It's Time To Hit The Track With Grand Prix Story
Grand Prix Story ($2.99) by Kairosoft Co.,Ltd is another simulation game from the makers of the popular Game Dev Story, Hot Springs Story, and Mega Mall Story. Yep, it’s more of that addictive simulation game formula that you love so much.
In Grand Prix Story, you are put in charge to manage your own racing team, with the goal of conquering the Grand Prix. But before that can happen, you have a lot of training to do, as well as finding the right people for your team. You have to start out as the worst, and work your way up to being the best. This title closely resembles Game Dev Story more than the other recent releases.
Like the other Kairosoft releases, Grand Prix Story starts off slow. You have to learn the ropes as you go along, and you start off small – really small. However, once you understand the basics and figure stuff out, the game will roll along nicely.
Your role is to be the manager of several racing teams. This means that you never actually control the car in a race, but you definitely will be spending your time researching and developing cars, find parts and tune them, gather sponsorships, hire new drivers and mechanics, and guide them all to victory. Yes, this sounds a bit convoluted, but once you’re a few hours in to Grand Prix Story, it will just click.
In the beginning, you will start out with one car and some small races. You will have to learn how to hire mechanics to fix your car after every race, contact new drivers, enhance your cars by installing awesome parts, and also get “research points” to upgrade the car even more. Your drivers and mechanics will also vary in skills, and you can make them better by training them.
There are different types of cars as well, and each kind will have its own strengths and weaknesses. You will have to take these into consideration when you look for a race to compete in, since the terrain will vary. With the combination of lots of cars to choose from and even more parts, there is a lot of customization. It’s also up to you to find the right parts for the right cars to maximize performance in races – after all, you want to win, right?
Now, when you go into races, you don’t actually control the car or driver at all. You’ll just be watching how well your driver performs. There’s also two steps to races: the preliminaries that determine your placement at the start of a race, and the actual race itself. The results of these races depends on how well you’ve been training. So yeah, you’ll be watching your guy drive around and around, but you’ll want to watch it a bunch of times because of the work you put into it – right?
As you race, you will earn research points. If you place in the top three, you will earn more and eventually get sponsorships. The sponsorships will get you more parts, more sponsorships, and the best part – more money to get better drivers, mechanics, cars, parts, and whatever you need. You’ll be rewarded greatly for being a winner, so there’s your motivation.
Eventually you will be controlling several teams at once. This will end up in you racing several cars at once, which will net you more research points and cash in the long run. Getting money is very important – how else are you going to pay your team members, get them the training they need, the cars you want, and parts to improve your shiny cars?
Once a year (in the game), the Grand Prix will occur. This is a series of races, with huge benefits waiting for you if you manage to conquer it. You will be able to upgrade your garage and access even more content.
Grand Prix Story allows users to rotate the screen and also access the D-Pad controls if the touch-based option isn’t suitable. There is also the ability to zoom in on the game too, if you want to see the racing action up-close. The rotation and zoom will only work on the iPhone 3GS and later, iPod touch second generation and later, and the iPad (though it’s not a universal binary).
I am finding Grand Prix Story to be another enjoyable Kairosoft simulation, and definitely appreciate that it is closer to Game Dev Story. If you’re a fan of simulation games, or just Kairosoft in general, then do yourself a favor and pick this up. Watching your drivers race around the track will end up to be worth your time and effort (as it is in all Kairosoft games, really).
It is currently 25 percent off ($2.99) in the App Store for a limited time, so hurry and download it now! See you at the races!
