***Official Formula One 2012 Thread***

CaptainRAVE

CaptainRAVE

CaptainRAVE

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F1 2012: Codemasters reveals first details, plus new family F1 title

Codemasters has always been skilled at coming into an ailing sports genre and totally reviving it. The Warwickshire-based developer made the tennis sim enjoyable again via its nineties Pete Sampras titles, then brought offroad racing into the mainstream with the brilliantly accessible Colin McRae Rally titles. Then, in 2008 it won the license for F1.

Sony had given it up. Selling barely half a million of its final title, the PlayStation giant pulled out of the sport. Codemasters took it on, shook it up, pushed its "be the driver, live the life" philosophy, promising to convey every nuance of the F1 competitor's experience. F1 2010 sold 2.5m copies, and in 2011, it was the best-selling third-party racing game of the year.

Now the publisher has signed a new multi-year deal with the F1 organisation and is working on its third sim in the series. Naturally, F1 2012 will have all the latest drivers, teams and races, and naturally, Codemasters is keen to stress that this is the least of what players can expect. The company is not saying much just yet, but here are the foundations of the game, due for release in September.

First, while F1 2011 concentrated on improving the multiplayer mode, it seems the 2012 will be all about evolving the lone experience. "We're putting time into expanding the career mode and several other single-player modes," says creative director Stephen Hood. "We've carried out a lot of research and many people do just play it in single-player.

"Accessibility and rewarding casual players is important. I want to get more people who used to be into F1 or watch it occasionally, who don't know the rules, the complexities of it, and get them into the game. It comes across as an intimidating sport and the TV commentators do a great job of explaining these things to viewers on the race days – we need to capture that."

Part of this will be via a new introductory mode based around the sport's young driver tests, held toward the end of every season (Abu Dhabi has hosted the last few). This is where the teams leave one car and some race engineers behind for a day and give up-and-coming young drivers a chance to try out an F1 car, often for the first time.

"It's interesting how the teams go about working with those guys, telling them about the controls and what is required of them," says Hood, "It's not about going out and smashing the fastest lap, it's about being consistent, not damaging the car, getting used to the basics. We want to use that as our tutorial at the start of the game."

Here players will learn about the intricacies of F1 driving – the use of the apex and the racing line, etc – but tests will also be timed, so more experienced players can also compete for the best scores. Performing well unlocks contract offers from racing teams during the career mode – the better your performance, the better the teams making contact. Interestingly, players will have to complete at least a couple of tests before going into the main game modes.

What? Why? Well, because this section is used as a kind of set-up sequence allowing players to configure the camera, the controller and other game settings to their requirements. "We want it to be part of the story rather than giving you a load of option screens," says Hood. "We've turned it into an interactive sequence. I think we've got it sorted in terms of the amount of time you have to spend with it."

Elsewhere, the development team is doing new stuff with the weather and lighting, and there are "significant" changes to the underlying physics engine. One aim is to make the game more intuitive to play via the joypad, which is how most people experience it. Codemasters has also changed the tests that drivers need to complete in order to earn vehicle upgrades. There was a feeling that these tasks became repetitive over a whole career, so now they're more varied – but it's still about achieving certain standards so that the team trusts you with fresh hardware.

Hood also wants the game to look a lot sleeker from the moment it boots up. "There are a lot of sports games out now – most obviously from EA – that have very sexy user interfaces. They might not always be easy to navigate for the new player, but there's a certain standard they've achieved, and I don't think the F1 games have got there so far. There's more we can play on with the history, the logos, the teams, the look of the cars – we're changing the UI dramatically for this season."

And what else? They're not saying yet, but Hood is keen to stress that the F1 license is an ongoing project – they have grand plans: "There are so many things we want to put into our F1 games that we've been trying to do since 2010. We want to build it around the whole world of Formula One, the kinds of things the commentators go on about: upgrading the cars, beating your team mate, the strategy of the different teams. That's all part of the sport, and we're trying to replicate that."

Codemasters has also revealed that, alongside this year's iteration of its console Formula One series, and the forthcoming F1 Online team management sim, it will be releasing a third F1 title aimed at families and casual gamers. The publisher would not say anymore, but it is likely this is a reference to the Wii U F1 game mentioned by CEO Rod Cousens last August. This version is likely to use the forthcoming console's tablet style controller as an F1 steering wheel complete with driving computer. It is due out this Christmas.

One key thing F1 fans may be able to look forward to in the future – especially in light of the multi-year license extension – is a consistent driver profile, which they can carry through subsequent iterations of the main F1 2012 game. Perhaps the aim is a driving RPG, a Formula One Mass Effect in which decisions and achievements carry on through the years. And on top of that, there is the Racenet community, and the launch next month of F1 Online, a browser-based team management sim with top-down visuals that may remind veteran gamers of another great Codemasters license, Micro Machines.

