The first thing that hits you when starting up Formula 1 Championship Edition for the first time is the sheer amount of options and settings there are for you to tweak around with. Given the seriousness of F1, and the dedicated following it has, putting out a game that’s anything less than authentic is pretty pointless. At the same time, to maximize sales it wouldn’t be wise to release a strictly pure simulation of the sport either. Wisely, SCE Studios Liverpool has made this game as adjustable as you could possibly wish for.
For amateur racers it’s great having things like braking assist, traction control and an incredibly useful virtual racing line that pinpoints where you should accelerate, brake and turn by using a simple green, red, yellow colour scheme. In a lot of cases it’s not just an ‘on/off’ option either, there are varying degrees of driving aid too so as you get better you can gradually turn down the traction control to a lower setting for example or replace the virtual racing line with coloured markers instead.
Form an orderly queue please!
Of course if you prefer pure realism in your racing games Formula 1 Championship Edition will fulfill your needs also. Turn off all the driving aids, turn down the traction control to 1, put the difficulty up to hard, switch on vehicle damage, remove all of the HUD and general screen clutter and make sure your camera is in the cockpit view and given the perfectly smooth control you’ve got yourself one of the most authentic F1 driving experiences since the Geoff Crammond games on the PC a decade ago. You can go as deep as you want, even to the extent of setting up your car differently for different tracks. Using something called ‘Race Car Evolution’, this mode allows your race team to set up your car to best suit the circuit. By performing a number of laps under certain condition your settings are tweaked giving you a good race setup without you having to tinker with endless settings yourself. It's time consuming but it’s far easier than manually setting up your car, especially as many will be afraid to alter something in case it actually makes your car worse.
Depending on what side of the fence you’re on, the nuisances of Formula 1 itself are the very things that you will either love or loathe about this game. Fans will appreciate the attention to detail that has been put in here. From being told the level of grip each tire is currently producing, planning necessary pit stops and receiving time penalties for corner cutting or dangerous driving, these are the kind of things that would seem pointless and may even irritate gamers not interested in F1. What other racing game do you have to worry about fuel or not be able to overtake for a short while just because a coloured flag says so?
It’s not a fault of the game, it’s just the game replicating its source subject. The exact same thing could be said of its career mode too. Starting off at the bottom as a mere test driver you spend a fair amount of time doing just that – testing. This isn’t something that the masses would enjoy but for an F1 nut it’s the equivalent of what many other games do. With Pro Evolution Soccer’s Master League you start off in the lower leagues with a bunch of unknowns before building an elite team to go on and win the European Cup. In Virtua Tennis you start your career needing to take part in plenty of training exercises before you’re able to compete with best and win Wimbledon. The career mode here is the exact same deal, starting off with a lot of hard work before the better teams pick you up and you’re going toe-to-toe with Fernando Alonso.
No idea what track this is, do you?
For those who simply want to race there are Quick Race and Time Trial (complete with target times to beat) options as well as a fully fledged Championship mode to sink your teeth into. Allowing you to choose from any car from any team in the 2006 season you play through the entire F1 season in full. By ‘in full’ we mean the whole Grand Prix weekends are here with practice rounds available for you to test drive the circuit at your leisure before the three qualifying rounds take place. True to F1 rules the qualifying round is split into 3 rounds as the drivers are whittled down each round to determine their starting position on the grid for the race proper. Commendably you can pick and choose what parts of the ‘weekend’ you do so if you want to jump straight into qualifying (or even the race, though you’ll start at the back of the grid) you can do just that.
When you’ve had enough of that there’s also an impressive online mode to test your driving skills. Multiplayer is restricted to online only as there is no split screen play but its easy to forgive given the quality of the online setup. It’s clear to see that a good deal of thought has gone into trying to make racing enjoyable for everyone. Collisions can be turned off but even when they’re on they are handled with such intelligence that you’ll appear as a ghost should you leave the track and you’ll remain that way until your speed picks up which hugely reduces the amount of needless crashes through slow drivers recovering onto the track. Corner cutting is punished with temporary speed restrictions too so even cheaters can’t ruin things here.
The highlight of the F1 season - the Monaco GP.
Few would argue that Formula 1 Championship Edition is the best looking game of the PS3 launch. The cars themselves are certainly the star of the show, modeled to perfection and each possessing that same glossy shine that we’ve all seen subtly reflecting beams of sunlight on TV. The tracks themselves are equally as impressive. The relatively dull nature of F1 circuits (lots of grey tarmac, a few trees and the odd gravel pit make up most of the trackside environment) mean the quality of the graphics is rarely put to as much use as they should be but things still look beautiful regardless, especially in the rain. The game never looks more impressive than it does when the weather takes a turn for the worst and rain starts crashing down on the screen, cunningly obscuring your view.
The sheer sense of speed is equally as impressive, few games have captured the feel of high speed racing as well as this one. Regarding the presentation of Formula 1 Championship Edition it is exactly what you’ll find on TV. From the on screen information to James Allen providing commentary, it’s authentic F1. On the subject of commentary it’s not actually half bad. It never excites, this is James Allen after all, but it’s believable and it all flows together without an uncomfortable pauses or sharp changes in tone. Even when reading through mid-race standings it never sounds like a cut and paste job like some games do. It is like they recorded every possible combination of race positions and read out the name accordingly.
Formula 1 Championship Edition is one of those types of games where you can almost totally ignore the score at the bottom of the page because if you’re an F1 fan then its faults are minor and you will love this. The fact that it controls superbly well and contains some of the best tracks in the world means that if you’re a racing game fan you could almost completely ignore that this is an F1 game and enjoy it solely on its driving merits. The dry, precise nature of F1 mean it’ll never capture the hearts of people in the same way something like Gran Turismo does with it’s desirable cars and scenic tracks. But in setting out to make a great F1 game SCE Studios Liverpool have done just that.
You can't be serious? Admittedly I've not played this, but the demo's I've seen, feedback I've heard, it's such a poor game it's not that funny. It reminds me of a broken record when I keep hearing "I was so disappointed..." There's not been to many great racing games release that meet a good medium of graphics, versus technical setup.
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