Terrific? No. Horrific? Yes
Even before placing the disc in the drive the manual gives subtle hints at what to expect from the game. At the time these hints, so subtle, went unnoticed but not now. Murray’s foreword, Murray and martin Brundel were the famous commentary duo but that’s another story, ends with the words “good luck”. How bizarre? One may think but then after flicking foreword 20 pages and after years of experience one knows what he’s getting at. The page in question is headed ‘starting the game’.
Now this page causes me to grin and possibly chuckle heartily, however when my brother first played starting the game was not in the least bit funny. Indeed it still remains infinitely easier said than done.
The mere fact that the game takes a good minute to load, if it does at all, only to fail- freeze, flicker, blur or die- is enough to make a fully grow adult scream. Imagine therefore my brother a small child of eleven years faced with this problem on Christmas day!
Finally, perhaps new years day, he got it ‘working’, although I still maintain that no one has ever managed that. His sheer delight at starting the game, an issue page 27 makes light of, was unfortunately short lived.
The sight of the main menu, and then after a few minutes the realisation that the game had no decent modes left my brother more than a little upset.
From the very first moment my brother set eyes upon the start grid (a good week after having first torn the sparkly paper from the box)- his red Ferrari ‘shinning’ in the sun, the row of 21 competitors stretching out in front of him, the dull tarmac- his eyes began to glisten. His face dropped. Suddenly Murray’s muffled tones broke the stunned silence, and with it my brothers young heart.
I was present at this first playing of the game and I can honestly say that the sound of Murray’s voice, well lets be honest it could have been Kenneth Williams for all we could hear, caused me to swear. It was so muffled! Soon the room became filled with the shrill whine of the cars engines, and possibly faint sobs from my brother. Murray, rather realistically, then began to talk utter nonsense. “There’s a spin I don’t believe it!” “He’s overtaken Wurst! (Or something like that)”. These sort of things were being yelled, presumably through at least 16 handkerchiefs as this would explain why it was so muffled, at the most inappropriate times. Wurst, for example, was overtaking my brother who was going in a straight line unlike Murray would have you believe.
Later in the race it would appear that Murray had realised his mistakes, or perhaps suffocated due to the pillow that had obviously been held across his mouth earlier on, and sat in absolute silence. Seriously if there was no spinning, to which he had only one response- “and there’s a spin I don’t believe it”, or overtaking then he would say nothing. He could have talked about the weather, the course history, how well my brother was driving (a miracle if you consider the game play but we’re coming to that) anything, instead he just followed martin’s example and sat in complete silence. This meant that all that could be heard was the horrific whine of the car engine, enough after 7 laps to drive a person insane leaving them to live out the remainder of the lives huddled in a corner trying to drive that awful whine from their lifeless ears.
So the sounds bad, and I cant bring myself to talk about the graphics, and lets not even mention the chances of actually playing the game. So what does this game have to offer, stunning, enjoyable and challenging game play? Well it’s certainly challenging.
From the moment Murray shouts “go, go, go!” or as he quite ‘hilariously’ does in Germany “schnel, schnel, schnel!” right up to the end of the race, which incidentally is normally the end of the first lap when you spin off or get disqualified, your finger is pressing against the ‘X’ button, causing your car to accelerate. Now by that I'm not suggesting that you don’t have to brake because you do, but the brakes are so ridiculously unresponsive, as is the steering, that you just don’t bother with them. The cars’ steering is, to the best of my knowledge, so unimaginably unrealistic and on occasions mildly amusing, well only if you haven't purchased the game yourself. The exception to this is of course my brother who didn’t buy the game; nevertheless he still found nothing amusing about the bulky feeling of the car. Now I may be mistaken but I was under the impression that formula 1 cars could float from side to side, and around corners with ease.
As if this wasn’t enough it would be quite possible to go from 22nd to 1st in the space of the start straight. I'm not kidding, all the others went to the left leaving you to fly down the right and, providing you were brave or possibly stupid no wait you would be stupid for playing, you could overtake schumacher to take the lead.
Those of you reading may now be thinking, ‘oh come on it cant be that bad, why my official Playstation magazine gave it 7/10, your just going on one bad experience and making a monumental generalization.’ Well to those of you who think that I suggest you buy the game, actually you’re probably already have due to your mental instability, and play it for a few months. Besides I have proof that this always happens.
When, after 7 years, I decided to play the game again I myself thought it wouldn’t be as bad as I remember, and indeed I was right, it was worse. Amazingly it loaded first time although the top 1/5 of the screen was flickering irritatingly. Once I finally selected the right mode, that is the only one worth doing, the race began. I must admit that an obscenity escaped my lips as I heard Murray.
Then I proceeded, in the space of the start/finish straight and the first corner, to go from the back up to seventh before driving directly into Wurst. This impact at all of 200mph caused my front wing to slip off, that was it. In the fine game Indy car racer 2 the collision would have been stunning with shards of carbon fiber and bits of car fluttering through the air like confetti. Anyway a muffled voice, suprisingly not Murray, came through saying, “got ya self a bit o’ damage there, fink ya betta come in”. Oh yes mate just a little damage.
My race ended several minutes later when I drove the wrong way up the track swearing at Murray who was shouting, “and there's a spin I don’t believe it!”
As usual I will say the game is worth playing if you want a ghood laugh, but dont whatever you do buy it.