12 replies to this topic

[twinpotter]

Really enjoying this YouTube season, which goes out live. Recorded for watching later.

Great stuff from Ted Meat aka Freidrich Bang.

Here's the link to round 1 of the season in Brazil. With all the other races Up to round 6 in Montreal Canada. Pretty long but well worth the watch.

Plus there's other related content such as World Circuit and GP4 😁👍

https://youtu.be/jtLKtFUjEQM

TP: 🏁

[Ted Meat]

Well thank you twinpotter and great to hear you enjoy!

As everyone can see, Friedrich Bang is nor the fastest or the most consistent driver in the world. But for me this is the ultimate racing experience: full-distance races, no restarts, no saves, no "flashbacks", no driving helps. Just fear, death, failure, disappointment and some rare occasional success.

I've tried to pull off a full-distance hardcore season in GP2 (and in the other Geoff Crammond games) for many times but I've always failed. The same thing keeps happening over and over again: I don't practice enough, start a race, don't concentrate enough, take too many risks, crash, get frustrated, rage-quit, season ruined. And yeah I don't have a spine.

Doing it live on YT forces me to take it more seriously, practice more, avoid stupid risks and to accept failure. The tension is on the level where it should be when you just can't rely on any straws. And for a bonus it's great to share it with other people instead of just playing by myself!

I'm going trough the Grand Prix games by Crammond because those were the most important games for me back in the days and I feel I still have a score to settle with them.

Edited by Ted Meat, Aug 21 2019 - 03:14 AM.

[paul skingley]

My first encounter with a Geoff Crammond game was REVS+ on the C64.
Compared to what we had before, REVS+ was amazing. OK the graphics were very basic but driving from the cockpit instead of a chase overhead view was a first. The car actually felt like it had suspension and at Brands Hatch GP circuit... what a blast.

I made my own controls by using a rotary paddle normally used for tennis games. I glued the paddle to a frisbee for a wheel and made wooden hinged pedals with contacts on the back wired to the forward and back wires of a joystick. So I had analogue steering and digital on/off throttle and brake.
I made a similar contraption for the shifter which by pushing forward or back made contact the same as would be by pressing a button on a joystick.
With the legs removed from a plastic garden seat and a wooden frame the job was complete.

After REVS+ I tried GP2 for a couple of years but as soon as I saw and tried Grand Prix Legends I never looked back.

I still have my original boxed versions of REVS+, Grand Prix 2 and Grand Prix Legends.



Paul

[wide2tele]

I'm looking to install some old games and have GP2. Does anyone know max resolution of GP2? Will it play at 1280x1024?

[Ted Meat]

 wide2tele, on Feb 16 2020 - 04:11 AM, said:

I'm looking to install some old games and have GP2. Does anyone know max resolution of GP2? Will it play at 1280x1024?

Sorry for the late answer but no, GP2 runs in SVGA (800×600) and there's no way of increasing the resolution.

[jgf]

Ah, that reminds me of our offline GP2 league on CompuServe;  seems a million years ago.

You can probably find a copy of GP3 for download, it is decidedly better and runs in higher resolutions (I ran it in 1024x768 but think it had more options).

[wide2tele]

Thanks for the replies.

Yes, GP3 I have installed and runs in 1280x1024. I bought it new on release. Came with a great big fat paper manual. How I miss those days!
I thought GP2 likely wouldn't run a high res but felt it worth asking. I have a CD of it as well around somewhere.

[jgf]

FWIW, the GP3 manual was 180 pages, topped by the manual for Nascar Racing 3 at 240 pages;  but the record for me was the manual for the old flight sim EF2000, at over 300 pages.  Imagine any developer providing something like that today (not to mention the hardbound novel - Thera Awakening - that came with the DOS fps game Stonekeep).  

My memory isn't that good, these manuals still reside on a bookshelf in my apartment.

[M Needforspeed]

My first taste of a racing game, a kind of  GP2 equivalent I suppose, but on my PC was a game called MONACO GRAND PRIX.Was Nintendo and Dreamcast compatible, too.I don't remember the name of the editor, but it was  very smooth on a then powerful Pentium 600 Mhz and a 3Dfx Voodoo 2 .
  Played it a little, and then GPL was coming on the market ...


I remember the name of two AI's : Vouellette and Mambito.And I remember Zeltweg was one of the tracks.  Did someone played this game, here ?

Edited by M Needforspeed, Mar 04 2020 - 03:02 PM.

[jgf]

I remember that one, though never had it  (I believe this is it - https://en.wikipedia...rix_(video_game);  had fictional driver, team and track names because they couldn't license the real ones.  My first F1 sim was Grand Prix Unlimited (https://www.myabando...x-unlimited-1f5);  had nice background music and absolutely murderous AI, they drove like you weren't even there.

Edited by jgf, Mar 04 2020 - 04:18 PM.

[wide2tele]

 M Needforspeed, on Mar 04 2020 - 02:42 PM, said:

I remember the name of two AI's : Vouellette and Mambito.And I remember Zeltweg was one of the tracks.  Did someone played this game, here ?

Oh, oh, you must mean the game below or the first version of it. I do have both.

I have just installed the pictured version on my Win XP machine. Silly thing is, it has some copyright protection that if you apply it's patch, you can't run it even with the original disc. There is also no nocd in existence to find on the net for a patched game. If anyone does have one by any chance, I believe there was one at some stage, so I can play this game patched please PM me.

There were no F1 licenses but it contained all the tracks. You could change all the drivers names through the interface and it also came with a little program to extract the car textures. This would allow you to paint official F1 liveries and apply them to the game. It was all quite well done.

I have never actually played it because back in the day my machine couldn't handle it. It got put away and I eventually turned to other F1 games and never went back to it.
I've now brought it back out and will see how usable it is without patch. It also supports 1280x1024 which is great! Had good reviews back in the day from users I remember that.

And jgf, 96 pages of beautiful, glossy, color manual!
As for manuals, I think Jane's F-15 had a really fancy manual. I have that too but not the manuals. Got the game CD's when I bought something else I think so likely just has PDF's on the discs. Soooo miss the box and manual days.

Edited by wide2tele, Mar 04 2020 - 04:31 PM.

[M Needforspeed]

Thanks you both  for your infos , because it was a CD at my ex girlfriend home, and I played it on her PC .  I discover the beautiful mag, with great quality paper print. In this digital world, they still had respect for printed things !

Edited by M Needforspeed, Mar 05 2020 - 05:49 AM.

[Saiph]

 wide2tele, on Mar 04 2020 - 04:30 PM, said:

......
As for manuals, I think Jane's F-15 had a really fancy manual. I have that too but not the manuals. Got the game CD's when I bought something else I think so likely just has PDF's on the discs. Soooo miss the box and manual days.
......

I don't think I've ever sold or thrown out any of my old games. I still have a large pile of manuals. Microprose games always had impressive manuals (Railroad Tycoon 2, M1 Tank Platoon 1 & 2, F19 Stealth Fighter, Silent Service 1 & 2 etc.). I've just had a look around and found all my old Jane's manuals too - F-15, Longbow Gold, 688(I) Hunter Killer, F/A-18, IAF Israeli Air Force.

If climate change ever causes the UK to have American-style tornadoes, I'll just store my Jane's manuals in the loft. That will be more than enough weight to keep my house on the ground.