Gaming F1 2010 Review

My Save file just corrupted itself

Genuinely upset about this. My DFP just shakes back and forth, even in the menus, the AI don't speed up over the course of the race just start fast, the mechanics are all the same on every team, the whole thing wreaks of console crud. It's the kind of game that has to have a sequel pumped out every year so this version is released unfinished and untested. This save file business is the last straw for me. It would take a monumental patch to get me to play this game again. I feel so so dissappointed. This is the only game in ages i've been excited about and even pre-ordered and it's just rubbish. Gonna go back to TDU and wait for TDU2 to come out which more than likely will be crap too. GRRRRR *splodes* at least I got my name in the mag this month for 1,000,000 Fah points. Even if my folding machines mobo has just bitten the dust

 

Another very annoying omission is the fact you can't retire from a race. If you've ahd enough of a track you ahve to park up at the side and wait for it to finnish.

 

can't you crash, and get DNF?

 

I think 8 is too good a score for an unfinished game. I think companies that treat customers this way should be fined.
I was robbed with Empire: Total War that was abandoned in record time to get Napoleon: Total War out. Similar to the Windows Vista scam. Never again will I pre-order anything. Having learnt that lesson, I feel glad I didn't give my money over for F1 2010.

Geoff Crammond Cheesecake!

 

I have found the best way to play this game is with the penalty settings reduced low. You still get penalized for AI cars that don't have the racing line and decide to smash into your rear sides, but I rarely get 10 second penalties in races.

I haven't raced online yet, but the 'corner cutting' penalty system in the game is brilliant. It's what Race Driver: GRID should have had. As well as the 'dangerous driving' penalty for driving backwards.

I race with traction control and all assists turned off, and was hoping for a lot more realism in terms of the cars having more loss of traction if I use full throttle at the race starts. I was also expecting more realism for wheel lockup scenarios when I am too aggressive with the brakes and have no ABS.

However, the driving physics overall are good.

The graphics are nice. The cars look real. The vehicle polygon count seems significantly higher and more detailed than the cars in GRID. The world resolutions are higher than GRID. However, the world textures are bland compared to GRID. You could say the environments look more like a video game and less real than GRID. However, the game does also have less of that brownish filter that GRID's environments have, which is a good thing.

The interviews are boring. The pit lane girls are fit. The menu system is the boss, like all recent Codemasters games.

When it comes to 'immersion' and making the player actually feel immersed into the world of F1, no game developer on earth can compete with codemasters.

There has been many classic racing games in the past by other developers, such as Simbin, and games like GTR2 with excellent driving physics. But in terms of atmosphere, these games are dead. They don't immerse you into the world of a race driver. Their graphics look arcade, and their menus are horrible to look at and navigate. I just wish Simbin and other race sim developers would take some lessons from Codemasters. Lessons such as how to make a replay control system that has some logic to its design and is user friendly and doesn't require the user to have to search for keys on a keyboard, or have to reach for your mouse to hit the onscreen pause and rewind buttons, for example. Menus should be controllable from a wheel, and definitely controllable by an analogue gamepad.

Back to F1 2010. It sure is the best F1 game so far. Even with the known gameplay bugs that affect all 3 game platforms, I highly recommend this game to anyone who is into 'realistic arcade racers'. And for all those gamers who class themselves as F1 fans, then this game is a must.

 

I agree. Real life F1 is totally overarrated.

Due to the huge amount of money involved with F1 cars, F1 research, F1 technology development, and F1 team financial wealth, it's only natural that F1 is promoted as the world's number one motorsport.

However, compared to Touring cars and GT cars, F1 can be quite a boring class of motorsport to spectate.

But I find this video game more enjoyable to play than watching F1 on TV.

The AI are very challenging and quite aggressive. Every overtake in this game is absolutely thrilling. Unlike real F1, some of this game's races can be quite close. The slightest mistake and the AI cars pass you.

I do still agree that real life GT racing has way more action and thrills. Also, GT cars look more sleek and awesome than F1 cars. They're less fragile. There's more overtaking in GT racing. Their engine sounds are more incredible to hear than F1 cars. Even the 'flame spitting' from the exhaust of a GT car is insane to watch.

