Written by: Ian

 

 

 

With no other F1 game since the 2006 season, and a change of developer to Codemasters, does "F1 2010" live up to the weighty expectations of F1 fans who have been waiting years for their favourite type of racing to return to consoles?

 

 

Like many a racing game, the amount of story is pretty minimal. You start out in one of the small teams, pick a helmet, and work your way up the grid trying to become world champion.

 

There are some nice touches, like your agent, your motorhome, and the ability to take part in press interviews, but a lot of it falls pretty flat, and there isn’t that much variation to the questions in the post-race activity.

 

It’s also a shame that you never see any podium celebrations, and that the official timing boards aren’t used. I also would have like to see some commentary and more of a pre-race build up integrated into the game.

 

 

Right, I’m not going to explain how this works. If you have no idea what F1 is, then this is not the game for you. You can stop reading. If you do know and like F1,then keep going!

 

Basically, what you need to know is that F1 2010 contains everything that you need. It has the ability to play single races, time trials, and complete a career over 7 seasons.

 

 

As the first game in some considerable time, it’s great to see all the recent rules updates included, like slick tyres, no refuelling, and the much cleaner, sleeker bodywork on the cars. It also includes all of the new tracks that haven’t been in a game yet, such as Abu Dhabi, the new Bahrain and Silverstone layouts, and even the new South Korea circuit, which hasn’t even been raced at yet.

 

The career works by gaining reputation, which you get for good performances, and then this attracts new teams to you. You can also then become the number 1 driver, and then dictate what R&D upgrades you go for. Car setup is also nice and easy to use, and so is strategy, making even novices feel like a real technical expert- it’s one of the best elements of the game to me.

 

Not all is perfect though. Perfectionists will notice that certain things are inaccurate. The pit-lane speed limit is not lower in Monaco than it is at the other tracks. Cars exiting the pit lane also don’t use the white lines all the way. The player car has far superior damage resistance to other cars, and to be honest, the damage model itself isn’t massively great- crashes should be much more spectacular.

 

There are also numerous bugs, including the timing at Spa being totally off, and weather effects not always affecting grip. The flag system is also far too harsh- often you just get away with a warning (and I once racked up 20 in a race with no penalty), but in another, had to swerve and overtake a spinning opponent on the grass, but got a drive through penalty for that, which is just insane.

 

 

None of it is game-breaking, but combined with an AI system that is far superior at some tracks over others, there are some annoying gripes that just have no excuse to be in the game.