16 Mar 07
Weaver and Davidson: if only it was basketball...
My dream of being a Formula One driver never stood a chance. While I was near the front of the queue when God handed out height, I must have been in the toilet when he gave out the talent. But thanks to the joys of technology, there is now a viable alternative for wannabes like me. Computer consoles have progressed at an extraordinary rate, and the new Sony PlayStation3 - launched on 23 March - promises another quantum leap.
I've been invited to a secret London location to test drive Formula One Championship Edition on some pre-launch PS3s alongside F1 racer turned ace pundit Martin Brundle and Super Aguri driver Anthony Davidson, who will be lining up on the grid in Melbourne this weekend.
Formula One Championship Edition is the number one pre-order game for the PS3. It's based on the 2006 season and it took 64 uber-boffins 14 months to complete. Every detail of the 18 circuits is faithfully represented and Sony is claiming a new level of realism thanks to the PS3's monster processing power.
The F1 teams provided the game's designers with top secret CAD data to help them model the cars. The attention to detail is extraordinary. Each car took two and a half weeks to 'build' and one car takes up more memory on the PS3 than all 22 cars combined on the PS2.
