Grand Prix Legends Preview

After creating the official NASCAR Online Racing circuit to launch this year on the Total Entertainment Network, the bad boys of Beantown at Papyrus are right back in the garage. Now they are turning Mod Squad and focusing their considerable talents and energies on a nostalgic speedster aptly titled Grand Prix Legends. For the first time, racing enthusiasts will be able to get behind the wheel of classic ’60s Formula 1 roadsters and compete on all the authentic and precarious tracks from the 1967 circuit.

Papyrus has been the undisputed champion of racing sim development for years. Its winning history harks back to 1989 when the Massachusetts-based developer released its first title, Indy 500. Rave reviews have been given to each and every Papyrus product that has followed. The company’s overwhelming success has also led to a major distribution agreement with Sierra On-Line, which was kicked off with the release of NASCAR Racing 2 late last year.

David Kaemmer, Papyrus’s chief technology officer, calls Legends the most unique racing simulation Papyrus has ever developed. As we drove to lunch at 90 mph in his new Porsche 911, he explained why. “We picked 1967 because that was the last year of the cigarette-shaped cars, and it has a very romantic feel,” says Kaemmer. “The tracks of the ’60s–even the ’70s–were more spectacular and dangerous.” He adds, “Several tracks were public roads with nothing but bales of hay between the houses and the road. So the scope of the challenge was completely different, and that’s what we’re trying to capture with Legends.” Sounds good so far.

Taking it to the streets

To ensure that the game is authentic in every way, several members of the Legends development team have mounted televisions by their computers, running a video of the quintessential late ’60s racing film Grand Prix. “The movie features a lot of real footage from the era, and it has been a big inspiration for the game,” says Kaemmer. A big inspiration indeed. One artist gave us peek at a track she was working on during our visit. She cued the tape to a racing sequence in Grand Prix and the track on film bore an uncanny resemblance to the track she was modeling. She’d captured the detail right down to the residents observing the race from their roadside shelters.

The ’67 Grand Prix circuit consisted of 11 tracks, and all of them will be represented in such detail in the final game. Drivers will take to the streets in such exotic places as Monaco and the Netherlands in any one of seven cars–all of which, of course, can be modified and upgraded as races are won and prize money earned.

Jackie Stewart would feel at home

The game’s display setting and your car setup, meanwhile, will be adjustable at any time to fit each driver’s system power and driving preferences. Legends will also be the first Papyrus game to feature a true 3D cockpit that allows racers to make vehicle adjustments on the fly by toggling the controls on the active display. Arcade fans, on the other hand, will be able to use the traditional behind-the-car view. And to keep up with the Joneses, Papyrus will include playbacks of the races from a variety of angles with zooming capabilities.

Matt Sentell, associate producer at Papyrus and one of the company’s top virtual racers, says the most striking aspect of Legends’ gameplay for NASCAR drivers will be the car handling. In fact, aficionados will be in for a bit of a shock the first time they take one of these powerful, yet rickety old roadsters around a corner. “There’s not much to the car except four wheels, a 400 [horsepower] engine, and room for a driver with a 40-gallon gas tank strapped to his back,” jokes Sentell. These high-powered ’67 Formula 1 cars sway and drift around corners more like snowmobiles than finely tuned, high-tech Grand Prix cars found in today’s professional circuit.

Sunday drivers prohibited

As Sentell took us for a spin in a pre-alpha build, he demonstrated the power of the old cars and the need to sensitively manage the throttle and brake as he swayed through high-speed twists and turns. Drivers will begin the game with a less-powerful ride and get the chance to upgrade as they succeed and master the roadsters’ raw power and crude handling. Also, unlike NASCAR Racing 2’s open-ended gameplay, Sentell says, Legends “will have a more-structured game element with set challenges like Indy 500.”

Legends also presents new challenges above the road. Many of the authentic tracks include natural jumps, so drivers will have to master in-flight steering and accelerating. Just the same, jumps will often lead to crashes, which provide a showcase for Legends’ impressive new explosions, crash sequences, and vehicle fires. “We’re interested in speed and re-creating the rush of racing in this era,” says Sentell. “Since we’re re-creating it for computer driving, we didn’t have to concern ourselves with the things that led them to stop racing these cars on these tracks–namely the likelihood of treacherous accidents.”

What makes a classic

In addition to adding unique physics to the game’s driving model, the team is hoping to include a few more realistic touches that have not appeared in previous models. Features such as an analog clutch and a drive train for real enthusiasts have been added to help push the game over the top. Legends will also be the first Papyrus game to feature built-in driver support for high-powered 3D accelerators at release. Owners of 3D accelerator cards, based on the Rendition Vérité or 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics chips, will be able to run the game in full detail at frame rates that match their monitor’s refresh rate. Pretty scary, huh? Meanwhile, the standard version is expected to run at 30 frames per second on a Pentium-90.

Since Papyrus is the developer of the NASCAR Online Racing league, to be carried by TEN, the question of Legends being supported there naturally arises. Although this hasn’t been determined yet, multiplayer support for up to eight players over the Internet or a LAN is definitely part of the final spec.

Originally slated for a fall release, Legends has been pushed to sometime in ’98 for Windows 95 from Sierra On-Line. Until then, racing enthusiasts can play any one of the many Papyrus racing sims set in the present, as they wait patiently to find out what it’s like to race in the past.