Ah, futuristic anti-gravitation racing. Once a thriving subgenre of its own with F-Zero and Wipeout being the main franchises, it hasn’t really survived to this day with the few recent releases emphasising other gameplay elements instead of pure racing. But back in 2000, all was still well, and the cooperation of a budget games label and a three-time F1 world champion known for running his mouth resulted in a rather interesting title that is unfortunately suffering from too many issues to be memorable.
International Hunt for Gold
Nelson Piquet’s Grand Prix: Evolution was developed by N-Side Software, an Italian studio for which this game turned out to be their only release (at least according to MobyGames), with the 3D rendering engine provided by the Finnish Twilight 3D company. The game was first released on 30th November 2000 and initially published by Brightstar Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Swiss branch of IncaGold, in turn a British-based company mostly known for developing and publishing low-budget (and often low-quality) titles for the PC. Finally, Nelson Piquet’s endorsement and involvement in the game development was secured by IncaGold’s Brazilian branch. Under such circumstances, the game didn’t exactly have the best chances of being anything more than bargain bin material.
It Just Works
One of the first things I noticed is that unlike most early hardware-accelerated 3D games from the late 90s to the early 00s, the game runs without any critical issues even on a modern Windows 11 machine. Well, apart from the installer itself which is 16-bit and thus requires an emulator-type solution or an older PC to run. But the game itself has no problem with the user just copying over an existing installation, and the game CD is not necessarily required either despite the manual stating so. Unfortunately, even with the CD and an optical drive on hand, the music soundtrack won’t play on modern systems and requires a solution such as DxWnd to emulate the old CD audio interface should one desire the full experience (and it’s worth it in this case). But all in all, it’s rare to see a game from this era to just work right out from the box on present-day equipment.
F-Pizero
The gameplay is very similar to the F-Zero series. It’s a racing competition of extremely fast futuristic vehicles levitating a short distance off the ground on magnetic race tracks. The track is lined with transparent, non-solid barriers which can be passed through if needed. Beyond this is basically runoff, where the vehicle goes considerably slower. And of course, beyond the runoff are solid barriers which will easily make the vehicle blow up in spectacular fashion. There are no weapons, but with careful maneuvering opponents can at least be nudged off the track, if not straight into the wall.
There’s a variety of different vehicles to choose from, with each having their own strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately only two stats – weight and aerodynamics – are visible in the selection screen, and neither are explained well. In the manual Nelson’s driving tips mention that a higher weight helps with pushing people out of the way (which is rather tricky to pull off), while aerodynamics isn’t explained at all, although the abbreviation “DFC” below the graph leads me to believe it means downforce. Besides the name of the player character, all team names can also be customised to the player’s liking.
Only two game modes are available: single race and championship, although by removing all AI opponents it’s technically possible to also run a time trial. Single race is self explanatory, while in championship mode all currently available tracks are raced in succession, starting with 10 and eventually reaching 12. Both of these can be tweaked by five different settings, three in the race menu and two in the main setup menu. In the race menu the lap count can be set from 1 to 20, the number of cars (including the player) from 1 to 14, and the skill of the AI drivers in six levels ranging from Easy to Piquet (yes, that’s what the hardest mode is called). The main setup screen allows for two more variations: “magnetic wall intensity” and “in-race Piquet presence chance”. The first one allows controlling the slow-down caused by going off the track separately from the difficulty level, while the second controls the chance of N. Piquet himself (who always drives on the highest skill level) appearing as an opponent in both game modes.
All Juiced Up
Longer races also introduce refuelling to the mix. The vehicle’s fuel tank can only do about two and a half laps on most circuits before running out of juice, so periodically checking the fuel gauge in the bottom centre of the screen is vital to avoid losing a certain victory – or at the lowest difficulties, the ignominy of having to limp home at only 10% throttle. Refuelling is fortunately very easy as it only requires activating pitstop mode by hitting spacebar, and the next time the vehicle passes the pit straight it is automatically pulled into the pits from full speed by a tractor beam, with no further inputs required from the player. Once the tank is full or refuelling is manually stopped, racing continues straight away.
