Here in North America, driving sports are virtually unheard of. Aside from the wildly popular NASCAR, driving sports like Formula 1 and Rally go way under the radar. Drivers for those sports get to be as famous as super stars but as soon as they set foot in America, they are unknown strangers. Most people don’t even know this but F1 drivers are super fit athletes. They have to be: they drive mini-rockets without upwards thrust. Just for the fact they have to sustain 3.5G’s around corners is enough to give them loads of respect. Make no mistake, F1 racing isn’t for your average Sunday drive. The developers at Sony Liverpool took the monumental task of trying to make F1 accessible to hardcore fans and casual gamers.
Because of the aggressive driving and blinding speed, the F1 sport makes a perfect racing game, right? Racing games are easy concepts to grasp – go fast and take the checker flag. However, super tuned racing machines are a little more complex than that. That is one of the challenges facing F1: Championship Edition, try to make the game authentic while have it be user friendly. While I wish I could say the results were perfect, there is a lot of room for improvement.
As you start up the game, you’ll notice there is a high production quality right from the menu screen. There are clean menu options and a nice, upbeat soundtrack that makes you feel like you are in a high class racing team. When you start your racing career, you create your own racer. There are a bunch of different options so you can customize what you want your diver to look like, tall, short, beard, male, and female, whatever you want.
Features
The Sunlight!
The real star of the game is the lighting. You will crest over a small hill and there will be the sunset reflecting off the pavement and getting in your eyes. The team at Liverpool made good use of HDR lighting in all of its glory. Even the weather effects make gloomy, raining day as beautiful as the rainbows they produce. After the honeymoon period, then the lighting starts to get in the way of your racing as you battle for the pole position. Just as breath taking as the lighting is the sense of speed. Once you start to play F1, you will be sat down, strapped in, and taken on the ride of your life. The motion blurs are used so effectively that it puts other attempts to shame. The framerate never falters so is never a hiccup in the sense of speed. The way the camera jolts when you crash or hit the dirt, you won’t even know that rumble feedback is missing, that is how convincing the visuals are. The combination of the lighting and the sense of speed makes F1 a fantastic technical game you can show your PS3 hating friends to shut them up. The graphics aren’t without faults. There are plenty of longer than average load times. Not to mention the graphics are very understated, not a lot of overpowering effects that some gamers crave in a racing game.
The controls of the game are a different beast all together. To help the not so “hardcore†F1 racing fan, the developers went to great lengths to ensure that even the green horn can still race. There are a slew of “driving aids†that can be toggled on or off to adjust the level of authenticity of the game. Remember, at the heart of F1 is a racing simulator, not some arcade, power-sliding rocket fest. With all the driving aids on, the game still has a steep learning curve for gamers who know little about how these cars operate.
The driving aids do a number of different things for you. You can turn on traction control, no pit stops, no race damage, braking assist, and driving lines to show were to accelerate, break, and turn. It might seem like the game is playing without you but, trust me, when you first play, have them all on. It gives you the feel for how F1 is to be played.
Look Ma, No Hands
Steering can be handled in a two fashions. The first is the traditional analog stick to turn your wheels side to side. The other way, as you can imagine, is the SIXAXIS motion control. Tilting the controller side to side is more fun than pushing the analog but it comes at a risk. Without a steering column, it takes a long time to not over steer around the turns. Yes, the SIXAXIS looks like an F1 racing wheel but it doesn’t perform the same so you are better off sticking with the traditional method. Optionally, if you have a USB steering wheel around, you can plug that in and all problems are solved.
To further aid you in your quest to be the next great driver, you have a pit crew and a crew chief helping you out. If you enable pit stops, it takes you to a mini-game where you have to press buttons as fast as possible to get out of the pit and back in the race. The crew chief will tell you about how you are racing and what to look out for. Aside from the upbeat techno music in the menus, there isn’t a lot of music to jam to. The engine makes the annoying “eeeeern†sound constantly so you will be reaching for the mute button as the races drag on.
Final Thoughts
F1: Championship Edition has high production value but there isn’t a lot of lasting value. I, not being a hardcore F1 fan, might not understand the intricacies of finely tuning the machines. I did notice a range of options to make the game accessible to someone like me, which was a great step forward in the right direction. The biggest downfall is the racing itself. Aside from Quick Race, you have to do more solo practice laps than I cared to do. I wanted to fight for position and not try and constantly beat my old time by me being the only car on the track. When the big race finally came, I was bored of the track and wanted something else to do.
I have to give major credit for the Liverpool team for trying to make the game reach gamers that don’t usually go for these types of games. Without the driving aids, I don’t think the game would have been very fun at all. While the aids were a huge help, it still doesn’t get the game over the hump of catering to a very specific gaming audience. The multiplayer was a nice inclusion and will extend the replay of the game considerably. Overall, I can see this game selling better in Europe and other countries where driving sports like F1 are a phenomena. Here in North America, it’ll have a tough time trying to find a market due to the flaws in gameplay but maybe some people will over look the flaws for the amazing visual experience.