If this game was based on the FIA GT1 World Championships instead of F1, then I would consider it to be the most perfect game ever made.

 

Please tell me you're kidding... by the time I've seen the DiRT2 menu wave around going from one option to another five times, I've had enough. Early on, it was cool. Had some "wow" factor... but it gets boring: fast. I particularly don't care for having all the wavy camera menus slowing my gaming down when all I want to do is jump in and race. I wouldn't mind it, if Codemasters' would just include some way of turning it off if you don't want it!

 

"we chose Force India, for the amusement value"

stupid brits wont leave their racism even when they are bankrupt and powerless as a nation i suppose...

 

People who know nothing about F1 choose a mid-field team for a laugh, a team who aren't actually Indian anyway (apart from being owned by Vijay Mallia), with their base about a stone's throw away from Silverstone, and some people assume they're racist...

p.s. You were being racist.

 

holy **** you signed up just to say that? go away. ****tard

 

damn, and stole my name as well to say that! grrr
Well, such people at least can provide us with laughs

 

Do yourselves a favour and avoid this game like the plague. When you scratch the surface it really seems epic and the realism seems too good to be true, the longer you play this game the more you realise it is was too good to be true. Its probably the most frustrating game i have ever played, and more and more problems seem to be coming to light about it. If you like keeping your controllers intact, i would seriously avoid this game. Im a huge for formula one fan, and this game as hit just about every shortcoming possible. It should have been brilliant, and it nearly was, but its been crippled under the sheer wieght of concerning issues. Put simply this game is genius, but its littered with fundamental flaws.

Here goes:

Gameplay problems

:Tire wear is very excessive and punctures happen both frequently and in unrealistic situations
:unrealistic spins at low speed when power IS NOT applied through hairpins ect...
:All AI cars are given priorty in the pit lane meaning the player must sit and wait for a rediculous amount of time to be released, which can effectively ruin ones race.
:Unrealistic car sliding or spinning when mounting curbs in the dry.
: 90% of penalty system decisions are nothing short of appauling and would not happen in real race scenarios.

AI Problems:

: AI cars do not receive penalties
: AI cars do not suffer tire wear
: AI cars do not have fuel simulation
: AI cars times are scripted (when the cars are lapping around the track, they are not doing real times, all the times are predetermind by the a game engine.)
: AI cars seem ignorant to your exsistance and tend to drive irratically. Its easy to be minding your own business and be taken out by an AI driver, and as they dont get penalties your the only loser.
: Some AI cars dont pit stop during a race
: AI cars can get extremely unrealistic lap times (example. I was at barcalona in 22nd position in a virgin, my team mate was 1 place ahead of me lapping in the 1.22's, yet the race leader mark webber was lapping in the 1.23's. Also its should be fair to mention that my team mate was lapping 5 seconds a lap faster than he did in qualifying).

Multiplayer problems:

: Cannot kick players in game (obviously going to be problematic for dealing with abusive players or even just incompetent drivers)
: Again the penalty systems cause problems and often wrong players are penalised (people can perposefully slam thier brakes on in front of you, even if its the middle of a straight. when u go into the back of them u receive penalties)

Racing issues

The car seems to be quite limited to setup, and to be honest, pretty dull. Yet it can make a huge a difference. In fact i can make an unrealistic difference up to the point where racing skill becomes almost pointless because somebody elses car is so well setup. I managed to shave over 2.5 seconds away from my time in bahrain my using a radical setup i found on the net. I was posting 1.55's in bahrain with redbull but when i used this different setup (which was basically take all the wings down to minimum and shove the ballast forward like 80-20 and lower ride height) i started lapping in the shallow end of the 1.52's. Totally unrealistic times that surpassed the real life laptimes the game is trying so hard to emulate. Ive heard that people have managed to shave bahrain alone, down to about 1.48 per lap. Thats almost 10 seconds from realistic value.

Anyways ive rambled on enough now, i think you will get the point. This game has severe problems that totally ruin the otherwise superb graphics and gameplay. If u can look past all these above issues, then sure, buy it. But you will need the patence of a saint

 

My advice (if u really are set on buying this game) is stick to multiplayer and turn collisions off.

