Soldato
- Joined
- 24 Sep 2005
- Posts
- 20,185
- Location
- Middlesbrough
A review stolen from Mac. from Pistonheads for anyone who is undecided (or waiting until 6pm!)
I spent a few hours on this last night so I'll give an initial review...
I don't think I would go so far as to call it a racing simulator, it definitely blurs the line between game and simulator but probably falls more towards game. I don't know how an F1 car behaves at the limit but the driving physics of Forza seem a little more realistic.
This isn't a game killer though, it's still very tricky to get right and rewards a good driving style and really immerses you in the drama of an F1 race.
To get a feeler for it, before I started career mode I jumped in Button's McLaren, switched all driver aids off and went to Spa for a GP. Needless to say I was all over the place, fluffing gearchages, over-revving the engine, missing braking points, clipping other cars and spinning off every other corner after giving it too much throttle out of slower corners. It was definitely a jumping in at the deep end and coming straight from FM3 into this required a re-tune of driving style to get the most out of the F1 style of racing. You really have to rely on the downforce and trust the car will stick when sticking it into the fast corners. However when you get it right, and you're knocking it down a couple of gears from 7th down to 5th and nailing it through a medium fast switchback and the car just sticks, it’s a great feeling!
On FM3 I drive with ABS as the only driver aid, and use manual gearchanges on the controller, as an intro to this game I have settled on ABS, racing line, and medium traction control with manual gearchanges to get a feel for all of the tracks. I am still looking forward to turning all the aids off after a season and doing it properly, as at the moment it's a bit too easy (read below).
AI - the artificial intelligence in this games seems very good so far, for example if you stick it up the inside of someone under braking, they won't just blindly turn in on you, they will give you about a cars width to play with. Similarly if you beat them to the apex, and hang them out to dry by squeezing them onto the rumble strip the opposition will take evasive action by either keeping it pinned and using the run ofto race you, or backing out and conceding the place.
On FM3 the AI would quite often just crash into the side of you and force you to spin. Cars also seem to have their own little battles on the track, on other racing games it often feels like you are the only one racing, and the other cars are just driving round in a procession, but in this game there are midfield overtakes, you come across a pack of three cars in traffic all fighting for position, and sometimes they will have little crashes amongst themselves which you have to avoid being part of, it definitely adds another dimension to racing. Thumbs up on the AI codemasters.
Ok so onto career mode, you start by entering your driver name and details then choosing your season length. You can have a 3/5/7 year career and depending how long you choose to be involved, a 7 year career which is what I chose makes you start with either Lotus, HRT or Virgin and work your way up. I chose Lotus.
The aspirations of the smaller teams are realistic, for example at the start of the season, a 20th place qualifying spot and a race result of 18th is deemed the target. You also gain rewards and are judged about how you do against your team mate.
You get the full F1 calendar starting in Bahrain, a track I have no idea about. You can either choose a short or long race weekend. The long weekend mirrors reality, with FP1, FP2, FP3, Q1, Q2, Q3 and then
the race. You can choose the length of the races at the start of a season, you can do a full race like reality, or shorten them based on a percentage of race distance in jumps of 10%. The shorter race
weekend gives you one practice session, one qualifying session, and the race.
The long weekend practice sessions have targets to hit given to you by your engineer, titled 'data gathering' sessions. You are given a target laptime and you have 6 laps to go out and nail the laptime, if
you do it, it unlocks upgrades such as new throttle maps etc. I find these sessions are useful to get to know the tracks as a lot of them have never appeared in racing games before, and although I recognise them from the telly I've never 'driven' them before. You can also come back to your garage at any point and check out the timing screens to see who's banging in what kind of times, and see where you need to
make up time. After getting used to the circuit layout, braking points etc at Bahrain I progresses to qualifying and managed to stick it on pole with a near perfect lap, 0.2 seconds in front of Vettel. Happy
days. It's a nice touch when your engineer goes nuts over the radio after sticking it on pole in Q3, the first time for lotus!
Qualifying is actually quite realistic, if you cut corners you get warnings from the stewards and they invalidate your lap time so you really do need to keep it on the black stuff and search for that
perfect lap! You can also get grid penalties for blocking other drivers and causing collisions! It's not a game that rewards the 'GT Punt' on your opposition!
Between sessions if you return to the paddock you get the opportunity to speak to the media, and I think they have used actual voices from the press, BBC's Crofty certainly makes an appearance. The answers are stock, but you get a choice of three replies. Generally you can be quite negative, criticise the car or team and have a bit of a moan, stick with an inoffensive F1 cliche answer which doesn't really say
anything, or a more upbeat cocky answer which proclaims how good you are. I'm not sure if this has any bearing on the outcome of the game, at this stage of the season after only one race it seemed a bit gimmicky but I think it may help with your contract negotiations at the end of a season, as after winning in Bahrain from pole (why thankyou!) the team boss thanked me from the way I handled the media.
I basically said the car was a peach and my target wasn't just to make up numbers, I was in the hunt for a championship. Time will tell whether this part of the game has any meaning or not.
Down to the race, usual F1 rules are in force whereby you have to use the Prime and Option tyre in the race. At the beginning of the race your engineer will give you a recommended strategy based on the weather forecast and race length. You are free to modify this before the race begins by adding or removing pit stops and specifying which lap you would like to come in. You can also change strategy on the fly in the race by a 'pit request' button which will scramble your mechanics and let them know you intend to pit the next lap. Having only raced a short 12 lap race the pit strategy didn't really factor into my race so I just pitted quite early, came out in clean air at the back of the pack and put in some quick laps and after everyone else had pitted I found myself back in P1. Jenson stole the lead after I had a bit of a spin but I hunted him down again and retook the lead after a couple of laps. I think I might have to increase the difficulty to give me a bit more competition.
The weather seems really good, my second race weekend saw me in Oz with a dry Q1 and Q2, but the rain started in Q3, so I had to change to inters and adjust the downforce setup to suit. The dynamics do change in the wet, you get spray from the car in front, the car is more likely to understeer on turn in and oversteer on exit, and the kerbs, white lines and Astroturf are lethal when wet. However, I must be pretty handy in wet conditions as I stuck it on pole again a full 2.3 seconds quicker than Hamilton. I'll do the race sometime over the weekend when the wife lets me have the TV!
Online - I tried a quick online session but as it was launch day it was full of people who weren't actually very handy, and seemed intent on ramming, crashing and doing donuts. I think I'll stick to private races with friends rather than joining an online room and racing with strangers.
Overall, first impressions, definitely worth the money, and something to keep me entertained until the next FM gets released!
