EXCLUSIVE: EA SHOWS NEW FACE OF F1

Media overload and in-depth chat with the makers of EA Sports' F1 Career Challenge

Fancy building your own Formula One career, with yourself as the star driver? Of course you do. Who wouldn't want to be the James Hunt-type of the 1999 to 2002 seasons? With EA Sports F1 Career Challenge, the official licenced game of the Formula One Administration, you can step out into the pit lane.
Start as a rookie and prove your worth to the actual teams, on the actual tracks with the actual drivers in the actual racing seasons - and the changes during the period. Complete the Super Licence tests, and earn your place among the elite drivers - and a pleasing apartment in Monaco. Build a reputation over four successive years, but can you win the World Championship?

We got our mitts on work-in-progress code of the game, slammed the pedal to the metal, then grilled Neil McEwan, the associate producer for F1 Career Challenge.

Is F1 Career Challenge a different game to the existing EA Sports F1 brand - will there still be a F1 2003?

McEwan: Yes it is, and no this is the new F1 brand - there won't be a F1 2003.

So what's in F1 Career Challenge?

McEwan: All the cars, all the teams and all the circuits. There have been circuit changes in that time, which we included, and we also have all the drivers moving around.

You have to earn a Super Licence to drive, how does that work?

McEwan: Before you can take part in F1, you need to prove yourself with a Super Licence. You then get an offer from a team, depending on how well you did. If you did OK and get passes, you get lower-end teams like Arrows. Get better and you get offered races with middle range teams like Benetton and Sauber.

And how are the cars handling?

McEwan: We totally ripped out all the car handling, setups and physics. We based it on last year's sim, and what we learnt and read about what people liked about it. We tried to make it more engaging, more of an F1 experience, rather than feel like a Turismo, an average road car on a track. It's a difficult one to get the middle ground and get it right.

How does F1 Career Challenge compare to Atari's or Sony's attempts at F1 sims?

McEwan: I really liked playing both of those games, but I found Sony's to be too easy and arcadey, and the driving not engaging enough. I found Atari's maybe a little on the hard side. We're somewhere in the middle.

Who do you deal with licencew-ise?

McEwan: We have the licence with the FOA - but we have a really good relationship built up with the teams. We have somebody who solely liases with the teams. We go to a lot of test days and have 22 motion-captured pit crew members - that was set up at the Benetton factory - we used all their engineers and stuff. All the engine sounds, as well, are authentic.

Are there any teams not covered or any that caused problems?

McEwan: No. They're all in there and no, they were all great [laughs] We did have to show the teams every element that goes into the game. From cars, drivers, teams, advert banners - everything - the track, round the correct way then back again for scoreboards and such.

It's good in a way, because it means excellent feedback, but they can ask us to move this logo 20 centimetres or move that tic-tac logo slightly to the right...

Take the McLaren car, with the alternative tobacco livery - you get to drive a team branded car, which the pit guys use. No-one else has been able to get away with that.

So, you take someone's role and play as them. So, if you wanted to play as, say, Salo you could?

McEwan: Yes, and take him through the rest of his career as yourself, and yes, you'll replace him. You always drive as Driver Number Two in a team, and take their spot. It's something we've previously not been able to do before, because of the licence, but we really got our argument over to the licensor this time - because it's such a big part of the game

How does the reputation and objection rating bar work?

McEwan: The reputation is set against the objective that your team boss sets you just before a race. If you're driving for Arrows or Minardi, you're not going to do brilliantly at races, so the way we've gauged how well a player's doing is set-up a reputation bar. The team manager sets up an objective, finish in eighth place - or just to finish the race for Arrows.

If you finish that race, you'll raise the feedback bar, everyone's really happy, and the crowd's more euphoric as you're driving around. You get all this feedback on a PDA from the Team Boss and motivational audio from him when you're driving around.

What happens if you don't boost your reputation bar?

McEwan: Your reputation goes down and you could get dropped by the team. Or picked up by a lower-end team. So having this reputation brings it all to life.

Explain a bit more about the Super Licence aspect. If you do really well, will you get into the Ferrari team?

McEwan: You'd never get an offer from Ferrari on the offset. If you did mediocre, you'd get an offer from Prost or Arrows. If you 'aced' every test, you'd get an offer from maybe a mid-range team like Benetton or Sauber.

Say I drive for Benetton and am doing well, I could get another offer from another team mid-season, and I'd also get one at the end of the season

You can't start with Ferrari. Obviously a rookie driver wouldn't get the opportunity and wouldn't get the offer to drive for Ferrari straight off.

So how long would it take to get a drive with Ferrari then?

McEwan: To drive for Ferrari, it would take you until 2002 unless you were winning every race, and you'd have to be an exceptional driver to do that.

It looks so much faster than previous F1 games, why is that?

McEwan: We took our knowledge from Shox really - our big goal with Shox was to make it run fast and from feedback that's very important - to stabilise the frame rate. And we use motion blur as well to give the player perception of speed, and depth of field.

You use a card system - it reminds us of Premier League Stars - how does it work?

McEwan: You're in your championship race, and as you're driving around there are hot zones on the track, so if I do a timed section of the track within an allocated time, I get one of the cards. If I overtake three cars in a row, I get a card. If I out-qualify my team mate, I get a card. I do a fastest lap or win a race, I get a card for all these things.

These cards equate to points, and with these points I can buy upgrades to my car in the next qualifying session, or unlock treats such as new helmet designs, new pit babes. There's special replays, qualifying engine upgrades, improve reliability and you can really boost the car.

We wanted to give added value, a reason for getting these, and it's just another element of the game that adds fun for the player.

As the game takes into account seasons from 1999, what happens in the event of a real driver not being there during that particular season - say he was actually injured?
McEwan: All you'd get is a DNF, a Did Not Finish the race. After that the replacement driver would drive in the next race. In 1999 when Schumacher was out of action, you won't actually say Schumacher went out and broke his leg at Silverstone - you won't actually see him go off and break his leg - he'll just not finish the race. And it won't be 'he's injured' just 'Did Not Finish.'

How are you making the F1 cars performance 'good' and 'not-so good' for the different seasons?

McEwan: We have different car set-ups for each car and they all handle as close to their actual performance per season. Also with the cars, it's worth noting that cars were originally built by a guy who used to work at McLaren. He modelled them. He is the absolute guru on F1 cars and he spends weeks making sure a car is 100% accurate. We've got the most accurate cars out there.

You've got the Orange-sponsored Arrows here, do they exist anymore and what happens in the game?

McEwan: They didn't finish the 2002 season, so if you drive for Arrows in 2002, you find you don't have a race - you get thrown out.

What? So you spend three years racing for a team only to be thrown out in the final season?

McEwan: [laughs] You will actually get an offer from another team. But if you're racing for Arrows in 2002 then you'll not be expected to win the Championship.

Did EA Sports simply port the data over from your games of the seasons, from say F1 2000?

McEwan: Yeah, definitely. We've got a good database, and some of the production team is there from when we started up. I started in 1999 when we did the PC game so yeah. we've all honed our skills and know what the core elements of making a racing game are. The career mode where you're driving as yourself - that's a big thing. This is the pinnacle, to be honest with you, and now we've got the career mode in there - it's the best we can get.

From CVGames sounds like it's going to be a great game

no bullshit. this IS a great game.