The game offers several modes in which the player can race alone or against AI opponents. The game also features multiplayer via LAN. Many parameters affecting the skill and aggressiveness of the AI drivers can be specified.
Development
Inspired by the 1966 filmGrand Prix, the developers chose to base the game on the 1967 Formula 1 Grand Prix season because during that period tracks were narrow and lined with trees, houses, and other elements that in a video game can serve as backgrounds to enhance the sensation of speed. In addition, the more primitive suspension of cars of the time meant that the car physics could be more visually dramatic. However, the amount of time that has passed since the 1967 Grand Prix season meant that some of the tracks the designers wanted to recreate no longer existed in their original form. The team visited town halls to get blueprints for defunct tracks. Licensing could also be difficult. Papyrus co-founder Dave Kaemmer commented, "It's not a pleasant thing to call someone on the phone and say that you want to license their dead son's name, but people have been very helpful."
Reception
According to Andy Mahood of PC Gamer US, Grand Prix Legends experienced "abysmally poor sales". It ultimately totaled 200,000 sales by 2004. GameSpot's Gord Goble attributed its performance to the "combination of treacherous gameplay, sometimes glacial frame rates, and esoteric subject matter". The game received "favorable" reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings. GameSpot said, "Grand Prix Legends will reward you with arguably the most intense racing experience ever seen on a personal computer." Grand Prix Legends was the runner-up for Computer Gaming Worlds 1998 "Best Driving" award, which ultimately went to . The editors wrote of Grand Prix Legends, "Arguably the most ambitious and realistic driving simulation to date—modeling the thrills and difficulties of Grand Prix racing circa 1967—it is also perhaps the toughest to play. It's an awesome game for those who can handle it." Grand Prix Legends won Computer GamesStrategy Pluss 1998 "Sports Game of the Year" award. The editors wrote, "Racing games are always popular, and there are a lot of them, but few if any approach Grand Prix Racings level of sophistication and uncompromising detail." In 1999, Next Generation listed Grand Prix Legends as number 47 on their "Top 50 Games of All Time", commenting that, "Not only does it have the most realistic physics model yet in a racing game a brilliant premise, and the best drive AI we've seen, but GPL enables players to do something they simply never could in the real world. Many, if not most games do that, but few do it as convincingly or compellingly."
