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Sunday, November 24, 2024 1:02:54 AM

Golden Lap Review (benmarwood)

If you're a fan of motorsport management sims, definitely check this out.
My favourite in the category is Motorsport Manager 2, and this is in a similar vein but a lighter version. At the time of writing it hasn't been out long so there are a few minor bugs being ironed out (not gamebreakers in my experience), but the good news is there's a bunch of further improvements coming to tweak the balance.
The scenario is modelled very loosely on 70s F1: you pick a team, a couple of drivers, sponsor, designer, head of pit crew, then you race across ten seasons. The cars are coloured circles on the circuit, there's nothing flashy but it's effective, and once you get your finances in order you can design new parts and upgrade the existing ones.
During a race, ask drivers to push, back off, turn the engine up/down and pit for tyres, plus if they've really p****d you off - you can make them pit and repair every nut and bolt on the car and have them finish 3 or 4 laps down for "reliability".
I saw people grumbling that this game was easy so I picked the hardest team and signed only bad drivers/crew, and I got my butt handed to me in season one, so clearly it's not *that* easy.
The gameplay balance is not perfect yet - in my experience there are too many deaths (something like 3 - 4 a year is common, way above the average for the period it's trying to emulate) and wet races come around far too often, where it becomes more like an idle game.
If you're an F1 purist this doesn't do a perfect job - it has the modern Soft/Medium/Hard/Inters/Wet tyre options, yellow flags are done under full course yellow/virtual safety car, there are only 10 teams, and there are only 10 races to a season. The lack of teams and races is a shame but it adds to the light touch.
So, get it. It's addictive despite being repetitive in nature, I'm tempted to say "I really like it but I don't yet love it" but I've put 60+ hours into it now, so, who am I kidding?