Grand Prix Circuit is a Racing Game developed by Distinctive Software and published by Accolade for MS-DOS compatible operating systems in 1988. It was ported to the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple ][, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum.
The game allows players to choose from three different F1 cars, the McLaren MP4/4 (Honda 1.5L V6 turbo), Williams FW12C (Renault 3.5L V10), and the Ferrari F1/87/88C (Ferrari 3.5L V12), and race them across eight tracks from around the world.
Kazunori Yamauchi, the creator of the Gran Turismo racing franchise for the PlayStation, was initially introduced to the genre of racing simulators by Grand Prix Circuit.
This game features examples of:
- Awesome, but Impractical: The McLaren with its Honda turbo engine is the most powerful car in the game, but is also the most difficult car to control.
- Blood Sport: You have the option to battle the computer-controlled opponent, while also trying to evade collisions.
- Cool Car: The game features three of the coolest F1 cars of its time: the McLaren MP4/4, Williams FW12C, and the Ferrari F1/87/88C.
- Diegetic Interface: The game uses the cockpits and dashboards of the cars as its HUD.
- Lady Not-Appearing-in-This-Game: The game's cover features the face of an attractive blonde woman, so prominently that it even risks veering into What Were They Selling Again?, as the only indication that there's any car racing involved is that a F1 car is reflected on her sunglasses. As anyone who knows about the state of graphics in late '80s games would already guess, no such dame appears in the game.
- Recycled In Space: It's basically Accolade/Disctinctive's Test Drive series WITH F1 CARS!
- Sprite/Polygon Mix: The track is made of vector graphics without textures, everything else from the interior of the player's car to all other cars on the road (non-scaling sprites at various fixed scales drawn from ahead and behind) to the non-race screens are pixel graphics.
- Timed Mission: In Practice, one of the three playing modes, the clock is the only opponent you have.
- World Tour: The eight tracks are various famous racing tracks from around the globe the Autódromo Internacional Nelson Piquet (Brazil), the Circuit de Monaco (Monaco), the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve (Canada), Detroit Street Circuit (United States), Silverstone Circuit (United Kingdom), Hockenheimring (Germany), Autodromo Nazionale di Monza (Italy), and the Suzuka International Racing Course (Japan).
- Wraparound Background: The setting is a F1 track, but aside from turns, it's rather monotonous. It's similar to making the background go in a loop for a side-scrolling 2D game.