 

None of these will ever be addressed will they?

 

More concerning issues. (codemasters have stated some of these are being addressed)

1. I cant confirm this, however i suspect that AI cars do not show any performance differences between the soft and hard compounds, ie, they always race at the ultimate pace as if on fresh option tyres regardless.

2. AI drivers dont yield to you during qualifying when u are on a hot lap. In fact in some instances AI cars on outlaps race close to full speed and actually attempt to overtake you whilst you are on your hotlap! (It appears that regardless of times set, all 24 cars seem to keep putting in qualifying times, even the top teams who have posted times way above the cut off, this is extremely problematic because the track is always packed with cars and getting a clear lap is vertually impossible, especially on tracks such as Monaco)

3. AI damages does not affect AI performance, thier car may looked visually mashed up, but they continue racing at full speed as if no damage is present, this is clearly an almighty flaw. Also they dont pit due to damage, they continue racing and come in when schelued (i hear codemasters are onto this particular problem).

4. No consistancy in weather conditions between sessions. Example: One qualfying session can be totally pouring with rain, and the track can be soaked, yet you can progress to the next session where the track can be inexplicably bone dry as if it had not been raining in the last session!

5. Weather only seems to get worse, never better. It seems that the game only features the track getting more wet due to rain, it does not feature a wet track returning to dry. It would be much more realistic if the game featured a drying track after wet weather.

6. Not only is tyre wear unrealistic (as mentioned in my previous post), but car setup doesnt seem to change tyre degredation much. A high downforce setup should make tyres last longer as they do not slide across the road as much, inversely so with low downforce, tyres should wear out faster. It appears in F1 2010 these factors have been missed and that all tyres wear out at the same rate regardless.

Apparently there is a patch soon to be released, i doubt they will rectify even a good portion of the problems we have all recognised, however if they do, i will eat my words

 

I think its fair to add that they exact same problems exsist within the race when being lapped. AI drivers do not yeid for the leaders however you must, thus you must let the leaders through in order to avoid a penalty, which results a very high likelyhood of being overtaken by the AI drivers around you.

 

OH! I remembered, the final nail in coffin, and possible the biggest let down and most fundemental flaw of the entire game. Yep u guessed it, slipsteaming! Where in the hell is it? I mean slipstreaming is a key part of motor racing and always has been, its one of most important factors as a driver, yet in f1 2010 i havent seen a shred of evidence for its exsitence. I mean com'on, what in the hell is a racing game without slipstreaming!?

Ive seen other people say that slipstreaming does exsist in the game, but its only a small advantage, or you have to be really close, or whatever else blah blah. I dont believe it, i think the people who think slipstreaming exsists on the game are just convincing themselves because they are 1/2 mph faster down the straight than last time around. The effect of a slipsteam is much more prominent than that.

In real life, you could put a HRT behind a mclaren at high speed, and trust me, the HRT would be faster and be able to overtake, even with a weaker engine, because the aerodynamic drag on the HRT in the mclarens slipsteam would be minimal. Thats how effective slipsteaming is in real life.

So co'mon codemasters! Get slipstreaming in the game!

 

another problem ive spotted is AI cars not slowing down to the mandatory speed in the pit lane. When i was racing in valencia i was over 2 seconds ahead of sutil. I entered the pits and sutil followed me in, as i down the pit lane at the 61 mph i could see sutil gaining on me down the pit lane until he ended up right behind me before entering his pitbox, he must have been exceeding the speed by some margine, needless to say that he got ahead of me upon exiting because i had to wait to let him through, but if the game had made him go at the proper pit lane speed i would have got out in front because i was well ahead. :/

 

The game is not without its flaws but I have to say its been a while since I've enjoyed playing a racing game so much, there is a great sensation of speed, some great racing to be had if you work around the pit bug, the track reproductions seem pretty faithful, all comibined together so well that I feel greater appreciation for what these guys have to do after playing it and of course for me its a game and I don't experience anything that they do in reality.

Last night I was doing Istanbul park and trying to hook up turn 8 flat out in my Lotus was a great experience.

Really enjoying it.