Exhaustion. You've made it to the last of 17 races in the ~Grand Prix season and you're only 3 points behind the circuit leader. To ensure victory and grab the coveted crown of the best driver in the world, all you've got to do is finish first with its ten points, guaranteeing you'll come out on top regardless of who finishes second with its measly six point reward....
Exhaustion. You've made it to the last of 17 races in the ~Grand Prix season and you're only 3 points behind the circuit leader. To ensure victory and grab the coveted crown of the best driver in the world, all you've got to do is finish first with its ten points, guaranteeing you'll come out on top regardless of who finishes second with its measly six point reward. Practice. Practice. Practice. Gotta learn the layout of the track, the chicanes, the fast bends, the tight corners and the down slope strategies for this 69-lap, 305 1/2 kilometer ~Spanish circuit.
You've attained your high standing by surviving the previous sixteen circuits that have taken you to many continents and just about every type of track imaginable. Slow, fast and tedious tracks. Through bad weather and good, tracks that allow easy overtaking strategies, others stingy with limited or nearly impossible opportunities for passing, tunnels, a bridge  you name it, you've raced it. Now the glory is in front of you  concentrate, hang on, here comes that final hairpin turn, right before the finish line...
Monaco Grand Prix Racing Simulation 2, by Ubi Soft, provides innumerable options and opportunities to experience the thrills of ~Grand Prix racing. Simulating the real season in nearly every conceivable way, there are 11 teams with 22 drivers  you can choose to race as one of them or enter your own persona and take your place with a teammate. Options abound in setup mode  number and level of competitors, weather conditions, amount of damage allowed (none, intermediate, realistic), easy or realistic difficulty settings with dozens of adjustable parameters and types of races.
Competing on the seasonal circuit, your globe trotting will take you to ~Germany, ~Great Britain, ~Argentina, ~Australia, ~Austria, ~Belgium, ~Brazil, ~Canada and ~Spain (~Catalan) during the first half. You'll complete your world tour with visits to ~France, ~Hungary, ~Italy (fastest track on the circuit), ~Luxembourg, ~Monaco, ~San Marino and ~Europe (~Spain again).
Eight diverse game modes are available for your racing pleasure. Begin easy by utilizing the training mode with its three options: training, demonstration or apprentice, each with unique properties. Move on to the second mode, a simple race to get your bearings. The third mode simulates a ~Grand Prix racing weekend  select a circuit, experience practice runs, run heats for position, warm-up and then let 'er rip. All the on-track rules and regulations, intensity, pit stops and competitiveness you can handle for a maximum of two hours.
Mode four is the challenging Championship simulation. Race in all 17 ~Grand Prix races at completely different venues, each with inherent weather conditions, track characteristics and idiosyncrasies. By necessity, become an expert in configuring your car for maximum efficiency for each set of conditions with more than a dozen setups to consider (transmission, gearbox ratio, steering, brake balance, aerodynamics (wing adjustment), fuel levels, tires, springs, ride height, bump stops, dampers, camber, wheel alignment and power settings). Make practice runs and employ the best telemetry tools available for analyzing car performance.
The fifth mode, Individual Championship, allows you set your own limits for a personalized ~Grand Prix season by editing the number of races and the list of drivers. The ultimate challenge comes in mode six  the Career challenge. You'll have 17 races in which to excel with the restriction that you drive the car that is selected for you. If you do well enough, at the end of the season you'll receive a virtual contract with a more prestigious team and a better car and do it again
Next is the Time Attack mode for those who wish to simply try and establish new lap record times on any or all of the circuits. This mode comes with two options including the "free run" that is basically a race against the clock and a "ghost" race. With this option, you race against a transparent (no collisions) "ghost" car that will run at your best previous speed or that set by another human player on the same computer at that track. Finally, the last mode is a set of 14 scenarios, each with specific objectives with options to race at amateur, pro or expert difficulty settings.
Monaco Grand Prix Racing Simulation 2 offers four versions of multi-play: (1) two people can play on the same machine; (2) two to four players can compete over a null-modem cable; (3) two to eight fans can compete via a LAN setup, and (4) up to eight people can use the free Internet service provided by the ~Ubi Soft Game Service. The game supports keyboard, joystick, gamepad and steering wheel inputs and requires a 3Dfx accelerator card.
Rounding out the package are two user-directed options that offer the user expanded gameplay possibilities. The first is time travel. By the press of an on-screen icon, you are transported back to the 1950s with a set of four teams and eight cars, a totally different sound experience and the extreme challenge of handling race cars imbued with antiquated behavioral characteristics The second option is the inclusion of a fully functional map editor that offers the chance to develop or change cockpit, car and track layouts and a sound editor.
Now, back to the race  you've still got that final hairpin to negotiate There, just up ahead, it's the checkered flag Hope that fuel calculation was right  uh-oh... ~ Michael L. House, All Game Guide