By Jim Rossignol on August 31st, 2012 at 4:00 pm.
When companies produce games on a regularly basis – such as a yearly racing franchise – the changes tend to be incremental, rather than revolutionary. What matters, then, are how your new version improves on the last, even if the really big issue is the up to date teams, cars, and so on. That’s precisely what Codemasters attempt to explain in the F1 2012 video below. They’re really focusing on realism for this new game, and by gum it looks good. The weather is going to be so detailed that you’ll have wet and dry conditions on the same track.
Cor. The game is out September 21st.
31/08/2012 at 16:06 Linfosoma says:
Focusing on realism? Im terribly confused, didnt CM went out and said that they weren’t trying to make a realistic game not too long ago when they were talking about iRacing?
I still think the game is sorta fun, Im looking forward to the new tracks but I really hope they fix some of the game breaking bugs and the terribly broken career logic (I won a couple of races on my first season thanks to how terrible the AI is on the first couple of corners, then the game decided that me, a rookie who’s not even the captain on the team had to finish each race of the rest of that season “no less than first” while my team mate only had to be 21st or so). And dont get me started on the suspicious qualifying times that never seem to match the AI car’s on-track performance >=(
31/08/2012 at 16:15 Stardog says:
AI cornering is still the biggest problem with this game. Some corners they are embarrassingly slow, yet they are unrealistically good at others.
F1 2010 had completely faked qualifying times. I’m not sure if 2011 fixed that. Blame consoles again, because they don’t have the power to compute accurate times.
31/08/2012 at 16:27 Joshua says:
This seems rather silly… F1 1998 could accurately calculate qualification times, and I am quite sure that the proccessors of the consoles are quite a bit faster then the one I had in 1998.
31/08/2012 at 16:13 municipalis says:
Looks good so far, but there were two issues I wish they’d pay attention to:
1) The team radio – it really helped make F1 2011 stand out from other racing games; the chatter over it made it actually feel that you were part of a team rather than just a soloist and did a great job of congratulating your victories far more than an achievement ever could. However, the commentary was pretty limited – they should add a lot more.
2) The sense of speed – it looks like they’re borrowing Forza’s menu design, but can they also borrow the small effects which make going 200kph in Forza feel a lot faster than 350kph in F1 2011? At the very least, adding a small bit of camera jitter when you’re viewing on-board would add a lot to the realism factor.
31/08/2012 at 16:49 Phinor says:
Ugh, camera jitter is a great way to ruin a perfectly good and playable driving game.
I’d guess that the relatively low sense of speed is by design. If 350kph felt like 350kph, most gamepad gamers wouldn’t be able to handle the cars.
Everyone has some ideas how to improve the game but it’s interesting to see the route Codemasters actually takes. I’m afraid they are getting awfully close to “something for everyone” which leads to everyone being unhappy. Personally I’d want a lot more realism but a lot of gamers are hoping for a bit more arcade feel. Staying in-between might work for few games but it’s awfully hard thing to do well.
31/08/2012 at 16:16 DuddBudda says:
Physics > > > Career Logic > Weather > Graphics
and please support my Wheel this time
or I just keep driving the old beemer in iRacing
31/08/2012 at 16:50 Mr-Link says:
Hmm this all looks good, but I much rather have a realistic F1 experience within bigger game/sim of different car classes (for example the F1 mod in GTR2). That way you can really feel the power of an F1 car compared to say a GT1 car on the same track, and you have to adjust for faster acceleration and later breaking.
If this game is modable to allow different car classes and tracks then I will be all over it. But since its codemasters what are the chances of this happening, eh ?
Sigh….when is GTR3 coming out ?
31/08/2012 at 18:19 grundus says:
‘GTR3′? That’s a funny way of spelling ‘GTR3, Assetto Corsa and rFactor 2′. And Project CARS, that probably won’t be as moddable, but if it’s anything like Shift 2 (it’s the same engine BUT FOR GOD’S SAKE IT’S ABSOLUTELY NOTHING LIKE SHIFT 2 PHYSICS-WISE) some clever people will find a way. It’s a good time to be a sim racing addict.
