''Formula One 2001'' is a

racing video game Racing games are a video game genre in which the player participates in a racing competition. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to fantastical settings. They are distributed along a spectrum between more realistic rac ...

developed by Studio 33 for the

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a di ...

version and

Studio Liverpool Psygnosis Limited (known as SCE Studio Liverpool or simply Studio Liverpool from 1999) was a British video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher headquartered at Wavertree Technology Park in Liverpool. Founded in 1984 by Ian Hether ...

for the PlayStation 2 version and published by

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), formerly known as Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), is a multinational video game and digital entertainment company wholly owned by multinational conglomerate Sony. The SIE Group is made up of two legal co ...

in PAL regions for both systems. The PlayStation 2 version was published in North America by Sony Computer Entertainment America under the

989 Sports 989 Studios was a division of Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) that developed games for PlayStation consoles and Windows personal computers. Their games include ''EverQuest'', ''Twisted Metal III'', '' Twisted Metal 4'', '' Syphon Filte ...

brand. It is a sequel to the

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

Formula One 2000 The 2000 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 54th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It commenced on 12 March and ended on 22 October after seventeen races. Michael Schumacher became Ferrari's first World Drivers' Champion in 2 ...

'' and was based on the

2001 Formula One World Championship The 2001 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 55th season of FIA Formula One racing. It commenced on 4 March 2001 and ended on 14 October after seventeen races. Michael Schumacher won the Drivers' title with a record margin of 58 points, a ...

. This game is the last game to be released in North America until ''

Formula One Championship Edition ''Formula One Championship Edition'' is a racing video game developed by Studio Liverpool and published by Sony Computer Entertainment exclusively for PlayStation 3. Background The game follows the basic structure of '' Formula One 06'' for th ...

''. In some editions, a DVD was given for free. The DVD offers a commentated review of the

2000 Formula One World Championship The 2000 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 54th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It commenced on 12 March and ended on 22 October after seventeen races. Michael Schumacher became Ferrari's first World Drivers' Champion in 21 ...

, race by race, with the option to toggle between viewing the main stream, an on-board car camera, view the pitlane or see on-screen data such as lap times and positions. These features were used in the former pay-per-view F1 Digital+'s interactive coverage.

Gameplay

The game's "arcade" mode followed a similar line to that of ''

'', although incentives were now offered in the form of upgrades to the player's car. A new mode — "Challenge" mode — was introduced. In Challenge mode, players were given a lap around

Spa-Francorchamps The Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps (), frequently referred to as ''Spa'', is a motor-racing circuit located in Stavelot, Belgium. It is the current venue of the Formula One Belgian Grand Prix, hosting its first Grand Prix in 1925, and has hel ...

Jenson Button Jenson Alexander Lyons Button (born 19 January 1980) is a British racing driver. He won the 2009 Formula One World Championship when he drove for the Brawn GP team. After his F1 career, he became champion of the 2018 season of the Super ...

Benetton B201 The Benetton B201 was the car with which the Benetton team competed in the 2001 Formula One World Championship. It was driven by Italian Giancarlo Fisichella, who was in his fourth year with the team, and Briton Jenson Button, who moved from Wil ...

. Players who achieved a fast lap time were given a verification code, and the opportunity to post their winning times on the Internet to compare their times to other people's if they have an account.

Development

''Formula One 2001'' was created with the help of Benetton,

Jaguar The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus ''Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the thi ...

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Ri ...

and Arrows. Many of the employees from former franchise owner

Psygnosis Psygnosis Limited (known as SCE Studio Liverpool or simply Studio Liverpool from 1999) was a British video game developer and publisher headquartered at Wavertree Technology Park in Liverpool. Founded in 1984 by Ian Hetherington, Jonathan Elli ...

aided in the development. At the peak of development, the game was worked upon by 25 people with a majority of them being programmers and artists.Presenter: Walker, Murray: The Making of Formula One 2001 The game's engine was based upon a Research and Development project that began two years before the release of the game. This was to develop the physics, collision and A.I. for the game. Sony had an extensive reference library for the tracks including aerial photographs, close-ups of the tracks and over 200 hours of race footage from

F1 Digital+ Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

. The PlayStation 2 graphical capabilities allowed the team to include more detail such as trackside details which were previously omitted and unique cockpit camera angles. Studio Liverpool managed to contact Formula One Administration who provided audio samples for all the cars. However, some of the audio samples provided were believed to be unsuitable. To rectify this, the developers spoke to Jordan and Prost and Sound Engineer Michael de Belle visited the garages to record the engine noises from the cars. The original PlayStation's central processing unit was used for sound processing.

Promotion

At the

2001 United States Grand Prix The 2001 United States Grand Prix (formally the 2001 SAP United States Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held on September 30, 2001, at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana in the United States. The 73-lap race was the sixteen ...

, Sony held a variety of sport promotions with Jenson Button and a multi-million advertising campaign. The advertising efforts in the United States included a national television campaign via network, cable and syndication sports programming. Promotions in print spreads and online advertising were also used. A Formula One 2001 American Challenge was held on 29 September 2001 in Castleton, Indiana. The event saw a time trial competition using the game and was played by Jenson Button against consumer Chris Ohanian. Ohanian made it into the final round by scoring one of the top 2 times but in the final, he was defeated by Button who set a lap time of 1:15.6 compared to Ohanian's 1:16.0. The game features all the drivers and tracks from the 2001 Formula One World Championship, although

Tarso Marques Tarso Anibal Santanna Marques (born 19 January 1976) is a Brazilian racing driver who competes part-time in the NASCAR Cup Series and the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the No. 79 Ford Mustang for Team Stange Racing in both series. He previously p ...

