| F1 2005 review |
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The world of motor racing isn’t particularly one you can just dip your toe into every now and again. Unlike football where the main ‘super powers’ stay the same for decades at a time, in Formula One for example, things can drastically change from season to season. Drivers and constructors can find themselves riding high one year, only to find themselves languishing at the lower end of the points the following year. But like most other sports, people love trying their hand against the very best in the only way most know how - by playing the video game equivalent.
Sony have held the official rights for a fair while now, and have quite regularly made a pig's ear of the thing since the sublime F1 '97 edition. So what have they done to at least attempt to make this year’s coming all the better?
Well, for starters they’ve crammed reams and reams of ‘learning aids’ in order to attempt to give a little help in actually managing to take your beast of a Formula One car all the way around the track without restricting yourself to a pitiful speed. The only problem with this approach is, it’s quite rubbish. Harsh , but necessary. We purchase games in order to play, whereas we purchase books in order to read masses of text.
As they are, however, the driving aids offer a simple way to set a few cracking lap times right from the off. Turning on all the available driving aids leaves you with merely having to hold the racing line and pushing left or right once there’s a kink in the road. With all these helping hands turned on, it's fairly difficult to finish anywhere apart from the top of the podium, especially at the lower difficulty settings. As time progresses, and you find yourself feeling much more comfortable with the game itself and its 19 officially licensed tracks, you’ll think about turning off a few options. Formula One vehicles are essentially the most complicated in the world to take around a track at an optimum speed, so allowing yourself the time to get comfortable with a few assists from the game is quite the nice help. The ultimate goal of winning a championship with all options turned off is one that will stay way out of reach for the vast majority of gamers however, which is a sad thing to say.
The mechanics of the game itself (with all driving assists turned off) easily rival any PC-based 'hardcore' driving simulator. A particularly delicate touch with the analogue stick is required to steer the car through the optimum point of a corner and keeping to a speed high enough to fend off any potential opponents. But F1 05 makes supreme use of the DualShock's analogue buttons too. Rather than merely slamming down the X button to 'turn acceleration on', you'll find yourself needing to gradually increase the pressure (helpfully displayed onscreen too, to get through those first few races) to exit corners at the most impressive speed, and set some outstanding lap times. The upshot of this is the sheer joy of shaving a tenth of a second off the current best lap time feels particularly more satisfying than any other racing title currently on the market.
This wealth of choice continues throughout, with a huge number of in-game options to tweak every single race exactly to your wishes. You can set the length of race in proportion to the ‘real thing’, meaning even a six-lap race requires tyre changes and fuel stops. The weather conditions too can be tinkered with: Race Weekends are exactly that, something which can last an entire weekend - the ability to tweak your experience to precisely the stage you wish to play has thankfully been masterfully implemented.
There’re the usual season-based modes of course, giving those wanting a more lengthy challenge the opportunity to test themselves across the whole range of tracks in a race for points. But the introduction of the new career mode is where the true depth lies. Here you have the opportunity to take your chosen avatar (sporting the player's own facial features if possessed of an EyeToy) from the bottom rung of the ladder, all the way to the dizzy, money-spinning heights of Formula One racing. Progression is something that takes an incredible amount of time, and only those truly adept at the game will make any kind of advancement.
Being from the same team that brought us the dazzling Wipeout Pure, you’d be expecting quite a visual treat, and for the most part does not disappoint. While aesthetically it doesn’t come close to the real top dogs of the genre, the step behind isn’t anything more than a short hop. The haze around the edge of the screen in particular as top speeds are attained is indeed pleasing to the eye. However the lack of actual moments of wondrous trackside detail - which is more down to the restrictions of the sport itself than the failings of the developers - does detract from the racing experience, especially considering the graphical masterpieces of the genre over the past few years.
Pit stops have constantly been one of those unusual features in Formula One games. Basically it’s 25 seconds where you can take your hands off the joypad, sit back, and relax 'til you're thrust back in the thick of the action. This time around however a selection of buttons must be pressed, the speed of which determining how quickly the pit stop runs through to its conclusion. Obviously a touch more ability needed, and a little more strategy brought to proceedings is always a plus. And of course it breaks up a monotonous 60-odd-lap race a treat.
Many games are extremely difficult to score in any case, but when it comes to these niche kinds of sporting titles, the difficulty of scoring rises exponentially. As big a get-out clause as it is, the appeal of F1 '05 will just about entirely depend on the player's feelings about the sport as a whole. Discounting those who detest Formula One (and hence, won't be reading this review) then the more the love of the nuances of the sport, the greater the affection for this particular game will be. The drawbacks that are in evidence however do detract from the experience as a whole. The lack of real visual appeal, and the high difficulty and frustration levels do quite severely lower interest levels. While this may be just about the pinnacle of the genre, there’s still a whole heap of improvements needed before we see a truly definitive title. |
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System: Sony PlayStation 2
Genre: Racing
Developer: Studio Liverpool
Publisher: Sony
Players: 1-2
Version: European
Reviewed: Aug 2005
Writer: Chris Pickering
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Pros:
- Wealth of options
- Great use of the analogue buttons
- It’s F1
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Cons:
- Sheer difficulty
- Somewhat twitchy handling
- It’s F1
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