“Welcome to Bahrain, at the first Formula 1 Championship in 2010. You can see the new talent got a chance from Lotus and starts the 49 rounds from the 18th place.”
“Jack! I would like to ask something.”
“Yes, Leslie?”
“Why are we here and not down there to join the course?”
Indeed, after a long time we can be Formula 1 pilots again! Since F1 Challenge '99-'02 there was no Formula 1 game for PC, and that means eight years. The year before yesteryear Codemasters successfully got the rights from Sony, and for our greatest happiness it started to develop a multiplatform game. After about 18 months of work Codemasters released the long awaited F1 2010 on 24th, September.
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Arcade or Simulation?
Maybe this is the question which divides gamers the most. In fact, you can dull controls and physics down to the level of Burnout, but the other end gives an almost simulation-like experience. In spite of this, most of the rFactor fans will pull face until they try it out (or already pulls face if he/she tried it out), but saying it an arcade game is a strong exaggeration. Let's say the game is an antechamber to the world of real simulations, or from another viewpoint, it's a “light” simulation. In real, telemetry is missing, and car setup is hardly as detailed as in an Image Space Incorporated or SimBin game, but it still gives enough to paddle with and challenging enough for beginner simfans. You should do more than pushing the pedals and wringing the steering wheel – there is a need for some tactics for developing a proper strategy (which can easily change even in the middle of a course).
Grandstand
Tell no complaint about the visuals: The cars (from the beginning of the season 2010) are modeled beautifully, the realization of circuits is fantastic, and the box street is awesome. Every team has its own crew – you can see them waiting for their pilots during the seconds of changing tires. If changing tires is mentioned: The animation of the people was recorded by motion capture technology, which makes them astoundingly realistic. It's funny when you overshoot in the box street, a serviceman lays on the forepart of the car, and the others have to push you back – which means a great waste of time. The circuits are breathtaking. It is unbelievable that how many details were considered by the developers – it's sufficient to mention the tight streets of Monaco (where you must bowl along with literally fearful speed), or the floodlit course of Singapore (where the bodyworks of the cars are glittering amazingly). What's more, I talked to my friend, Kristjan (who is a Formula 3 pilot) about the Spa track. I was complaining about always whirling around at La Source, because the inner arch of the track seems a little bit strange. He asked with kindling eyes: “Did they put it into the game too?” He told me that there the asphalt descends a little toward the inner arch, and if you go onto the curb (or accelerate) in the wrong moment, you will have a great chance to end in a pirouette. From where does he know it? He was driving there in real. Besides this we talked about Eau Rouge, about which curb I should use there, and about how to “fail” the combination of the curves 12 and 13 to get them good – but I keep these information to myself, to have at least this much advantage...
The weather is another wonder: Wet was never represented so lifelike in any video game before! I almost smelled the scent of the rain... Moreover, when you start a rainy lap, the cars before you are pulling such a big curtain of water behind that you cannot see the track. If a Formula 1 pilot sees the same in real, then I understand why the title of the main title song is “Fear”... Furthermore, the rain is not just an effect all the same in every places: For example in Spa there is rainstorm on one part of the track, and it is only sprinkling on another part. This is realized in F1 2010, so you can rub your head thinking about intermediate is enough or you will need “normal” rain tires?
Besides, during a weekend the state of the track is changing. The first free practice is going on a “virgin” circuit, but as more and more pilots come, the asphalt becomes more and more tinted with rubber from the tires, which has two benevolent effects: The car grips better, and you can see the break-points without help.
The sound is top notch too: Simply, everything is in their place and sounds perfectly authentic. The Rapture3D application known from DiRT2 is working excellently (mostly...) and gives an awesome three-dimensional effect. When the engine cries on high rev, it brings tears in the eyes, and if you have at least a little empathy, you won't torture the technology. But also on other places (paddock, garage) the illusion is perfect.
Paddock
Of course, we don't have to prove our skills only in the races. The motto of the game is: “Be The Driver, Live The Life!” And indeed, you have to give interviews (even creating a profile goes by questions from a representative of the press), negotiate with other teams, decide about team development issues – so, at last, you are not just a car taking circles on the track. Even the menu is not the regular one but the “walking” type similar to DiRT2's menu. It is a showpiece but sometimes confusing too, and you don't always find what you are searching for. It's not X-Games but Formula 1, so the motorhome is a bit low-key and tidied with not a party audience outside but serious talking between the engineers or an interview (of course, the girls are there ). By the way, the interviews are not just for the mood, because they affect on the opinion of the teams (and on the opinion of your own team too), and so it has an effect on your carrier. During your 3, 5 or 7 years long carrier you can prove to various teams that you are worthy of their coaches. Or – what a terrible idea! – you can take the Hispania Racing Team to the top by insistently developing and reaching good scores (this latter brings money, of course). Another happy improvement is your own race engineer who doesn't just help to set the car up but gives information about a lot of things during the laps, for example about where is your teammate, how the state of your car changed, and what the weather is or will be. In fact, sometimes what he tells is far from reality, but my goodness, maybe his coffee contained something else than just pure caffeine... But he is not the only strange person in the game. Also your agent enters the lists, because she has a horse-face and a suspicious accent... Anyway, she is responsible for the contact with the teams, so it's she who can tell how much the other teams are interested in you, and besides the statistics of your own carrier you can take a look into the CV of real pilots.
