F1 2012 and problems of console-centric design

[Knight of Redemption]

Nov 10, 2012 20:13:03 GMT -8 oldslowfred said:

(or at least what I imagine an F1 car would be like, I have driven a boat ).

I see you have the nautical terminology down there Sheldon LOL

[oldslowfred]

lol... should have known I wouldn't get away with that slipup ;D

[Deleted]

I was using the superlight caterham.

[zero7159]

I just got F1 2012 for PC yesterday. Here are my thoughts after a couple of hours of play.

I bought F1 2010 for Xbox 360 on a whim and did not like it. Way too hard, and I could not get my Fanatec GT2 wheel dialed in. Fast forward about a year, after I had set up my PC sim racing set up with the T500, and I took a chance and got F1 2011 on Steam. This was shortly after I got the F1 rim for the T500. I fired up F1 2011 and was almost immediately hooked. The F1 rim makes all the difference, as I felt like I could better control the car. The game looks great on the triple screens, which of course ratchet up the immersion. You can adjust the difficulty and make the game more accessible, although overall, its still very hard. I rarely win a race on even the "Easy" difficulty level, but I am still having fun. I have logged over 20 hours over the first season of F1 2011 and have loved almost every minute of it.

Anyway, when Steam discounted F1 2012 yesterday, I took a chance. Darin Gangi recommended the upgrade, and I can see why. I spent a couple of hours with the F1 2012 this morning and here are my initial impressions.

First, the graphics have definitely been improved. I have run about 5 tracks so far and they look amazing. The cars also have the high def shine to them.

Second, the options in the game are more diverse. I have already tried three different modes, including the traditional career mode, the "Season Challenge" mode and the proving grounds mode where you try to beat real life F1 drivers at various challenges. All modes are great. The traditional career mode is what you would expect, a backbreaking rages to riches where you start with a lousy team and car and work your way up. You have to post a qualifying time for each race and the lap count starts at 15 laps, and goes all of the way up to 60 laps. Definitely not a good mode for just a couple of minutes of play time. Codemasters obviously changed this mode to be harder and to take more time. In F1 2011, I could complete a career mode race in as few as 5 laps. No more. Season challenge mode is also cool. You pick any team and then do a series of races, with qualifying, in which your main goal is to beat a self-identified rival. That is pretty cool. Qualifying is 1 lap and then the races are limited to 5 laps. Definitely more my style. I am currently racing for the Ferrari team. In the career mode, it would take me several seasons to earn the right to race for Ferrari. I also did a proving grounds challenge and that was cool, and it doesn't take much time.

And finally, the wheel support is very good. Force feedback and physics are good, although it took me a while to dial them in. There was an excellent thread in the F1 2012 Codemasters forum about wheel settings and I found settings that seemed to work for me. The game was definitely written with the T500 in mind, since you now can navigate all menus without touching the keyboard. That was not the case with F1 2011.

Anyway, as you probably can tell, I think F1 2012 is a winner. I plan to invest a lot of time in it, and get further good use out of my F1 rim.

[Seahawks1Fan]

Great review Craig. There were about 8 of us running the new F1 mod by Sandrox this morning and has excellent physics and the models look amazing. Curious how it compares to Codemasters F1 2012.

[oldslowfred]

sounds like I need to invest in a T500 setup

[smokey]

lol

[Knight of Redemption]

Well I was going to pass on this but it's on sale for €20...about $16 so it's downloading...

[zero7159]

Its on sale at Steam again for $24.99. 50% off!!!!

[F1Fan07]

I picked this up on sale cheap over Xmas and finally got around to trying it.

- Field of view is so strange compared to rFactor but I found a camera editor that I'll try.
- FF is crap. I see mention of tweaking in Lawyer's post above so I'll see what I can do to improve it.
- Car handling? Very weird... why is this easier to drive than Enduracers? I can't explain what's wrong but I sure don't feel connected to the track.

I think I'm just going to use this to "learn" each F1 track during the season before I watch a race. A guy at work wants to race online with me so I'll try that. I wish I could convince him that rFactor is the way to go.

The tracks do look pretty good and I'm looking forward to exploring these official licensed versions of each track.

[helios16v]

Let him run the Sandrox cars.

[boza]

I picked this game up the other day as it was on sale at amazon so I figured I give a shot. I wasn't expecting much since reading F1's and Fred's reviews, but I got to say after doing some tweaking with my wheel,FFB, and changing the FOV, I really like this game!! The cars are easy to drive, but racing against the AI is a challenge. I tried it on expert and I couldn't even keep up with the last place car so I had to dial it down to pro to make it more enjoyable. Overall the feel and FFB is not bad at all, you just got to remember its a simcade game and not a true hardcore sim racing title. Btw here's a pic with FOV changed to 30

[zedarchitect]

Sweet panelling Boza your rig is alright too lol

[zero7159]

Glad you like the game Boza. I play it weekly and just finished my first full season. I play on Easy, the AI is just too fricking hard. Heck, winning on Easy is even hard for me!!! LOL!

[F1Fan07]

Can you post what you changed to get the FoV set that way, please?