REVIEW: Racing Team Manager

13 Aug 2008 at 10:38:17 by Henry Laughton
Systems used to review this title: (PC)

“Stick the full wets on Lewis… no the full’s you freak… RON, WHAT ARE YOU @$%#& THINKING?!”

Just some of the more polite conversion I had with my TV during the British F1 Grand Prix. But like many an armchair sports expert, we all like to think we know better than pro’s. I for one am certainly grateful I was not calling the shots that day as Lewis Hamilton went on to win the grand prix at home. Result… no thanks to me.

For many others, screaming profanities at the local footie referee, or team manager, or players, or in fact anyone who just so happens to be in the way of the torrent of abuse spewed out by yet another know-it-all, has been curbed by the highly successful Football Manager series of games. But for the few million F1 fans out there who think they could do better, you’re choice of F1 management games has been pretty limited besides the abundance of over simplified free online games.

So when the latest attempt of this motorsport genre came along I was understandably keen to try it out. The, does-what-it-says-on-the-tin Racing Team Manager by Kalypso, does funnily enough put you in charge of a mythical racing team, not horses, or your kids at their local school sports day, but a rather snide mock F1 team of your choice. The teams and team colours are loosely based on the real world FIA F1 World Championships and while the resemblances to the real counterparts exist, there is enough of a difference to avoid any costly licensing issues for the developers. And disappointingly, this doesn’t seem to be the only area of cost saving throughout the game.

Within the game you’ll start either a new career at the bottom of the ladder or take over as boss of an established team. The game menus are all simple enough to pick up without referring to the manual and generally well laid out if a little clumsy in a few areas. For example, setting the car up before a race can be done with a simple automatic button. Great, but it may have you cursing if you ever make the effort to manually set up the car, as it seems to make no difference to the race results… unless you miscalculate how much fuel you need or that the rules now state you must use both the hard and soft compound tires throughout the race. As you don’t get any reminder before hitting the big race button, you’ll probably find yourself reverting to the auto setting button soon after.

As the boss of a new team, you’ll struggle to nip at the ankles of the tail-enders for the first few seasons and may find yourself elbowing your way into an established team instead after the third season or so. While taking over a top team may give more instant gratification of a win, you’ll soon find yourself yawing as your team storms off 10 seconds a lap from 3rd place driver… every race! (So that’s what Michael Schumacher must have felt like before he retired)

As you’d expect, the game offers quite a range in the number of options you have to manage outside of race day including your personnel, purchasing of parts, marketing, and research and development.  Each of the options has a variety of sub options from allocating staff resources to purchasing that new motor. Of course, if you want to get ahead in this game, you’ll need to pump vast resources into the R&D department, or cheat and send a spy out to snoop around other team garages. This all adds an element of depth to the game and makes for a more interesting experience, but I couldn’t help but feel slightly agitated when certain menus and buttons didn’t seem to work correctly, and there were spelling mistakes and poor English throughout.

All in all, this is a mildly entertaining game that few enthusiasts will be playing 6 months from now, while the rest of the gaming world obsessed by clicking a button to await an uncontrollable outcome, will be satisfied by one of the many MyFace apps far more than Race Team Manager.

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