In the championship mode points are equal to the amount of prize money earned, and this money can be spent on upgrading the vehicle’s “magpod” (handling and grip) and engines (basically everything else). In total there are 10 levels of each, each with slightly different characteristics. All vehicles start with a top speed of around 750-800 km/h, with maximum upgrades bringing this figure closer to a blistering 1100-1200 km/h. As the upgrades are quite cheap and the relatively abundant prize money means it won’t take long to reach the highest levels in both, the average championship campaign won’t see more than a couple of rounds of upgrades at most. The upgrades and prize money only last for the ongoing championship, and when a new championship is started everything starts from a clean slate.
LAN multiplayer in both game modes is also possible for up to six players in addition to a maximum of eight AI drivers, and besides the deprecated IPX protocol there’s also an option for TCP/IP connections.
The Future is Here
For the first few rounds of playing, the game actually feels impressive. The physics – which the developers gave a special mention to in the readme – feel very floaty but also responsive, something I’d really expect from small maglev shuttles flying around at nearly the speed of sound. It certainly takes some time to get used to, but eventually considerably more time will be spent on the track than off it. There’s enough diversity in the circuit layouts to keep things interesting, and most of them have a unique graphical look as well, ranging from lunar colonies to futuristic military bases, industrial areas, high-rise cities and deep-sea tunnels. Speaking of the graphics, they’re quite good for the time with relatively detailed vehicle models, vibrant graphics and plenty of trackside details to adore… when passing by them at 1000 km/h. Even the menus have nifty spinning 3D icons and text popping out from its frame to indicate the currently selected option (although this is also out of necessity, as mentioned later).
As for sound, the game CD comes with an original early 00s techno/trance style soundtrack consisting of 14 tracks – one for each circuit, the menu theme and the championship standings theme. Each track takes around three to four minutes which makes the entire soundtrack 49 minutes long – well over half of the CD’s storage capacity. And although I’m hardly an expert in this particular genre of music, the tracks are actually quite good and seemingly composed to fit the location they’re played at. The sound effects are few and as repetitive as can be expected from a racing game, but they all fit the sci-fi aesthetic and never get too aggravating.
The Future is Over
Unfortunately, once the player gets a hang of the driving physics and optimal driving style the game becomes rather easy. On the two lower skill levels one has to actively try to lose as the opponents constantly crash into the walls, so the only danger they pose to the player is the risk of collision when lapping them. From Medium difficulty onwards more than a couple of big mistakes and a few smaller ones will lose the win, and on the two hardest levels a mostly clean race with only a couple of minor errors at maximum is a requirement for success. This means that the chosen vehicle and upgrade path are only really relevant then, making the latter system almost entirely redundant. In lower skill levels it’s entirely feasible to save up and go straight for the best “magpod” and engine upgrades just for the fun of it, while in Hard and Piquet levels one or two interim upgrades are required to keep winning.
The greatest downfall of the game is its sheer lack of content. There’s only nine different vehicle models and 12 tracks in total. Two of each have to be unlocked via completing the championship mode on different skill levels, but unless the lap count is set really high it won’t take that long for everything to be done. After that, there’s little replay value left, as the tracks don’t contain any alternate paths to explore nor is there really an incentive to try out other vehicles as the two unlockables are vastly superior over anything else.
There are some smaller issues as well. The menus are annoyingly only navigable with the keyboard, so selecting one specific thing requires going through all of the preceding options. None of the keys are reconfigurable either, so the player is always stuck with what the developers thought to be the best control layout – which is arrow keys for steering, throttle and braking. There are other moves available as well, such as pitching and rolling the vehicle with WASD, but even the manual states these are optional and indeed don’t seem to offer any benefit whatsoever.
Conclusion
Although the game starts out as an interesting fast-paced racer, it becomes dull and repetitive within a few hours at most. Good graphics and soundtrack can’t carry the game forever, so once all of the content has been unlocked and seen once or twice, there’s little point in returning to the game except for arbitrarily set challenges or a momentary rush of blasting through tracks at speeds nearing 1200 km/h. With much more content to explore and an AI that was more of a challenge, the game could’ve been very enjoyable, but as it stands it feels like a demo version of a game that never was.
Final rating: 2½/5. It hardly Piquet’d my interest.