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You won’t be in a Formula One car long before realising they hate being driven. More bucking broncos than speeding bullets, these rockets-with-wheels try at every corner to abruptly end races, as drivers expertly steer clear of the pit wall. F1 2015, more than any previous year, does a great job of translating the feel of an F1 race. It’s just such a shame that there’s not much outside of the race itself. With a continued dearth of content that’s plagued the past few entries, plus a few niggling bugs that intermittently frustrate, this is a disappointing debut for F1 on new-gen consoles.
With each new F1 game, it seems that we get less and less stuff. Split-screen, classic content, driver interviews, a functioning safety car, career mode, create-a-driver, rivals, changing teams, and season challenges have all gone by the wayside. The first thing you’ll notice in 2015 is the distinct lack of much of anything. Championship Season, Pro Season, Quick Race, Multiplayer and Time Trial: those are the only ways you’ll be racing F1 cars this year. Granted you’ll be able to do so with both the 2014 and 2015 seasons, but it’s still a barren offering. It’s all well and good promoting ‘new’ modes in trailers, but when these have come at the expense of many others, it’s a bit cheeky to say the least.
Previously, Career mode allowed players to slowly work through the ranks, earning seats with better teams, creating a definitive sense of progression. This year limits you to a single season, giving little reason to drive in anything other than the best cars unless you enjoy battling for twelfth place on the grid. It also doesn’t give much impetus to your season targets, considering they’ll have little ramification should you fail them.
The big talking point is obviously the jump in visuals and leap to 60 frames per second. While F1 2015 is certainly the best-looking game in the series, it is some way behind its racing rivals. The cars nicely reflect the lights of the track as well as the side walls as they fly around the now much more colourful circuits, which even in real life can look devoid of atmosphere. Codemasters has done a good job of injecting some much needed vibrancy to the tracks, so that apexes and pit walls whizz past in a blur of colour. But the weather effects are only at their best in their extremes. In the pouring rain the game can look excellent, but barring that it fails to impress. The sun doesn’t shine so much as it’s just ‘there’. There aren’t any glimmer effects on the cars, not on the PS4 at least, meaning there’s an overwhelming dullness to the view. Night racing, however, is a joy. Singapore in particular is amazing to drive around and the lighting on both track and car really add to the overall look.
Codemasters knows how to create great Formula One racing, and this is once again the series’ crown jewel. With the vast changes that have come to F1 in recent years, players now finally get a chance to experience their impact in a game. The new turbo-charged engines become incredibly temperamental for those too eager on the gas. The addition of rumble feedback means you’ll now also feel every groan of the car as it fights its way through each corner, and understand the consequences of any bumps and bruises you take along the way.
An example: having nipped my front wing on a side wall at the Australian Grand Prix, I assumed it was nothing more than a scratch, despite my crew’s insistence to come in. It was only after passing the pits I realised the rumble on the right side of the pad was the game informing me I’d lost all downforce to that side and could no longer turn right at high speed. Race over. Team mad. It’s this level of detail that makes racing in F1 2015 more thrilling than it’s ever been.
The sense of speed has also been upped thanks to the increased framerate. Being able to throw cars into corners and smoothly exit them feels sublime when done successfully, and heartbeat-skipping when you feel the backend go wayward if you even dare to ever-so-slightly push the throttle a little too hard.
Driving more than two races in anything other than a Mercedes will also see you loathe the Silver Arrows with every fibre of your being. The closer you are to them, the further away they seem. Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari does its best to interrupt the one-two party with some superb (if at times maniacal) driving, but even then it’s not enough. It is only when you sit in a Merc yourself that you realise how easy they have it. Codemasters has wonderfully recreated the disparity of drive among the grid. Having gone from a Lotus to a Mercedes, I took to China, and thinking I broke too late into its monstrous hairpin I was all-but-ready to hit the touchpad to rewind time and correct my mistake. Only then Lewis Hamilton’s adamantium brakes compensated for my eagerness and brought me to an abrupt halt, allowing me to take the corner, no doubt putting the Brit’s internal organs somewhere around the car’s exhaust. Being able to feel the difference between each car in all aspects is great, and means that the battles continue across the grid, and you’ll be chasing and defending positions in every race.
Racing can feel a little lonely at times, especially when the track begins to open up and you find yourself in empty road. However, new communication tools with the pit crew grant much greater control over strategy and allow you to find out what’s going on elsewhere. Being able to tweak your downforce, fuel intake and break balance on the fly is great, and asking your crew about the distance to drivers in front or behind, and whether or not you’re gaining on them or vice versa adds a little spice to each lap and gives you reason to keep pushing hard. You can also call early pit-stops should the strategy require it. Sadly the AI isn’t quite ingenious enough to adapt your strategy based on what other cars are doing. If nearby opponents come in early/late, it would have been nice to see your crew decide to leave you out a few laps longer to try and gain an advantage rather, than rigidly stick to pre-race plans.
Another nice new feature comes in qualifying, where live TV feed of other drivers are available, allowing you to snoop on their drives and learn braking zones to apply to your own race, perhaps shaving vital tenths of a second from lap times.
Despite all the fun on track, there are some bugs that can’t go unnoticed. Screen-tearing is too frequent to be ignored. When it comes to replays, fast-forwarding to the point at which you wish to resume can play havoc with the footage. The framerate takes a nosedive as the replay skips and stutters its way often beyond where you intended. There’s also some other inexplicable bugs that, while infrequent, can ruin races. In Malaysia, I made an error coming out of the pits following a tyre change, so decided to rewind back to the pit lane and try again. The game didn’t seem able to contemplate my positioning, so after hitting resume, the car wasn’t in the pit lane, but was rather level to my garage, on the track, stationary, lacking the fresh set of tyres that I just received. Race over. Team mad. Driver furious.
Overall, F1 2015 represents the best driving seen in the series to date, but sadly doesn’t provide the graphical leap it should, nor does it come with the feature list fans rightly expect. While both the 2014 and 2015 rosters are available, only being able to enjoy them in an isolated season gives little reason to drive anything other than the fastest cars on the grid. Considering Codemasters’ last outing on old consoles was pitiful in its offering, many expected the new-gen debut to make up for this, especially considering it’s been two years in the making. Sadly, it’s yet more disappointment for race fans and another example of developers producing unacceptable new-gen debuts for sports games.
Version Tested: PS4
See also: F1 2015 Guide Index
