NASCAR may reign in the US, but Formula 1 is the worldwide king of auto racing. The F1 season ranks second only to soccer's World Cup and the Olympics in TV sports viewership. Not surprisingly, game companies have been quick to offer F1 racing simulations to fans of the motor sport, including Electronic Arts' recently released F1 2000 and Eidos Interactive's F1 World Grand Prix. These games have their strengths, but they still haven't earned the status of Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix II, which was released in 1996 and is still considered to be one of the few truly superb F1 sims because of its combination of excellent graphics, detailed realism, and great gameplay. Fans still speak of it reverently, which is why its new sequel, Grand Prix 3, was so highly anticipated. It's finally available, and while it may not be everything that Grand Prix II players hoped for, it's still a reason for F1 fans to rejoice.

Installing Grand Prix 3 is simple enough because the full installation is just 320MB, but getting your controller configured is a different matter. You'll need to calibrate it in the game, even if you've already calibrated it in Windows. Oddly, the game doesn't recognize the third axis of your controller; if you use dual-axis pedals or a separate throttle on your joystick, you're out of luck. A patch to fix the problem has been announced. The controller configuration menu itself is a bit convoluted, and the same holds true for the game's menu system in general. There are some annoying oddities in the labeling and layout of the menu items that, at least at first, will have you leaping back and forth to find the options you want. Fortunately, the menu items feature detailed pop-up tooltips.

Grand Prix 3's graphics are amazing one moment and embarrassing the next. When you first boot the game, it will choose the optimal settings for your system, and it does a decent job of configuring itself for reasonable frame rates. Later you can easily switch the resolution and tweak many detail settings to your own preference. The opening video and credits are stylish and effectively help you get into the game, as do the great full-screen background photos that grace the menu pages. These background shots are also appropriate to the individual menus; for example, behind the sound menu, you'll see a picture of McLaren driver Mika Hakkinen plugging his ears.

On the track itself, the graphics quality varies widely. The cockpit is excellent: The steering wheel LCD readout, gearshift warning lights, and other indicators are all carefully detailed. The actual car models are also well detailed, from the individual wheel spokes to the varied sponsor logos. When cars collide or crash, individual pieces will shatter and fly off. But it's the game's weather effects that really steal the show: Rain can start to fall partway through a race, and you'll see dim reflections in the puddles. As cars race ahead of you, they'll spray mist that partially obscures your view. You'll even notice the track start to dry on the common racing line. Sometimes it will rain on one part of the track but not on another, as in the recent German Grand Prix. These weather quirks call for vital tactical decisions: On one occasion, I was leading a race through Spa when it started to pour on just part of the track. With the race nearly done, I didn't want to lose time in the pits switching to wet-weather tires. Not switching tires worked for Rubens Barrichello in the German Grand Prix, but I was no Barrichello: I spun out on a slick curve and ended up in fifth place, which was a frustrating but fun way to lose.

Despite these strengths, the game does have some pretty serious graphics flaws. The trees look pixelated and poorly shaded. The shadows are also too blocky and too dark. Distant objects will sometimes oddly pop in and out of view as you approach, and you can sometimes see through barriers. Spectators in the stands look more like repeated rows of colored dots than like actual individuals. Your pit crew in Grand Prix 3 is also composed of bitmaps that look bad compared with the 3D polygonal graphics in the game. Yet the game's biggest graphics flaw is that without an extremely fast system, you'll have to crank down most of the detail settings to retain any sense of fluidity and speed.