Arcade racers tend to be arcadey in their driving physics, but there's no reason to not go down the simulation route instead, and that's exactly what Sega did with F355 Challenge, the Ferrari branded racer that tests your actual driving skill.
Supposedly. I don't have a three-screen arcade cabinet to try out, but I do have the PlayStation 2 port from a few years later, which was helpfully called Ferrari F355 Challenge, to really hammer that branding home. How will it stack up to the 'real driving simulator' that is the Gran Turismo series? Should we even compare the two? Have I waffled enough for this introduction?
Fun Times
This game is about one thing and one thing only: The Ferrari F355. The Italian sports car from the late 1990s was a hit with at least one person, that being Yu Suzuki, of video game design fame, who thought it needed showcasing, and the medium in which to showcase it should be an arcade game.
To drop a car model into an arcade game would be almost trivial, so the idea instead was to drop the car model into a simulation, in which the car handles like the real deal, and the players' driving styles should also change to reflect that.
Slap on some screens to the side of the main monitor and suddenly players find themselves in a Ferrari, track walls whizzing past their peripheral vision, and quarters getting slotted in for the next race.
It sounds promising, and the PlayStation 2 port certainly looks inviting, with modes ranging from arcade races all the way to a 'Great Driver Challenge'.
Taking things slow and steady, my first stint behind the digital wheel would be in the Arcade mode, which boasts a number of real-world tracks and driving options.
I would imagine that the option to turn the time limit off wasn't available in the arcade original, but it's a rather welcome feature here, allowing you to focus even further on the driving and less about the pressures of the clock.
I haven't raced around Laguna Seca in any game for a while now, so let's find out how much of it comes back to me. It wasn't in the arcade original, but that's no bother - this game is about the car, not the track.
So far, this looks both like Laguna Seca, and like an arcade game, which is throwing me off a little. The car models are great, and the HUD is... there... useful, certainly, but all over the place. One thing of note is all the driving aids that are on by default to some degree, difficulty depending.
Along with traction control and the like is an Intelligent Braking System, which allows you to completely ignore braking zones and let the computer handle it. You don't need to touch the brake. Let go of the accelerator to give it a chance, turn to, you know, go around the corner that the computer has braked for, then get back into the race.
Frustrations
At first, I glossed over its existence entirely, not noticing that I was being braked because I was, of course, assuming that I was the one braking. Then I'd slide a little, and then a lot.
Turn two and I was sideways. No big deal, race from the back.
Further Frustrations
Turn four and I was sideways again, ploughing through more dirt and frustrated that this novice driving style wasn't working for me.
The options are - on the PlayStation 2 at least - quite customizable, so after an utterly failed stint in the Intermediate mode with gear shifting and no 'intelligent' brakes, I was back to a more passive novice set up with which to just race a little.
Turn one. I quit.
Final Word
I never made it past turn four of Laguna Seca in all my attempts with different car setups and whatnot. I get that it's a simulation, but it's also an arcade racer, and those tend to allow you to race. Something, clearly, isn't clicking, and I blame the simulation.
This may well be a similar case to fighting games, where I'm so used to Tekken that I can't get into Street Fighter. Am I so used to Gran Turismo that I can't get into other simulators? Is Gran Turismo too forgiving or inaccurate?
F355 Challenge was said to be the most accurate simulation possible at the time. Only GT and GT2 had been released by then, so that may well be true, but today, after twenty years of playing GT titles, I find F355 Challenge to be both sluggish and slidey, and not a sunny happy simulation that its intro video shows it to be.
In this game, I am clearly the guy driving the white car.
And I'm not sure what to think of that. I haven't given it anywhere near enough time to win me over, and the 1001 write up stresses that while it is difficult and you will fail, the joy of finally overcoming a challenge is exactly the point of an arcade title, and so this game makes sense.
It does. I can see the argument, and will gladly watch others drive off in their Ferrari's with it because I'm not having fun here.
Your mileage may vary.
Fun Facts
To show just how big a fan of Ferrari's designer Yu Suzuki was, he apparently used his own F355 to get data for the game. That's a 'citation needed' fact, but I'll believe it.
F355 Challenge, developed by Sega AM2, first released in 1999.
Version played: Ferrari F355 Challenge, PlayStation 2, 2002, via emulation.