' name is never mentioned by Murray Walker. Instead, on the PS1 version Murray Walker calls him "Minardi", but on the PS2 version nothing is mentioned. Depending on which version the player has, one of the replacement drivers (

Pedro de la Rosa Pedro Martínez de la Rosa (; born 24 February 1971) is a Spanish former Formula One driver who has participated in 107 Grands Prix for the Arrows, Jaguar, McLaren, Sauber and HRT teams. He made his Formula One debut on 7 March 1999, becomin ...

) that appeared in the real

is in the game. The drivers

Ricardo Zonta Ricardo Luiz Zonta (born March 23, 1976) is a Brazilian professional racing driver. He currently competes full-time in the Brazilian Stock Car Pro Series, driving the No. 10 Toyota Corolla E210 for RCM Motorsport. Early career Born in Curitiba ...

Alex Yoong Alexander Charles Yoong Loong (; born 20 July 1976), is a Malaysian professional racing driver of Chinese and English parentage. Yoong began his career in saloon cars before moving into the Proton one-make series. He later raced in single-s ...

and

Tomáš Enge Tomáš Enge (; born 11 September 1976) is a Czech former professional racing driver who has competed in many classes of motorsport, including three races in Formula One. He has twice been sanctioned professionally for drug offences. Career Born ...

were not featured. Despite

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

unveiled the

Toyota TF101 The Toyota TF101 was a Formula One car used solely for testing purposes during the 2001 season, in preparation for the team's full-scale assault on the series in 2002. The car was designed by Toyota F1's chief of chassis Jean-Claude Martens and ...

car, the

Panasonic Toyota Racing formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb s ...

team was also not featured. In the European version of the game, released earlier in the year,

Jean Alesi Jean Alesi (born Giovanni Alesi, 11 June 1964) is a French professional racing driver of Italian origin. After successes in minor categories, notably winning the 1989 Formula 3000 Championship, his Formula One career included spells at Tyrrell ...

can be seen driving for the

Prost Grand Prix Prost Grand Prix was a Formula One racing team owned and managed by four-time Formula One world champion Alain Prost. The team participated in five seasons from 1997 to 2001. History Purchase of Ligier As early as 1992, Alain Prost had ambitio ...

while German driver

Heinz-Harald Frentzen Heinz-Harald Frentzen (born 18 May 1967) is a German former racing driver. He competed in multiple disciplines including Sportscars, Formula One and DTM. He had his most success in Formula One, entering over 150 Grands Prix and winning three. E ...

drives for the Jordan Grand Prix. In the American version, released on September of the same year, both drivers have switched roles as they also did in real life. On top of this, in the European version

Luciano Burti Luciano Pucci Burti (born 5 March 1975) is a Brazilian racing driver who briefly raced in Formula One. He is now a commentator for TV Globo. Early career Burti's early career saw him graduate through the usual channels and he found himself in ...

drives for

Jaguar Racing Jaguar Racing is the name given to Jaguar Land Rover's racing interests. It currently competes in Formula E under the name Jaguar TCS Racing as a result of the partnership with Tata Consultancy Services. It was previously a Formula One construc ...

, while

Gastón Mazzacane Gastón Hugo Mazzacane (born 8 May 1975) is an Argentine racing driver. He participated in 21 Formula One Grands Prix, debuting on 12 March 2000. He scored no championship points. His father, Hugo Mazzacane named him after Argentine touring car r ...

drives for the Prost Grand Prix. In the American version, Luciano Burti drives for the Prost Grand Prix while Pedro de la Rosa drives for Jaguar Racing as they both did in real life from the

Spanish Grand Prix The Spanish Grand Prix ( es, Gran Premio de España, ca, Gran Premi d'Espanya) is a Formula One motor racing event currently held at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. The race is one of the oldest in the world still contested, celebrating it ...

Alcohol and tobacco-related sponsors

All alcohol and tobacco sponsors are censored: * Ferrari's

Marlboro Marlboro (, ) is an American brand of cigarettes, currently owned and manufactured by Philip Morris USA (a branch of Altria) within the United States and by Philip Morris International (now separate from Altria) outside the US. The largest Ma ...

is completely censored. * Williams's

Veltins Brauerei C & A Veltins () is a brewery in the west German city of Meschede-Grevenstein. In 2015, Veltins ranked fourth among Germany's best selling beers. The small guesthouse brewery of Franz Kramer opened its simple wooden gates i ...

is replaced by the normal colour of the car. * Jaguar's Beck's is replaced with "Best's". * McLaren's

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

is replaced by "Mika" and "David" (as in real life). * Benetton's

Mild Seven , previously called , is a Japanese brand of cigarettes, currently owned and manufactured by Japan Tobacco. History Mevius was launched in 1977 under the name Mild Seven. It was intended to be a mild version of the Seven Stars brand. It was la ...

is replaced by "Benetton" (on the engine cover) and "Renault Sport" (on the rear wing) (as in real life). * Jordan's

Benson & Hedges Benson & Hedges is a British brand of cigarettes owned by American conglomerate Altria. Cigarettes under the ''Benson & Hedges'' name are manufactured worldwide by different companies such as Rothmans, Benson & Hedges, Philip Morris USA, British ...

is replaced by "Bitten Heroes". * BAR's

Lucky Strike Lucky Strike is an American brand of cigarettes owned by the British American Tobacco group. Individual cigarettes of the brand are often referred to colloquially as "Luckies." Throughout their 150 year history, Lucky Strike has had fluctuatin ...

is replaced by "Look Alike" (with the logo blocked out on the nose and sides of the car).

Reception

The PlayStation 2 version of ''Formula One 2001'' received "average" reviews according to the

review aggregation A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

. In Japan, ''

Famitsu formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the ...

'' gave it a score of 27 out of 40.

References

External links