Although nowhere near as diabolical as last year's attempt, car handling still requires tweaking. There's little feeling of weight to the car when using the standard set-up, which often results in the impression that your car is gliding over the road, rather than hugging it. Driving over grass and gravel pits never produces the catastrophic effects that you'd expect it to. Indeed, you only need to steer into the side of another car to realise that any sense of realism is lost in these Road Rash-style collisions.

These discrepancies suggest that Sony are appealing to a wider audience that requires the kind of instant gratification of an arcade racer, rather than the time consuming but more rewarding perseverance of a simulation - not necessarily a bad thing, but an individual choice. However, Future Gamer feel that if you deliberately purchase an F1 game, you're after more than a lightweight drive. You're after simulation, car adjustments, stringent rules and pit-stop tactics. The recreation of the real thing should manifest itself both on the track as well as in the paddock.

To its credit, F1 '99 does provide 16 tracks, including Malaysia, all of the top drivers, cars and a choice of standard car set-ups. The usual gameplay modes apply: quick race, Grand Prix and two-player. Sadly, the two-player mode leaves much to be desired too, in terms of speed and visuals, and you can't help thinking that its addition is merely a token gesture.

Since the shambles that was F1 '98, with its dismal graphics engine and disappointingly unrealistic car physics, there was only one way for Sony to go - up. That they've just about managed to achieve it isn't so much justification of F1 '99's existence, more a sad indictment of its predecessor's quality.