Previous Next

Now here's a funny thing. 3324 metres is more or less two miles, right? And 303 kmh translates to around 190 miles per hour, right? So if I was to travel round a 3324-metre track at 303 kmh, starting at full speed, you'd expect it to take about (insert sound of calculator keys being tapped here) 36 seconds, or one hundredth of an hour, yes? So how come when I try it on the Brazil track of F17 Challenge, it takes me a minute and three-quarters on the game's own clock? That comes to (more tapping sounds) more like 120 khm, or a less impressive 75 miles per hours, by my sums...

Yeah, I know. Letters of complaint to the usual address, please. Don't forget to mark your envelope 'You really have plumbed new depths of tedious nit-picking this time', so that we can throw them straight in the bin and cut out the middle man. But it is sloppy, isn't it? Or is it just me?

Anyway. On with the review, and factual information fans join us just in time to find out that this Pole Position-style driving game features precisely 17 international tracks with hills and tunnels, four different cars for you to drive, and two different types of game structure.

Tackling this array of statistics in reverse order, we find that the two different game types are 'Arcade' mode, which is a straight finish-in-the-top-three-or-it's-Game-Over stuff, and 'Normal', in which you race on every track regardless of your performance and accumulate championship points, just like real life.

'Arcade' mode is, frankly, a disaster. It's shockingly easy (the difficulty increases as you go through the tracks, but never gets beyond 'laughably simple'). Don't bother with a qualifying lap, just start at the back of the grid, drive up the extreme right of the track where nothing can hit you, and you'll be fourth out of 22 by the time you reach the end of the pit lane. You'll overtake the other three cars inside two-thirds of a lap at the very most (they weave from side to side in what appears to be a completely non-intelligent manner and are hence easy meat), leaving you to just play out the rest of the three laps without crashing into any of the back-markers who you'll meet roughly halfway through the last lap, travelling at about 150 kmh (game speed, that is). Most of the time, then, you won't see another car on your travels - you might have thought Jaguar XJ220 was tragically low on action and thrills, but this leaves it way behind for tedium.

'Normal' mode, however, rescues things somewhat. There are three difficulty settings (though it's still not at all hard), you can save the game at any time (lose, by some fluke of carelessness, in 'Arcade' mode and you're straight back to the very start), you can alter the number of laps to 5, 8, 10 or 15, and the damage feature present in both modes (every time you collide with something you get damaged, and if you don't have a pitstop to repair it, you'll slow down and eventually track your car completely) starts to take on some kind of worthwhile meaning, as the backmarkers take their toll on your car and you're forced into pitstops, which give your opponents a chance to catch up and make the game a bit more interesting. It's sort of like playing F1GP in the arcadiest mode possible, but not as pretty. Which brings me (and quite cleverly I thought) to the seventeen different tracks.

Oh dear. What we actually have here is sixteen all-but-completely-identical tracks with marginally different featureless backdrops, and the Monaco track which is lovely-looking, and hence the one that appears on the back of the box. You get some trees and billboards at the side, the occasionaly tunnel or shower of rain, and that's your lot.

And as for the four different cars you can drive... oh, I can't be bothered.

'Arcade' mode is dismally badly thought-out, but if you stick to the 'Normal' mode, this is an okayish racer. It's still not as good as, say, Continental Circus though, and it's a fiver more expensive. It's dull, to be totally honest, and definitely the low point of Team 17's career so far.