![]() Emails can be sorted by category, making it easy to keep track of what needs to be done in each section. EA seems to have been listening, as there's a much more organised system here. A word about those emails: a year or so ago, I berated MicroProse's F1 management effort for its cumbersome front end. Still, I hoped that by shunning Schumacher and refusing to listen to his emails he might get the message and bugger off on his own. Once you pick a team you're stuck with the drivers you're given for at least one season and can only negotiate with different choices for the following year. Least I would have done, but sadly the game is not that open. Stewart Racing still hasn't been taken over by Jaguar and Damon Hill is still mooching about at Arrows). The first thing I did on taking control of Ferrari in Ft Manager was to sack him and bring in good old Johnny Herbert (it would have been Jensen Button, but the game starts at the '99 season, which is bloody annoying. Hopefully, assuming our cabalistic powers are up to scratch, Schumacher will be exposed for cheating in Malaysia and dumped out of the Championship (Unfortunately not - Up-To-The-Minute Ed.). OK, so the man may be able to drive through an earthquake and still break lap records, but he shouldn't have cheated good, honest British drivers out ot victory two seasons in a row. However, I'm taking it upon myself to invoke whatever power the voodoo gods have vested in us to rid ourselves of that modern blight on Formula One racing -Michael Schumacher. In the past we've tried to use this power only for good - usually by mentioning Jim Davidson as often as possible, but somehow the fiend is immune. It seems that more often than not, whenever we mention the name of a well-known personage, between the time the copy is edited and passed on for production and the actual printing of the magazine, said human suffers a major disaster. The Curse Of Zone (dramatic chord, lightning strikes, horse whinnies in the distance). Longterm readers of this tawdry little organ may be aware of something we call. Engines weren't scaled in prices.Michael Schumacher. Sure, it ramps up the difficulty, but what's to stop me taking Stewart or Prost, probably the easiest teams in the game? Arrows want a 6th place with the 2nd-worst car on the grid, Williams want 2nd with average engines and drivers, and Sauber want a 5th with some of the more rubbish engines and drivers. Arrows, Williams and Sauber have ridiculous championship demands. This meant I'd snap him up at a cut price for 2001, and dominate. Although I'd take advantage of it, usually Mika Hakkinen would be seatless for 2000. I'd be there with Stewart-Mercedes leading from McLaren-Ford Zetec and Williams-Peugeot. Not really a gripe as such, but if I'd got as far as 2002/3 then the competition would be ridiculously easy. Eventually, the majority of teams would turn up to a season with the worst engines. I've lost count of the number of times that Ricardo Zonta would be sitting in the #5 car, with someone like Fisichella resigned to the number #2. Williams would always sign a really turdy driver as Number 1, and a decent driver as Number 2. Some drivers (Jarno Trulli in particular) would depreciate so much that they'd eventually be worse than the fictional drivers within the game. I found it incredibly difficult to qualify well at Monaco and Silverstone even if I'd followed the technical director to the letter, my cars would always be around the back. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed it, but there were some things like this: Things like the repetitive news and mail messages, the ridiculous spread of laptimes, the fact that every driver completes the full laps of the race (IIRC) and the other ones that you comment in your post show that the game wasn't properly tested and finished, and it is a big shame.Ī couple of little things I've also remembered became particularly irksome within the game. It only ever advanced to the beta stage and, for some reason, someone at EA decided to release it in that state. The problem with this game is that it is an unfinished product. And they still managed to completely ruin it with oversimplified driver and supplier contracts, pointless test days, bad setup micro management and the fact that on the last 4 races every team runs out of fresh engines and you can score victories in your first season with Minardi because you're the only one who finishes the race. It had EA backings, complex system, dynamically changing driver, car and part stats, a car composed of several components, you could actually recolor your car with your sponsors. Julien wrote:This game is one of the biggest "could have been" in F1 gaming history.
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