Formula One

1985 retro games ZX Spectrum games

sport games

Published for Spectrum in 1985 Formula One was second known Formula One management game that, despite the age, is surprisingly good production. Of course it can hardly compete with modern games, but if you take under consideration that the whole game had to be smaller than 48kB (which is at least 1000 times smaller than today games) this puts the game in completely different light.

We have here simulation of Formula One season for 1 to 6 players, each of them taking one of the real F1 teams of 1980s (Brabham, Lotus, Ferrari, Renault, Williams and McLaren) and choosing from the set of real drivers (f.e. Nigel Mansell or Ayrton Senna). The management options are limited to buying or improving the chassis, engine, pit crew and the driver, while for race we only choose the set of tires (using the weather forecast). After each lap that something actually happened we see the cars crossing the finish line in order and with time differences applied, which was nice touch. We also see the cars that were forced to retire or make a pit stop. If our car enters the pit lane we also have to take care of changing the tires and (if necessary) make a quick fix to the engine. The time it is taking us to make those changes is the time of whole pit stop, but the speed of the mechanic we are controlling is depending on the amount of money we have invested in the pit crew.

Season takes 16 races and for each of them we have to prepare the best car we can in the budget limitations that we have, which is not easy. To make thing even harder to crack the game has 5 different skill levels, but even the lowest (novice) could be quite challenging. A well developed game that is simple, but keeps the spirit of original sport. Even after 30 years it is still decent little game.

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Formula One screenshots