F1 2012

[Ted]

F1 2012 - 'