Gamecube - F1 Championship review

| GAME FEATURES |

A.) The entire 2000 F1 Grand Prix competitors and track statics
B.) decent framerate
C.) 3 - 4 hours of gameplay.
D.) a trail stage which allows you to qualify for the championship.

We know that EA Sports likes to skip around a lot with their 2nd to none franchises. Madden defiantly gets one game every year, F1 does one 2 years in a role then stops. On the 2nd year, EA made the major changes which were necessary to make F1 2002 a better title then F1 2001. Most of these changes where added to the Playstation 2 version. I believe the steering system is much more tighter then before. The Gamecube can pull the controls off much more nicely then the Playstation 2 or the Xbox in my opinion because the controller made of better quality. Every joystick is about the same now-a-days. Move a small ways on a PS2 controller and you move slightly, the same way it would be done on the cube.

Graphics
Not one of EA Sports flashiest titles. When comparing graphics I'd like to compare to Dreamcast's F1 World Grand Prix. Even though the dreamcast version had a resolution of 400/600 instead of 600/800 on the gamecube, the dreamcast game had close resemblance. F1 2002 has many more high resolution pixels in its game. Dreamcast doesn't didn't have a large amount of high resolution pixels because it can't handle it. This think now much better the same game looked if the same F1 World Grand Prix would be on Gamecube. Now I would love to see a direct competitor that would stand up against EA Sports.

On the whole you get high definition trees, mountains, lookout towers and a nicely "painted" background. The weird 3D still shots at the end of each race add to the game's personality. You also get rain, sunshine and cloudy weather. One thing I disagree with in graphics because it doesn't look quite right is the gamma . The gamma is a shade or 2 lower then most games to hide low RES pixels which fill in the backgrounds. It is to bad that the technology isn't there for Nintendo to clear up the backgrounds so they would look like the immediate pixels seen closes to the player.

Controls

Gamecube controls in this game are reasonable. You can't throttle the speed in this game. Its a major let down. If throttling was apart of F1 2002 it would of made me a happier camper. EA chose not to include the feature. Gamecube does have pressure sensitive triggers but I don't see why the game wouldn't use that feature. Other then that, I am surprised at how much you have to slow down on a corner and sleep up without over drifting. Over drifting is when you over accelerate or under accelerate and not have enough speed to turn the corner quickly enough. If you can master the basic methods of cornering, you have 1 of 3 areas of the game conquered. The other two are not hitting other drivers and staying on the track 'til the race is over.

Music

There's not much of a music selection in F1 2002. The title sequence is going to be the only music played in the entire game! The engine and streaking sounds from other racers are Formula One standard.

Conclusion

F1 2002 is probably going to be the 2nd best racing title for Gamecube right after Wave Race for the ability to pit stop and the fact that your also racing in a sporting event helps reply value immensely. If your a racing fan you should pick out this one. (article posted 07/17/2002)