Yahoo Autos F1 Challenge Is Still an Ambitious Grand Prix Sim, 30 Years On
Sports gaming simply used to be more interesting. In the days before license exclusivity, you'd have a bunch of different developers taking their cracks at the same spectacles. Even if the results weren't uniformly great, each had its strengths. Many of us grew up playing Bizarre Creations' Formula 1 series on PlayStation, but Sega's unlucky 32-bit console, the Saturn, gave us one of the most interesting Grand Prix sims of the day—one that you'd figure Electronic Arts might be wise to look to for inspiration.
I'm talking about F1 Challenge, an often overlooked F1 game from 1995 that, at first glance, doesn't have a lot going for it. Whereas Sony's F1 games had all the teams, drivers, and tracks of the 1995 season, F1 Challenge had just three real tracks and seven cars. There's no formal championship mode, either, and visually speaking, the game's not much to look at aside from its delightfully low-poly car models. The Saturn was a bear to develop for, after all.
But jump into a race at Hockenheim, Suzuka, Monaco, or one of the game's fictional Neo City circuits, and there's a lot to like. First, you're treated to a rather charming garage sequence, where you can make some alterations to your car's tire, aero, and fuel setups before the lights go out. This is about as serious as you'd want a racing game from 1995 to get, and from there, you shouldn't have any trouble getting acclimated to the game's tight, predictable handling. As your tires wear, grip gives way to oversteer, but it's never really uncontrollable; hell, it's fun to start breaking the tail out in every corner, almost like you're intentionally drifting in Daytona USA.
It's the soundtrack, though, that has endured as one of F1 Challenge's finest qualities. Hockenheim, Monaco, and Suzuka each have their own themes, and they're '90s racing gold with foreboding synth melodies, soaring guitar riffs, and swelling piano. If you've ever heard "Truth," the song by Japanese jazz-fusion band T-Square that used to be the theme to F1 broadcasts in the country, F1 Challenge's score strikes the same tone, only without the electric flute. Best of all, because music in games back then tended to be saved to disc as Red Book audio, you could throw the game in a CD player or, some years later, rip it to your PC and take the tunes with you on your own epic drives.
