Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II

"Great game endorsed by the most legendary f1 driver"

For formula one fanatics games have always been a good home to have. Way back in the days of the 1980's we had such classics as 'continental circus', 'slicks' and the acclaimed 'super monaco gp'. Indeed, the latter is a title that still feels great to this day, maybe a bit easy, but still one that can take a while to finish.

The sequel, endorsed by Ayrton Senna is a superb upgrade of that game. The engine remains very similar to the original title, but thanks to the input of the legendary brazillian, the game takes on a whole new level. The main point for this is the way that important imformation is revised to make the game much closer to the real thing.

Biggest winner in this department is the circuits, playing through the world championship mode will take you on a 16 race season across all the major circuits of the time, of the ones reintroduced from the original, many things have improved. The 'USA' gp for instance now has more than 90 degree corners, including a tight hairpin at the front straight, while 'France' and 'Great britain' are both totally resdesigned and look almost nothing like the circuits from the original game.

This is no bad thing, being alot more accurate makes this game much more authentic. Best thing about this mode is that you actually race Ayrton Senna! He drives for the top team 'madonna' and your aim is simple, climb the ranks and overhaul the master.

The challenge drivers to win their seat gameplay is retained for this title, enhanced in the way that when you successfully move up a team, Senna gives a statement on exactly how good a choice you have made. For the time, this was the most accurate way of making an f1 career in gaming possible, indeed it was not until the late 1990's that a true successor ever came along.

This also means you don't have to spend an entire race season battling to come 11th in the worst car,. purely in the vain hope of displacing someone in a class b seat, while the anorak F1 fans may be disappointed, the game works beautifully.

On top of world championship there is the super monaco gp that is almost unchanged from the original. While world championship now has two difficulties. 'beginner' and 'master'. beginner is too easy, and has no reward in that the game does not continue once you win a season, 'master' is much harder, but allows you to do a michael schumacher and break records with consecutive wins.

New enchancements also include random weather, where you can qualify in the dry then race in the rain, not only this the game features a battery back up and password system. The battery backup is a god send as one thing the monaco games never got right is passwords. Many go on about how 12 characters is the longest password ever, think again, these games contained a wholly unecessary 64 character long password! Many gamers remember filling one side of A4 after just four races due to the sheer amount you needed to write down!

As a game today this is dated, arcadey and primitive. But if you are playing on a genesis, then you can't complain. This is an excellent racer in that it got closest to actually following an F1 career, and the only other chance you'll have to race Senna is the horrible post-humous go karting title on the playstation 1. Do yourself and the memory of the legend a favour, play the game he helped create!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/10/07

Game Release: Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II (EU, 1992)