EA Sports continues to impress and amaze, not only with its latest on PlayStation, but also in the PC world. F1 2000 is an update (and a good one) with many new features, plus the depth to keep most racing fans tied up for weeks. The visuals are very nice, and often distract from the actual race. Weather effects and location details are crisp with very little pop-up to distract the eye. Car physics not only react as they should, but are matched by a nice looking response on screen. Each of the race views are impressive, and the interior cockpit view is especially nice, including instruments, side mirrors, and even hands on the steering wheel that move realistically.

I’ve never actually been to an F1 event, but EA’s car engines have a crazy high-pitched whine in F1 2000, which judging from EA’s usual attention to detail, is probably dead-on. Not much excitement in the music category, but that’s to be expected.

There are so many facets to F1 2000 that it’s hard to do justice to this game by simply going down the list. The most basic mode is a Quick Race, letting you sample the excitement in a ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’ quickie. The extended play comes in the forms of Time Trial, Championship, and 2 Player Mode, all requiring more elaborate car setup and race planning. Much like the recently released Superbike 2000, F1 includes a Weekend Mode that incorporates the best elements of both the Championship and Quick Race Mode. Any race will end by offering a nice ESPN-style playback, but is customized to only include highlights, which I thought was a nice option.

F1 2000 definitely gives a full racing experience, and offers incentive in the form of trophies over expanded track selection or hidden racers. All the most current tracks are available for racing, and the car selection mirrors real-life 2000 teams. F1 cars don’t generally have too much diversity, because it takes unique design to allow the kind of speed they’re pushing. And speaking of speed, EA Sports really captured the feel of F1 by pushing frame-rate and making such crazy car-speed believable. This creates a gameplay style that won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, mainly because if you want to smack into other cars and take the lead by pure adrenaline and a heavy foot, F1 is not the game for you. There’s a methodical element in controlling a car going more than 150 mph that doesn’t encourage quick movements. Smacking into the other guy will only ruin things for both of you, so you’ll learn to creep up on him and then move slowly ahead in a curve.

I found the most amazing gameplay mode to be the Test Day. In this mode, you practice driving each track to determine what tire choice and driving style suits the layout best. After a test lap, you can choose to look at Telemetry settings to see what areas of the track you could have driven differently. The results show up as a waveform readout that plots points you went wrong against, where on the track you screwed up, and then gives you tips as to what was wrong. Then it’s back to the pit to fix things up before the next test. Too cool!

With the ability to test various car and tire setups, plus customizing how cars line up on the starting grid, F1 makes for a different experience every time. Those new to F1 racing can learn the basic handling strategies in Quick Race Mode, then ramp up their skills on Test Day. Including the ability to decide how much fuel each car begins a race with and when you’ll need to stop and gas up, EA Sports really put in some nice touches. A game this deep will appeal to any racing or racing-sim fan.

Most of the details in F1 2000 show up as levels of customization for the cars, but during each race, the controls are simple. I was a little disappointed to find there are only three default controller setups, but each has its own merits. Moving back and forth between stages and during pit stops takes very little loading, and the transition from menu to menu is intuitive and easy to manage. There are enough custom options, teams, cars, and courses, to add variety, but it’s not the Gran Turismo of F1.

Handling can seem somewhat slushy until the car’s speed starts to climb, and at about 150 mph, you start to understand how dangerous a twitchy steering system can be. F1 cars don’t leap off the starting line because they’re designed for endurance runs at stupid-fast speeds, going anywhere from 4 to 16 laps. While these babies are built to last, there are always issues, and EA Sports designed a neat pit-radio interface that updates you during laps on how the other cars are driving and when to watch out. As flags come up, you’ll learn to tell who’s been disqualified, and your driving style will change depending on the situation. Default settings are designed to make driving as easy as possible, but there are options to enable tire wear, fuel loss, damage, and the possibility of engine failure. Once the basics have been mastered, turning on all these options really extends the life of F1 2000. EA Sports threw in every trick known to man, raising the stakes considerably for not only F1 games, but all racing games. A racer like Gran Turismo may have a greater licensing appeal, but F1 2000 stands on its own and should be considered a ‘must buy’ for all the speed freaks out there in Game World.