The game featured all the tracks from that Formula One season, at a time when the racing began in Australia, and ended in Japan. Teams would be set up with relevant drivers, however there was a roster-feature included, which allowed the player to swap drivers from one team to another, and even removing a real driver and replacing him with unknown drivers named Driver 1-6. Grand Prix Mode allowed players to progress through the racing calendar, you could also choose single races or a time trial on various tracks. Battle mode allowed you to pick who you wanted to race against over a however many laps you chose.
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A racing simulation game about Formula 1. This features real racers and tracks, and a lot of options in terms of customising your car. You can play through a entire Grand Prix (10 laps per race, with qualifiers to improve your start position), individual races or time trial. It was the N64’s first racing simulation game.
The biggest problem with F1 Pole Position is the draw distance. You can never see much of the track, so you can’t see upcoming turns at all. It’s also very distracting as stands and buildings appear out of thin air. The up-close graphics are well detailed for the N64, but it doesn’t mean much when it hampers the gameplay severely. To make matters worse, your icon on the minimap is not very clear and blurs in with all the others.
The driving feels a big sluggish and unresponsive, too. It doesn’t feel broken, it just isn’t a lot of fun. I’m not very familiar with the history of racing simulation games (all I know is that this was shortly before Gran Turismo), so I can’t comment on how this fared for the genre, but it’s not really a game that needs to be looked back upon.
The biggest problem with F1 Pole Position is the draw distance. You can never see much of the track, so you can’t see upcoming turns at all. It’s also very distracting as stands and buildings appear out of thin air. The up-close graphics are well detailed for the N64, but it doesn’t mean much when it hampers the gameplay severely. To make matters worse, your icon on the minimap is not very clear and blurs in with all the others.
The driving feels a big sluggish and unresponsive, too. It doesn’t feel broken, it just isn’t a lot of fun. I’m not very familiar with the history of racing simulation games (all I know is that this was shortly before Gran Turismo), so I can’t comment on how this fared for the genre, but it’s not really a game that needs to be looked back upon.
To start things, I have to admit that my high review rating for this game carries a bit of nostalgia and also rating the game for what it was at the time it was released (this was the first F1 game released for the Nintendo 64) The period between 1993 to 1998 was perhaps my peak era of personal F1 fandom in which I religiously stood in front of the TV every Sunday with my dad to watch my favorite team (Williams Renault) take on different circuits around world, so having an official licensed game with the real tracks, drivers, and teams was amazing regardless of how average the presentation and graphics of the game were.
Graphics were not the best but the game did its best to portray official sponsors, team logos and liveries, and track specific features to the best of its ability. Gameplay was actually very solid with customizable fields for the cars (speed, handling) as well as track settings (such as number of laps, pit stops. etc) in order to tweak the gameplay and provide a sim-like experience.
Tracks were well designed despite the hardware and software limitations of the time and featured the existing track geometry with signature curves (such as the Spa Francorchamps curves and elevation changes) and even signature objects such as the Suzuka GP Ferris wheel.
Bonus observation: this might have been the first N64 game to feature hyper-compressed FMVs cinematic sequences (shown at the end of a race). They looked blurry and were a joke compared to what CD media produced at the time for PlayStation games but it was good for cartridge games.
Graphics were not the best but the game did its best to portray official sponsors, team logos and liveries, and track specific features to the best of its ability. Gameplay was actually very solid with customizable fields for the cars (speed, handling) as well as track settings (such as number of laps, pit stops. etc) in order to tweak the gameplay and provide a sim-like experience.
Tracks were well designed despite the hardware and software limitations of the time and featured the existing track geometry with signature curves (such as the Spa Francorchamps curves and elevation changes) and even signature objects such as the Suzuka GP Ferris wheel.
Bonus observation: this might have been the first N64 game to feature hyper-compressed FMVs cinematic sequences (shown at the end of a race). They looked blurry and were a joke compared to what CD media produced at the time for PlayStation games but it was good for cartridge games.