This great British survivor has been somewhat pushed to the side of the industry by heavyweight rivals over the past few years. But with Dirt Showdown on the way, a new Grid title surely in the making and a range of F1 titles, it is playing to its strengths once again. It is pushing back.
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stoke1863 said:
Well my mates hardware is

AMD X2 with a 4870 and it runs absolutely fine

Rant not aimed at you it is aimed at the no doubt very tedious and boring gang of people who complain every year when this thread is made. Its simple really dont like it dont read and post
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Yep, happens every year. The game has its flaws, but I think a lot of people miss the point of it - it isn't meant to be a realistic race sim (Codies say this all the time in interviews).

Whatever the issues, many of us here had an absolute blast racing online in 2011. Hoping 2012 is just as good.
 
SPARC said:
F1 2010 wasn't great however F1 2011 was a far improved game. We had great fun playing online here so I'll probably pick this up if it's going for £17 again. For the amount of time (plus I'm a F1 whore) I put into F1 2011 then the next installment should pay back that money in no time at all.

Edit: I look forward to "OMFG ANARUJ STOP ******* RAMMING !!! RAGE!!" :D:D
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Very true, the previous two have been £17 and I definitely have gotten my moneys worth. The Anuraj rage was classic...so many lol moments :D (mainly because I managed to avoid him most of the time).
 
So how many of you are getting this?

My random thoughts
- Graphically improved a lot in some areas (e.g. replays look incredibly realistic), less so in others e.g. on board for some tracks looks really dull.
- The sounds are fantastic, especially the new engine sounds
- Handling is much improved, once the wheel and car setup have been fine tuned.
- AI seems much more aggressive, although I suspect it will still be a push over even on maximum difficulty.
- I really like the new menu system, very slick.

Haven't decided whether I will get this, mainly due to time constraints with my new job and house. Had it been as cheap as previous years it would have been an instant buy.
 
V F said:
You make it sound like I make it up. You seemed to have quickly forgotten about the past problems with their games. Corrupt saves, disconnecting amongst other things. Which seems to be following through as more people report these issues.
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I don't see why it matters as long as people are enjoying what they have bought (which it seems most here are).
 
More thoughts:

- the handling is much more challenging, but also much more rewarding now...a bit of a pain though as I am having to learn the tracks all over again
- the force feedback is much improved
- the AI scrap it out a lot more with each other and it is very clear now when they are using a particular fuel strategy
- speaking of fuel strategy, it is great to be able to choose that for a race now
- legendary AI is much tougher than it used to be, although still pretty useless in the wet
- speaking of the wet, it is the one area of the game that looks absolutely stunning...otherwise the graphics have been slightly improved. The engine seems to have been optimised a lot more

Overall I am enjoying it. Not got too much to complain about at the moment. I have the bug where smoke is coming out of my car even with a brand new engine, but other than that all is well :)

And finally...thank goodness they got rid of GFWL. Clunky piece of junk :p
 
maxilive said:
The engine smoke is due to downshifting too fast, I believe they have made it so you have to slow down you downshifts and not rely on engine breaking as much. This can also be messed up by changing you gearing ratios with custom setups I think.





I'm on a ATI 5870.
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It could well be my custom setup then. Glad they did take steps to deal with that, it used to bug me when people would do it in races.
 
JHeaton said:
Errr, okay...

Just started the career and qualified in P18 for Melbourne (:o). Went to start the race and I'm in P24. Has this happened to anyone else? :confused:
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What difficulty? Professional seems to be the way to go for the starting car.

Really struggling in Malaysia - so much understeer. I am having to drop down at least one gear less than the AI when taking exactly the same line. Codies are saying they are going to fix this understeer though, it does seem a little extreme at the moment (certainly compared to the AI).
 
JHeaton said:
The hardest setting (Legendary?). I'm just feeling a bit annoyed that after qualifying ahead of the new teams, I lost my position for what appears to be no reason. :/
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Legendary is much more difficult than it used to be. A lot of people are finding that professional puts you where you should be in the newer teams. I will up to legendary when I get a better team I think (if I can ever get a decent lap around Malaysia).
 
JHeaton said:
Hmm. Well, I started out a race on professional a while ago and found myself racing for the podium in Australia in the Force India. That didn't seem quite right, because Australia is not a strong track for me, normally. I may have to compare the difficulty on a few tracks to see which to go with.
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That's the thing - on professional I won the race. On legendary I was at the back. Yet in Malaysia, on professional I am struggling to even get out of Q1. This game is really starting to frustrate me.
 
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