SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Review: Grand Prix Legends 2004

If you have the disc lying around somewhere and would like to give it another go, there is a very user friendly way to ensure that you get the greatest looking updates for the cars by downloading the 2004 GPL Demo here from Blackhole Motorsports.

Install that, and just add the tracks from the GPL CD. The only track that is included with the 2004 GPL Demo is Watkins Glen, so don´t use that track from the CD. Despite it being called the 2004 GPL Demo, it has the latest greatest, and highly authentic 1967 car shapes and liveries.

Plug in your wheel and be prepared to be amazed! Yes. This looks and feels so good that you'd be hard pressed to notice that this sim was released almost six years ago and not just last month!

It's true, the physics are still awesome, even compared to any modern sim like Richard Burns Rally, EA's F1 C, GP4 or what you care to compare GPL with.

Your hands will be sweaty, you will be perspiring heavily and regret you didn't fit a safety belt to your chair before taking your 1967 Grand Prix car to Silverstone, Nurburgring or any of the classic circuits before they were deemed to be too unsafe and taken of the F1 calender, or being emasculated by chicanes and sand traps. Make an error at Spa-Francorchamps and you'll hit a tree or barrel-roll into a barn or some other building located right at the side of the track.

Perhaps you'll find, as several returning drivers have stated, that GPL is not as hard as they remembered it after all. And you should find it incredibly immersive too.

The trick is to know that in 1967 they didn't have wings or aero and the brakes were of steel and not some space-age composite. If you crashed, you could almost be certain that your car would catch fire and Dr. Sid Watkins and the medical car — I'm sorry to inform you — was not invented until some 15-20 years later.

So adjust your driving to accommodate those facts and take it slowly until you get to know the ropes, the do's and don’t's.

The carsets available today are ultra-high on realism. Generally you´ll find the drivers driving correct cars in correct liveries. If you need a special car / livery for a specific driver, chances are that it has been made and that a trip to RaceSimCentral will unearth where they can be found.

The GPL communitiy is the friendliest community I know. If you go to the GPL forum at RaceSimCentral, saying you're a newbie and that you need some directions, they'll welcome you and provide you with links to all you ever wanted to know about GPL add-ons. If you need help with your driving or setups, just save a replay and upload it to the GPL forum and you'll receive friendly good advice within the hour.

Here on SimHQ we also have a GPL dedicated forum to discuss everything GPL related. Click here.

Before you download carsets and tracks, you should know a bit about the way things work with different editors, and how you switch between carsets and seasons.

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