As it should be made known and clear now: I’m not very good with racing games. This is on both a skill and interest level. The only racing games I enjoy are the non-serious ones such as Burnout and Mario Kart, and the only racing game which I’m able to effectively master is the Mario Kart series, which I get obsessed with whenever it comes out. It’s normally that racing games demand a lot more discipline and time to effectively master which turn me off of them. However, one game coming out later in the year is making me forego my normal attitude towards serious racers in order to embrace this game fully. That game is F1 2010.
The other necessary part to this is that I love Formula One. Since my dad got me into it in 1998, I’ve been watching avidly every year, been to Silverstone several times, and make events of watching it with friends. It’s the only sport I hold any interest in, and several F1 games haven’t rekindled the same love I got from F1 World Grand Prix on the N64 or Grand Prix Manager 2 for the PC. F1 2010 again, looks to change all of that. But why is it that this one game seems intent on rekindling my love for ‘Serious’ Racing games?
F1 2010 obviously contains all of the drivers and races in the current season with up-to-date information, including the yet to be finished Korean grand prix, and the updated Silverstone, as well as the British World Champions Button and Hamilton. It’s also handled by Codemasters, basically the Champions of racing games, with the Colin McRae series and the Race Driver series under their belts, and so there is probably no better developer around who could best handle the series. They’ve used all their experiences from all their racing games beforehand to create an F1 game that could recapture the hearts of racing fans who have been itching for an F1 game since the last efforts on the PS3, or those who forgot F1 2009 was released on the Wii last year.
The Ego engine that the recent Race Driver and Colin McRae games have been based on will also be utilised for the new F1 game, and the game will feature what is promised to be the most dynamic and complicated weather system seen in a racing game, as well as an ‘evolving track’, both of which are integral to making it the most intensive and realistic racing game. This means when the rain begins, some areas of the track will get wetter than others due to overhanging trees or dips and indentations in the tarmac, so areas of the track will have more or less rain than others, meaning that you’ll have to be more careful when racing in the wet and hitting the wet spots. When the rain stops, the ‘dry line’ will start to appear, giving you the safest racing line with more grip in that area than others, and the further away from the dry line you are, the less grip you’ll have and the harder it will be to drive. This grip system will also be important for the ‘evolving track’ dynamic mentioned before, with this grip system being effective throughout the race weekend; the racing line will be the place with the most grip, and deviating from those lines too much will dirty your tyres and make them less effective. The track each weekend will start out ‘green’, and have a lot less grip, but over the course of the weekend, there will be more and more rubber laid onto the track, meaning by the race, there will be a lot more grip than there was in the practice sessions. This’ll also be important for strategies, as since there’s no refuelling this season, drivers will have to manage their tyres more, which’ll blister, marble and puncture as the race progresses. You’ll also be able to change wing angles, brake balances and engine performances on the fly, and have to manage your fuel. Race too hard and too aggressively, and you might have to go into the pits for tyres more and have less fuel to fight at the end of the race. Nurse your tyres and you can make them last longer to maximise your strategies.
The game’s career mode will probably suck me in more than any other in a racing game. The idea of the career mode is allegedly to help you feel more like a driver than any other, giving you the live not only on track but off it too, with interviews and the media also being a dynamic part of the career. An opening press conference will give you the chance to pick your career mode which’ll consist of 3, 5 or 7 seasons and which team you drive for. Each team will also have their own objectives, with racing for Ferrari and McLaren meaning anything other than both Championships is effectively failure, whereas a midfield team like Force India would be “consistently score points”, Virgin Racing (for the first few races at least) would be “Try to finish without running out of fuel” and Hispania Racing “Try to finish less than 5 laps behind”. Media interest will also differ if you’re a top end or low end driver, impromptu interviews will take place alongside official interviews at the end of the races. These interviews can also affect your output with the team and the way they react to you. Slag off the team, and they’ll be peeved with you. Talk about looking at other teams and you’ll start to attract interest from other teams at the risk of alienating your own team and risking losing your place there.
The cars will also progress throughout the year due to the research feature in the career mode. Over the course of the season, the car will progress and the team will develop new parts and upgrades to eliminate weaknesses and get faster and faster to help catch up, stay in front, or battle with rivals. Team-mate rivarly will also be an important part to this as well, as you’ll have to out-do your team mate consistently in order to get the new parts and upgrdes as they are developed. You’ll be in close contact with your team mate throughout the year, as you are able to interact with them, your engineer, agent and media throughout the career.
But while this all sounds incredibly serious and in-depth, as an F1 fan I’m salivating furiously, the gamer side of me is drooling, and even my “Non-Serious” side is dribbling with the fact that there’ll be stuff for the non-serious racer too, with plenty of things available to help the people like me who can’t commit too furiously and want to enjoy it without being some kind of racing god or a bit of an obsessive. There’ll be plenty of these, with optional driving assists and opponent difficulty settings, allowing you to make the other cars easier to race and the car easier to drive for you. The handling will be authentic without being too difficult, so it’ll be predictable enough that you can learn the tracks easily and focus on putting in consistent lap times. There’ll also be colour coded racing lines available if needed, and even the controversial “Rewind Feature” meaning you have a limited amount of times in a race where you can rewind the game and avoid spinning off or colliding with another car, meaning its less frustrating for the player, and an option for those who don’t want to replay most of the race again. The setups for each race will be suited to the track by default, but you’ll be able to change to a setup that’s more aggressive or defensive, and if you’re a purist, you’ll be able to tinker with everything on the setup to give you the optimum setup or one that suits your driving style more closely and midrace you can change your settings on the fly, such as brake balance, and in the pits you can change further settings still.
F1 2010 will pull up to the grid in September for PS3, Wii and Xbox 360.
- Jokesound
