F1 2010 disappoints

By sora3
18:35 Sep 14, 2011

Decent attempt at capturing F1
Definitely a blast with friends

Rubbish AI
Cars don't feel fragile
You need friends to play online, how often is that?
Simplistic rules and physics
No safety car (had to nitpick!)

It has been a long time since Formula 1 has last graced the PC in the form of Grand Prix 4. After that, Formula 1 has been relegated to the boring and not interesting status. And you'd be right as Formula 1 back then was as interesting as watching paint dry.

So when Codies announced F1 2010 for the PC, that was met with howls of laughter and that it won't be successful. That happened right until I started playing it. And my gosh, F1 2010 was a completely different ball game. As they said on Top Gear, nothing can prepare you for the assault of an F1 car.

In game, everything had changed. F1 2010 demands harder than any GT racer you'd played. In my mind, I was braking at 150m or more markers for GT racing. For F1 2010, I had to learn that it was okay to brake at a suicidal 50m or more. And if you spin, you'd had to think fast to recover or you'd end up in the wall hard. And added to that 23 other cars that want to get around you, it is totally disorientating.

However, that doesn't mean it is great. The AI is quite predictable as they all pit at the same time. And they let you past and then aggressive chase after you. There is no human factor in it. The rules are quite lax and the cars are almost like crashable tubs of carbon-fibre instead of the highly strung and fragile racers we associate in real life.

And the worst thing of all, the majority of the racing you'll finish quite easily if you're dedicated. The majority of the racing you'd do after will be online and that's where it falls further down. You'd have to make do with 11 other racers, 10 if they'd know about the infamous Force India pit bug. They'd most certain crash into you on the first corner as majority of racers do. And there isn't anything to do once you crash, just a leaderboard that says sucks to be you. And because of that, you'd certain be very annoyed and not wanting to return.

To sum up, it's very easy. It's quite a contradiction in itself. It wants to be a realistic interpretation of F1 in general but it wants to be that arcadey racer that anyone can pick up and play. But it doesn't work and that is a big contradiction itself.

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Issue: 137 | June, 2012

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