Grand Prix 3 Official Add On

Why? Well, you get to listen to other cars in 4 way speaker mode. You can hear a car comming up behind you, going left, than right,... It is a whole new world of racing. The pit to car radio is minimal (I crashed into Coulthard and was completely turned over twice, and the radio warned me that I should look out for debree...) however there is more.

You get 2 more tracks, which are better than the stuff you can download for GP3. You also get a new physics model. Well, not for driving, but for collision and debree detection. I found this out the hard way when I drove into the tyre of a crash that had happened infront of me, which knocked of my wing.

The AI has also been upgraded. The cars have much tighter battles and the replay (extended to up to 90 minutes on my machine) shows unbelievably realistic battles.

Other improvements like look and feel, sound and menu optimisations have also been made, but they are difficult to spot or justify.

The new race mode is great fun, and gives you an imidiacy for spot racing. Great fun.

Unfortunatley it is not completly bug free but these don't spoil the race fun.

All in all it is a great way to pass the time to GP4 with pace car, red flaged starts, better graphics and all running a dream on a 3Ghz machine.

Have fun.

With all this in mind, when GP3 2000 Season was first announced, I could have been forgiven for thinking that this was simply a shallow ploy to thrash out a few more easy pounds from last year's hit. But this is Microprose, and with its fine pedigree and long successful track record, I believed that its decision to produce an update worth paying for would mean that it'd feature something special that none of the other games have.

So what do you get? Installation of the extension pack requires ownership of the original GP3 CD, where upon you get a completely fresh installation complete with the new files - this is no simple upgrade. Upon starting it up, you're treated to a new intro video and then some slightly redesigned menus, streamlined from the original and with all-new background music and photography from the 2000 season

As expected, all of the 2000 drivers (Jacques Villeneuve included - he has sometimes been a sticking point in previous games), teams and tracks are now featured. You lose the fiddly Argentina circuit, and in the process you get the Indianapolis F1 speedway and the superb Malaysian Sepang circuit rated as one of the finest in the world with its wide track and challenging layout. In addition, virtually all of the tracks have undergone a minor facelift and they feature updated advertising billboards, some extra background scenery (cameramen, timing boards etc.) and in some cases a modified layout. (The two newly re-profiled chicanes at Monza are here, as is the new Interlagos pit entry and exit.) In most cases, you have to look pretty hard to spot the changes

There's a new game mode now included, called "Quick laps." If you've ever played any other F1 sim then you'll know the score - you start a few corners before the start/finish line with pre-warmed tyres so that you can go for a flying lap with the minimum of fuss. GP3's hotseat multiplayer mode means that up to 22 people can take turns to set a hotlap, with the added option of switching between setting a fixed setup and allowing individual setups. This mode actually works nicely thanks to the new popup pole/split times that appear on-screen. They also appear in qualifying to help spur you on, so now you can get feedback on how you're doing both relative to your own best time and to the current polesitter.

There's now also a proper replay mode (finally!). Upon pressing pause, a set of VCR controls appear in the bottom-left of the screen, and these can be used to manipulate the playback. The size of the replay buffer is adjustable according to how much RAM you have at your disposal, so you can save up to 90 minutes of footage. The one option still missing is a button that cycles through the different cameras, so you still have to rely on the old keyboard shortcuts. That aside however, this is a neat little addition, being both simple and unobtrusive

GP32k features full 3D and EAX sound support, and this adds much to the atmosphere. Listening to the rest of the grid slowly rev up their engines before the start really gets you in the mood, and when you're racing somewhere like Monaco where the circuit doubles back on itself several times, you can hear the field streaming through from the other half of the track. There's a slight hit on performance with the new sound features, so for slower machines there is an option to revert back to the old GP3 sound system

The setup menus now include a screen for setting the differential. There's also an additional screen that lets you separate out wet/dry and race/qualifying setups. Most of the other menus have also been streamlined slightly. You can review the race at the end via the new lap-chart. The game also now includes the post-release 1.13 patch, which fixes several bugs and adds comprehensive damage modelling and a fully customisable controller setup menu

There is also now a pit-to-car radio, where your race engineer will let you know how you're doing in qualifying and when you need to pit.

GP32k also claims to feature updated 2000 physics, but I'm a bit skeptical after I put this to the test by running a back-to-back 12-lap mini-test at the French GP Magnys Cours circuit (a popular test venue for the real life teams with a mix of fast sweeps and tight hairpins). Using the same setup, I recorded times identical to a tenth of a second in both versions of the game. It'd have been interesting to compare the telemetry readouts from both, but unfortunately, game data saved in GP3 cannot be opened in GP32k.

That's it? All in all, I'm not exactly overwhelmed. For detail aficionados, there's no 7-speed gearbox for the Ferrari, there's no virtual cockpit letting you look from side-to-side, and the player car remains at a fixed performance level no matter which car you opt for (so you can still thrash a McLaren in a Minardi). The radio communication is minimal at best. The car models are still very basic (only the textures have been updated). Everything here should have ideally been in the original release, and much of what is here can be obtained for free online. To really rub it all in, many of the third-party editors won't function with GP32k due to the changes in the code (although newly built circuits for GP3 do still work).

There is also the "GPaedia", the GP3 encyclopedia. With the exception of one section, this is token fluff containing the kind of statistics you'd see in the selection menus in any other game. The exception is a set of video clips with Arrows Test Team Manager Mark Hemsworth, which provide a closer look at an F1 car and offer some valuable pointers with regards to car setup.

Infogrames appears to be planning to price this upgrade at around £15. Even at this amount, it's difficult to recommend, particularly when there are no major improvements in the physics, AI or graphics and many of the additions have already been developed by the fan community and are available free online. Furthermore, the complete GP3 plus GP32k package still isn't a match for the feature-filled and generally superior F1CS2000 and F1RC.