In 1985, Mastertronic released Formula One Simulator across all the major 8-bit platforms of the time. Before diving into the details of this game, though, I need to take a step back to explain why it holds such a special place in my heart.
The first driving game I ever played was Speedway and Spinout on the Philips G7000 (also known as the Magnavox Odyssey 2). This would have been around 1983 when I was just six years old. I still vividly remember the excitement of trying to pass as many cars as I could in Speedway or racing my dad in Spinout.
The games were incredibly simple, featuring very basic graphics and limited sound, even for the time, but it was the closest I could get to driving a real car. In Speedway, you could choose between two skill settings, with the goal of passing as many cars as possible. The higher the skill level, the faster your car could go, but the harder it was to dodge the other cars on the road. There were no curves, corners or hills, and the game only ended when your time ran out. Spinout was a basic top-down racing game where you viewed the track from above. Two players could compete, with the aim of completing the race before the other. Holding down the joystick’s fire button made your car move slightly faster, but bumping into the other car or grazing the track's edges would make your vehicle spin. A head-on collision with the track’s sides would cause your car to explode.
It wasn’t until 1985 that I experienced a more advanced racing game for our home computer: Formula One Simulator on the Commodore Plus/4. Released by Mastertronic for the budget-friendly price of £1.99, this game was a simple yet enjoyable racer. The objective was straightforward—complete as many laps as possible before the timer hit zero. Created by Shaun Southern, the game featured just one track, but it was challenging and a lot of fun to play.
The graphics, though not particularly detailed, effectively conveyed the racing action. The smooth-scrolling track provided a decent sense of motion, and it was definitely a step up from the simple visuals I was used to on the G7000. Gameplay revolved around navigating a single, twisting track while avoiding crashes with other cars or the posts marking the road's edges. The controls were simple but intuitive, with just two gears (Lo and Hi) to manage. Cars appeared on either the left or right of the track, with the occasional road hog occupying the middle. After a while, you could start to anticipate the pattern of car appearances, allowing you to strategize the best moments to overtake.
Not only did I think this was the best racing game ever, but it was like having our own arcade machine at home. In just a few short years, games that I thought were advanced on the G7000 were being overtaken by titles that cost only a little more than my pocket money allowance!
I didn't get the Commodore 64 vesrsion of the game until many years later. It was very similar but introduced eight different tracks to choose from. The visuals also slightly improved, with the removal of the roadside posts seen in the Commodore 16 and Plus/4 versions. Interestingly, while the enhanced road graphics looked better, I felt this change made the game easier, as hitting the road edges no longer resulted in a crash.
Formula One Simulator offered a fun, no-frills racing experience. It delivered just the right amount of entertainment and quick-fire challenge—a hallmark of many Mastertronic games from that era and it remains a nostalgic and enjoyable slice of 1980s gaming.
