properly into the harmonious whole that would make F1'97 a truely
perfect game:

The basic racing engine of F1 has been retained: The game still
features the awesome track and car physics, the same realistic
simulation of the car on grass and sand and the same precise analog
control system that made the original game so challenging and
long-lasting. This engine has been perfected and expanded: Collisions
cause cars to lift off the ground, damage from collisions will affect
the car in various ways that eventually will force you to pit. Basing
on the amount of fuel on board and the state of the tires the car will
behave differently. A wealth of configuration options from brake disc
width to independent front/rear wing settings allow to optimize the
car's performance on each track. In addition to the improved racing
engine F1'97 offers a broader coverage of F1 racing. A good pit
strategy can now make a huge difference, especially because of
spontaneous weather changes that can interfere with them ("should I
pit now or wait until I'm sure it will rain?"). Furthermore Bizarre
Creations included a complete flag system that will inexorably
disqualify you if you're acting too rude. And the new computer drivers
will now try to avoid crashes and behave halfway reasonable. Finally
the qualification system has been completely reworked and offers an
exact 1:1 counterpart to the real F1 qualification system.

That sounds to good to be true, you think? It certainly does.  Once
again, just like in the original F1, Bizarre Creations/Psygnosis spent
far too little time beta testing their game. The result is that a lot
of little inconsistencies, bugs and design mistakes will distract and
annoy you as you're playing. Don't worry, there's no major fault in
F1'97 but the huge number of little problems present in F1'97 is
inexcusable.


Frankly, it seems strange to me that F1'97 includes a sophisticated
damage/failure/flag system yet there's no possible damage or
disqualification involved in taking shortcuts across the grass or
"forbidden" parts of the track. It seems strange that there's a
realistic qualification system that is seriously flawed (there's no
"fast forward"; you either have to wait 60 minutes or give your best
and hope that nobody will better your time). And it seems strange that
there's various weather conditions that can change during a race but
Bizarre Creations didn't bother setting up a table of rain
probabilities for each track, giving you weather reports or setting
the default replacement tires in the pits to the appropriate ones. It
seems strange that there is a telemetry display that is absolutely
useless because it doesn't allow to compare several laps. And finally
it seems strange that there's a lot of car configuration options that
can't be accessed most of the time. And these are just a few of F1's
problems.

I'm very undecided about what I should think of F1'97. On one side it
provides a lot of features missing in its prerequel and any other PSX
racer that give the game an unique level of realism, challenge and
longevity. Without the slightest doubt I will play this game for
months without getting tired of it.  Furthermore there's again a lot
of nice little touches present in the game that make it "something
special". On the other side I'm outraged about the vast number of
little blunders, bugs, technical problems that AGAIN have
slipped Bizarre Creations' lazy beta testing. I could easily fill a
full-sized review just by naming all the obvious faults this game
has. Obviously it's time for competition from another developer that
forces Psygnosis to actually release a finished product instead of
daring to release a game in a state like this.

A few final details: There's a separate arcade mode with cool
powerslides now. This mode will only last for maybe two days thought,
it's far too easy. There's also a two-player split screen mode
replacing F1's great link racing mode. Offering no real races but
one-on-one racing only I find this mode completely pointless.

Conclusion: Despite all the little bugs F1'97 is the best, most
realistic racing sim you can get for the PSX. I can recommend this
game to you even if you've already got the original F1.  Be warned
though: If you're a graphics junkie, if you don't want to be bothered
with realistic driving, car setups, F1 regulations or if you just
don't want to spend a lot of time banging your head against a wall
because you've hit _another bug_ you'll be better off with other
racers.