The recent Xbox and PlayStation F1 games have gone from strength to strength, but not all games based on the sport and top-line single-seater racing have been as well received or popular.
Here’s a look at a few racing game titles on F1 and single-seaters that you might not be familiar with:
F1 Chequered Flag
Here’s a game that looks like it’s 20 years old but was actually released just a few years ago. F1 Chequered Flag just looks downright strange. So, it’s no surprise not many of us have even heard of it.
F-1 World Grand Prix
The coolest thing about F-1 World Grand Prix was that it had a scenario mode where you had to recreate real moments from the 1997 season, like trying to win the Hungarian GP as David Coulthard.
This game was originally released for the Nintendo 64 in 1998 and was actually pretty realistic for the time. It sold decently for a F1 game too, although it remains one of those obscure titles from the 1990s.
F1 Challenge
F1 Challenge was actually officially licensed by F1, but for some reason you could only race on three actual F1 tracks (Hockenheim, Monte Carlo and Suzuka) and there were only five drivers you could race (Michael Schumacher, Damon Hill, Jean Alesi, Ukyo Katayama, and Mika Häkkinen).
We’re not sure why you would make the remaining 21 drivers unplayable, as they were all in there. What if I wanted to drive as Roberto Moreno? Anyway, the Sega Saturn game wasn’t hugely popular, so you may not have even known it existed.
Checkered Flag
Checkered Flag was originally released in 1991 but here we’re talking about the even less well-known version for the commercial failure that was the Atari Jaguar. The 1994 re-release wasn’t well received by gamers either, especially for its dated look and poor controls.
Grand Prix Legends
For any Grand Prix Legends fans out there, don’t hate on us. GPL was a good game based on the 1967 season and was praised for its graphics and handling at the time, especially considering it was released for PC way back in 1998. It wasn’t enormously popular at release, but over time it has developed a massive cult following.
Gerhard Berger’s Formula 1 Quiz
So, apparently there was once a F1-related game called Gerhard Berger’s Formula 1 Quiz, which was for the 8-bit Commodore 64 home computer. Released in 1993, it basically consisted of answering some (very oddly worded) quiz questions on F1.
Prost Grand Prix
There was an actual racing game for the Prost Grand Prix F1 team, released in 1998 for PC. It featured a range of different game modes and the F1 drivers and teams, although only PGP was licensed.
F1 2009
Many think of the Codemasters F1 franchise as starting from 2010 onwards but there was actually a F1 2009 released for the Wii and PSP. It was an odd game, with weird graphics and arcade-like handling with the Wii controller especially. F1 2009 obviously wasn’t meant to be a sim game but it was an odd one all the same and was a lot less popular than the Xbox/PlayStation versions released later.