Here at Turn 10, driving is a passion. And when we can't do it out on the open road/track, we simulate it here in the office (hey, it's considered research!). One of the games we've got running pretty much all the time lately on the PC racing cockpit setup is the old simulator Grand Prix Legends, a classic racing game in more ways than one.
Developed by Papyrus Design Group in 1998, Grand Prix Legends was a PC racing simulator that simulated the 1967 Formula One season, and is still considered one of the most realistic driving sims ever made. For more info on this classic, check out the Wikipedia entry.
Anyone, one of the guys at Turn 10 who's most hardcore about the game and plays it just about every day is Roger Jackman, our resident real-life rally racer and subject matter expert. I asked him the other day to write me a short paragraph about why he's so gosh darned obsessed with GPL.
Here's his 10,000 word treatise on the matter...
Why do I still love Grand Prix Legends?!?!?!
An essay by Roger Jackman.
The game was produced in 1998 and with the help of an active and ever-growing community, it still looks fresh. Given, it does not look as clean as, say Forza, but when you are finely balancing a slide in an 1100 pound, 400hp ‘cigar car’ with bias-ply tires at 140mph surrounded by trees, who’s focusing on the bling?!?! This game is about the experience of driving 1967 grand prix cars at the absolute limit and beyond. These were the days “when the drivers were fat and the tires were skinny”, “when racing was dangerous and sex was safe”, when drivers wore pencil-thin mustaches and mechanics smoked cigarettes while refueling the cars.
If you have ever watched the movie Grand Prix(1966), or LeMans(1971) you know how crude these cars were by today’s standards, lacking wings and still using bias-ply tires, but many argue that 1967 was the last year of “pure” motorsports. By this they/we mean that the essence of motorsport does not include driving aides such as ABS, Traction Control, or even God forbid, Stability Control…some even think that a wing is sacrilegious. We, er…’they’ believe that your right foot is traction/stability control/ABS all in one. Sure, the car might be faster with all these aides, but it no longer becomes a race won by the best Driver, but by the best team of Engineers. I don’t know about you, but I think Engineers are boring…
This purist attitude can come at a cost though, as many drivers from this era never lived to tell their tales to their grand kids. Cars were not much more than alloy tube frames with fuel tanks, with no puncture proof bladders, were typically built into the bodywork, and when there was an endurance event, another tank might be strapped on top of the front cowling above the driver’s legs. To compound this issue, many parts were made from volatile magnesium, a material that will burn white hot…even under water. Some drivers such as Dan Gurney felt he had a better chance of surviving a crash if he was thrown from the car and did chose not to wear seatbelts. The tires were made of relatively hard rubber, were bias-ply (these work better in a slide than the radials we have all become accustomed to using), and were used for several events before being changed. Not exactly confidence inspiring when you are flying around the track at crazy speeds, and only a few people had the skills, or the confidence to master these machines.
Beyond the love for this era, this game has the most realistic physics of any game I have played to date…it is the only game that I can play, then jump into a real car and it intuitively feels the same, and vica versa. No, I am not driving an ill tempered, overpowered car with pink pearl-like tires, but every driving instinct that developed from driving real cars at the limit are required to finesse these GP cars around the circuit at speed. It is a great development tool as you have to be ultra smooth with every control, you have to plan your line several corners ahead because there is no room for error, and you have to intuitively know what effects each of your controls have on the balance of the car in order to drive a clean lap, let alone a fast lap.
Lately, I and some of the guys here at Turn10 have focused on lapping Zandvoort (only one of hundreds of tracks available to GPL fanatics). We have spent hours, yes, HOURS, on just this one track, trying to get the perfect lap, much like a surfer is looking for the perfect wave. We still have not gotten tired of the “same old track”, as each lap presents its own set of challenges and rewards. There have been two key mods for this game that include 1965 and 1969 grand prix cars, the later have crude wings and a little downforce. I usually jump in the ’69 Mod, Brabham BT26A Medium Wing and take some fun, loose laps, flicking the car sideways into every corner and drifting all the way through the corner, practicing driving the car with my feet and minimal steering input. I gradually begin to tighten up my line and start looking for some real speed, focusing on smooth corner entry and getting back onto the throttle as early, quickly, yet as smooth as possible. This is on a corner by corner basis by the way, and stringing a few perfect corners together, let alone an entire lap, takes quite a bit of seat time. The problem ends up being that it takes so much mental concentration that you are in need of a break after about 10 laps, and the constant feeling of impending doom can make you extremely tense, sometimes ending with a headache.
There is also the aspect of tuning the cars. There is an adjustment for almost every part of the suspension and transmission, symmetrically or asymmetrically, including a comprehensive differential setup that is critical to understand and master if you want to get everything out of the car. There are several setup programs you can download from the online community that provide great insight to what your car is doing. I have even had luck using real-world race setup calculators to create a competent GPL setup. This is mechanical grip folks, no “getting it close” and adding a bunch of wing for insurance. If you get lost in the nebulous black art of fine tuning your car, you can always download popular setups from the online community.
This game has only one focus, and that is DRIVING. It was a marketing flop, critical disaster, and honestly, a headache for most just wanting to sit down and do some racing, but it is a must-have for most PC Sim freaks. It has been expanded to include cars from the 1965 and 1969 Grand Prix seasons, and the community has created a plethora of real-world and fantasy tracks, utilities and other graphical add-ons, plus international racing leagues that are filled with names of ‘real’ racecar drivers that you might even recognize. This is a game that I have played for hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours since 1998, and is still the benchmark I compare every other racing sim to.
Hot or not? What do you guys think?