I am not a big gamer, but years ago enjoyed Need for Speed 2. I spent long hours perfecting my skills and I set an online world record for some of the tracks. If you are the kind of person who likes to squeeze every last bit of performance out of your car and seek the best times, this is the ultimate game. It is more of a simulation than an arcade game, but it is playable and very fun once you learn car control.

I have a background in SCCA autocross racing so I know a little bit about racing physics. The physics engine is truly realistic. When you take a turn too fast, you will push and scrub off speed. Trail braking works as expected to lighten the back of the car and help rotate. The traction circle seems to be in force and the condition of the track and your tires effect your stickiness. Trade a pair of warm tires for some new cold ones in the pit and you will feel mildly reduceed handling. Weather effects the surface and overall traction is depicted accurately. Cars travelling on the ilne reduce moisture so that on wet trrack days your trtaction is best on the line. An impressive visual and physical experience! Track gradiations effect your traction and there are some off-camber and downhill turns that act as would be expected. While you cant necessarily "feel" what the car is doing, it will sometimes squirm when it is lightened and reacts realistically to over-ambitious inputs. The sensation of drifting is there and also pushing and scrubbing off speed is accurately depicted. I have only been driving one car and havent experienced oversteer excecpt after trail braking (havent gotten this down yet) Even though I cant feel the car, I know what it is doing. I've never driven an F1 car (and probably never will), but this simulation acts the way I would expect an F1 car to act based on what I know.

On the down side, because you are racing on a computer screen, it is difficult to look ahead because your field of view is limited and (depending on your resolutions), items in your direct field arent discernable until they are too close. This means that alot of doing well on a track is a process of remembering the trrack and what is coming -- you cant always rely on visuals alone. For instance, it is hard to see a decreasing radius turn. For that matter, it is difficult to discern the radius of many turns because the whole turn is not on screen. I wonder if I had a better graphics card if this would help a little bit.

There is no outrageous throttle steer like arcade driving games. No jumps. If your expectation is to race like the dukes of hazzard, you will be disappointed. However, because this is an F1 simulation, it has a definite feeling of speed and requires lighting quick reflexes.

The grgaphics are FANTASTIC and approach photorealism. My graphics card is several years old (1.4 AMD + Radeon VE dual head) but handles everything well. The only problem is at the beginning of the race when the full grid is on screen, the refresh rate drops. I havent experimented with lowering resolution to fix this problem. Sound is also excellent.

I am not an F1 or racing fan, but this game is making me one. I was watching speed vision and I chuckled when I saw that F1 2002 uses the same on-screen timing/position graphics and car cams as speedvision does.

Car set-up is highly adjustable although I havent used this feature yet. There is a driving school mode which teaches you the best line for certain tracks as well as accel, braking points. Very fun!

There is online play (which from what I understand requires a fast server with HUGE bandwidth), but for hot lap competitions, go to www.findthelimit.com. There is a telemetry program that allows you to upload your races to their server. So while you are not competing in races with other players directly, it is very competitive and there is an elaborate scoring system. You too can vie for the world championship.

It seems that this program and perhaps F1 racing in general is more popular in Europe.

I first tried using this game with a joystick but then went out and bought a USB steering wheel (Logitech Wingman GP). The wheel is necessary to do well. (and cost 3 times as much as the game!)

First off, the Amazon write-up looks like it's for the console version. There is no 4-season-long campaign mode for the PC.

Now, onto the game. The sim mode has improved over F12002, though it's more of an evolutionary rather than revolutionary step. The graphics are well done, as are the tracks, though none of them seem to reflect the bumps an actual circuit has. The tire models have improved, though unless you get adventurous with your setups, don't try to hit the curbs through corners, you're almost doomed to spin. Multiplayer still lags far behind the standards set by Papyrus, you'll be lucky to get more than 6-7 cars in a race without massive lag. Like I said, it's improved over F12002, and I still think it's the best F1 sim on the PC market, but it's not quite perfect.

That being said, ISI did one thing very right: they made it very extendable. There are numerous mods available, from Group C Prototypes, ETCC, Australian V8 Supercar, BMW M3 Challenge, and others, as well as an upcoming ALMS mod that is shaping up nicely. There is also a 2003 season available, and while the single-lap qualifying is a bit of a hack (set the lap limit for qualifying to 3 laps, so you only get one flying lap, though without parc ferme, you can get away with low fuel loads and different tires/wing/suspension settings). A 2004 season is reportedly in the works as well.

It's well worth the price, assuming you can actually find a copy, as they seem to be few and far between these days (thanks again, EA). It works fantastically with my MOMO Force, and there's still something really fun about running a number of laps on an RL race weekend to get familiar with the tracks and know the trouble spots before you watch on TV. No Bahrain or Shanghai, but the rest are all there.

If you must have an F1 sim, this is the one to buy. For mods, this is also the one to buy. If you need to have the greatest sim on the market, stick with Grand Prix Legends for now, and GTR when it comes out, assuming it's as good as the demo makes it seem like it will be.

I admit, I was very frustrated with this game at first. I couldn't get anything to work right. I was determined, however, to make it work. I focused on downloading updated video drivers and not playing with the display settings. Those display settings can be frustrated because the "inadequate" game manual doesn't do a good job explaning these settings. The results of my tinkering paid off.

I am only running a 400mhz Pentium II with 128MB RAM. I did however upgrade to a 32MB video card some months ago to get my Harley Davidson game to run correctly. I feel that F1 2000 is a solid start for EA in Formula One. The graphics are crisp and not choppy on my system. The track detail is fantastic and my car screams around the circuit. I am no game junky. I just like to get on and race. Admittedly I use a lot of the driving aids, but I have fun racing as Michael Schumacher's teammate.