Still for the authentic F1 sensation you can choose full race weekends with two free practices, three part qualifying and full course race, in which at least one tirechange is obligatory. If you have less patience, you may choose the shorter version and you may cut some of the full race distance. There is life outside the carrier mode: You can try any team on any circuit against time, or you can run full course weekends, and there is opportunity for multiplayer matches too.
Garage
Between the phases of the race you will sit here strapped to your car, so you cannot go out for a healthy piss. Instead, you have to deal with such bagatelle things like tire management, race strategy and car setup, choosing between engines, and at the first free practice the research and development. The engineer tries to persuade you that you should run a given time under a given number of laps , and if you do, you will get some nice improvement for the car, without decorations. If you reached the number one position among the pilots, you can tell the eggheads in the headquarter of the team what to research. And as I mentioned above, this is the way of making even Virgin Racing a megateam.
If you don't like to eff around with car setup, don't worry. Rob (the engineer) offers a total of 9 setups, in which there are rainy conditions too, so it's relative easy to find a good setup – of course, in the custom setup you have much more possibilities.
Looking left we can see how much the developers were busy to make the game more realistic for us: The servicemen are working on the car of your teammate too – but just if he is in, because he may be running his qualifying laps at the moment. And of course, your digital replica is not sitting motionless but taking hand and finger exercises, scratching, picking his nose (in helmet and gloves!), things like these. What is suspicious: At each team I see the same faces, they only changed shirts...
Start Grid
On easy difficulty the opponents are not more than moving blocks, but if you push it up to Legendary, you can count on exciting battles. Fortunately, there are no stupid railcars but the opponents are paying attention to you and each other. They are defending their arches heavily, if they must (but they can fail), and they attack aggressively – simply said, this is fantastic. Codies made personal AIs, so when I fought against Schumacher, I picked up on his aggressive breaking and very short breaking distances. On the other hand, Bruno Senna was confused easily by following him at close range. Unbelievable.
Multiplayer also gives more than instant matches. You can create your session according to your own taste: Set up the number of laps, qualifying runs, driving assists, etc – moreover, you can arrange your own championship with official points system. Games for Windows – LIVE works like a charm, if you registered in a supported country. If you didn't, you can only make an offline profile and fight against the machine (or play hot seat time trial matches with your friends). Another thing: Casual players do better if mark some intelligent players as a friend and play only with them, because there are real crazies on the web who degrade this noble sport to a wrecking derby by throwing the principles of “fair game” away.
Bugs on the Visor
I honestly worry about finding these errors, even if most of them are not serious. I already mentioned the race engineer whose mind wonders sometimes, but what is more annoying: On certain circuits in certain curves and curve-combinations the computer slows down. If you are on the ball, you easily mortify a Ferrari with a Lotus. In shorter races it happens that too much car is out for changing tires at the same time, and if so, the lollipop man not always let you out from the pit. Going into the pit manually isn't entirely manual, because the computer takes control and you only have to break in the right moment – considering the other parts of the game I waited some more.
Besides all of these there are some hard defects in multiplayer mode. There is no useable text chat (you can send messages through GfWL, but that is terrible – in exchange, VoIP works like a charm), but what is more painful: There is no Spectate, so you cannot watch others. If you were drop out, you can see only the table showing elapsed time and current position (!). You cannot join to a race in progress: The session is locked until the participants finished all the races. These errors are completely inexplicable because they were given in DiRT2, and both games run on the same EGO engine. Unfortunately, the online leaderboard is bugged too, because sometimes it doesn't add the time of the third sector, so some people are leading the board by impossible times. What's worse, they are called cheater innocently. Another unfortunate things: There is no safety car, and instead of people swinging flags there are only some light blinking on the pilot wheel, then you can read information on the top of the screen. I also missed the man with the information table from the box. There is no DirectX 11 graphics, and the most annoying error: The rule system is inconsistent a little(?). I don't mind if it takes severely when you cut a curve in the middle of a race, but why am I penalized when Barrichello knocks me from behind? And why can't I cut the voids when I have a puncture? Codemasters would take the stand on finding a cure and making nice fat patches. Let it be!
Update: Meanwhile CM published the first patch, which addressed most of the bugs and introduced the DirectX11 graphics mode, but made the puddles on the track disappearing. Obviously the players who bought the game are demanding a second patch to fix this and the remaining small bugs.
The Chequered Flag
Codemasters seems to cut off more than it can chew with this F1 series. The first presentation is not perfect but still a fair try. Because of the bugs it won't get a GD Top score, and I subtracted half of a droidhead because of the little flaws. One thing is sure: CM had a good start with an excellent software, and we are curiously waiting for the following chapters planned to be released yearly. The F1 2010 came, saw – and conquered at least me!
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Title: F1 2010 What I liked:
What I didn't like:
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