As for F1 2012, I’d like to buy it but I’ll wait for the complete edition to be discounted to make up for the DLC disgrace that was Dirt 3. Maybe then I’ll be ok with buying the additional content for that particular game.
Also proper G27 support would be nice, I had to turn Vsync on to get my feedback to work. What kind of arse-backwards bullshit programming is that?
31/08/2012 at 17:09 CXRN says:
Being Steamworks, alone, is a huge improvement since F1 2011, which used GFWL.
31/08/2012 at 17:09 JiminyJickers says:
I just bough 2011 about a month ago. Will wait for 2013 or 14 before I buy a new one. Probably should have waited for this one to come out first.
31/08/2012 at 17:20 JustAPigeon says:
I’m sure I read somewhere that there isn’t going to be an in-car view. I’d love to be proved wrong, though, because that is pretty disappointing.
31/08/2012 at 17:35 Linfosoma says:
@JustAPigeon: You are thinking of Grid 2, which ditched the cockpit cam for dubious reasons, F1 2012 does feature a cockpit cam though.
31/08/2012 at 17:44 JustAPigeon says:
Aha, thanks! That’s good.
31/08/2012 at 18:57 BrightCandle says:
I had so many problems with 2011, in no particular order
1) My logitech GT wheel didn’t work without tweaking its settings. It could be made to behave OKish but the force feedback was ridiculous.
2) Crossfire had issues with this game, SLI didn’t scale well.
3) Triple monitor support is pretty flaky. It keeps turning itself off.
4) Multiplayer never worked.
5) The game had a tonne of issues like the penalties system, qualifying times and lots lot more.
I hope for some honesty from reviewers this time so we know about the problems in F1 2012. Because we also know Codemasters has no interest in fixing them.
31/08/2012 at 19:34 Zeewolf says:
I had a great time with 2011.
But the carreer needs to become better. When I routinely leave my team mate in the dust, the game shouldn’t wait until the halfway point in the season to tell me I’m now considered his equal (!!!). And if I can be competitive in a car that really isn’t, the game should notice that and offer me a job with the big guys. Not Williams.
31/08/2012 at 20:46 trjp says:
The biggest problem I had with F1 2010 – and I’ve not heard about any fixes to it – was it’s ridiculous idea of corner clipping…
Actually trying to set fast laps in 2010 was an exercise in randomness. If you played it safe and kept away from the kerbs you’d put in appalling times – if you actually went balls-out and pushed the car hard into every corner, you’d inevitably go just a BIT further than the game intended you to and your lap time would be invalidated.
It was – to put it politely – utter shite.
If you want to stop people cheating in multiplayer, installed ‘invisible brick walls’ – if you want to stop people cheating in single player, ask yourself who’s Dad you think you are.
01/09/2012 at 00:59 duzios says:
“The weather is going to be so detailed that you’ll have wet and dry conditions on the same track.”
Great! Like… what we had in Grand Prix 3, erm, 12 years ago?
01/09/2012 at 06:49 Khann says:
Ugh, I’m conflicted on this one. I’m a massive F1 (and sim racing) fan, and I bought the last two games day one.
They were both a horrifically buggy mess, with the majority of the bugs not being fixed or even acknowledged by Codemasters. I read in some interview that they’ve changed their development process for this title and bugs should be less of an issue, but I’ve bought into their bullshit promises for two years now.
They need to fix bugs, AI (their ability to corner much faster than is possible in one corner, then ridiculously slow in another, their ability to drive lap times close to dry times despite being on slicks on a track that is nearly ready for wets) , the odd career behavior (when I’ve dominated my teammate for the first half of the season, the team should be building the car around me for the rest of it), the terrible pit system (which was pretty much exactly the same in 2011 as 2010, despite massive “outcry” from the community), the terrible penalty system (they’re promising big improvements here.. I’m not hopeful). And I’d like the option to be able to drive however the fuck I like behind the safety car, thanks.
/rant
01/09/2012 at 14:33 sfdsgfd says:
http://clxu.eu/87lhi
http://clxu.eu/87lhi