Racing games, you either love them or you hate
them. Personally, I love them! Give me a good
racer over an FPS any day. Although I can't say
this about every racer on the Dreamcast. Good
racers on the Dreamcast have been few and far
between. It has to be said that there have been
millions of drive-'em-ups so far, but not one
has challenged any of the same genre on
PlayStation. Until now.

From the moment you put the nice and shiny F1
World Grand Prix 2 GD-ROM into the Dreamcast's
disk drive you know that this is gonna be
something real special. To begin the game you
are treated to a very nice rendered intro. But
when you actually get into the game you then
realise that the rendered models aren't that
different to the in-game ones! The graphics in
this game are amazing. If you were to sit six
feet away and squint then you could quite
easily mistake it for a real F1 race - only the
frame rate is better! The detail on the cars
and the texture detail on the courses is
unbelievable and pop-up is kept to a
bare-minimum. Even when in two player mode the
frame rate is consistent and there is very
little pop-up and just some mild fogging.
The screenshots do not do the game justice at
all - it has to be seen to be believed.

The gameplay itself is very fast and furious
and you won't see yourself gaining a lead over
the computer cars straight away. The AI in
this version of the games is astounding. Take
this situation for example - "I was driving
around Silverstone in the rain, I was in
second. Irvine was in first. We come up to a
very tight corner and I'm gaining on him. Just
as we come out the corner I manage to accelerate
ahead and begin to slide narrowly past him. But
all of a sudden I hear his engine really grind
and he begins to take back poll position. I
then go to push him to the gravel trap to get
him off me, but he turns into me as his back
wheels are in the gravel and takes us both off
turning into the gravel, and all we see is
Coulthard zoom past us". Amazing stuff, eh?

There are four basic modes of play including
(in one player) Championship. The Championship
mode is, basically, the whole of the 1999 F1
season. This is where the game becomes "wheely"
realistic! If you go to the options screen
before you start a championship you have the
option to turn the F1 1999 season stats on/off.
If you turn the stats on then you are treated
to the same grid and same weather as the 1999
season - top stuff. The Championship mode won't
be completed in a day that's for sure! If you
turn on the options to Simulation then you get
harder opposition, real damage and, if you are
in wet conditions, the safety car may even come
out!

The other modes of play are fairly basic they
are Single Race, Tutorial (which takes you
through the basics to get you up to the level
you'll need to be up to if you want to win the
F1 Championship) and Time Trial which lets you
try and beat your best times. The two player
mode, however, is the best mode of play. Get
a friend round and play the Monaco circuit and
you'll know what I mean. It is tail-to-tail
action all the way. Lacking modes, this game
does not.

From the roaring of the engines as they rev up
on the starting grid to the squeeling of rubber
to tarmac as you try and get round that hairpin,
you can't help but notice how strikingly
realistic the sounds are. As your driving along
the track you will be able to hear your team
boss radioing-in to tell you the latest
information from the rest of the track. Never
before has an F1 game sounded this good or as
realistic.

OVERALL - Like F1? No. Like racers? No. Like
computer games? No. Well get F1 World Grand Prix
2 for Dreamcast anyway! It really is a great game!

Overall: 9/10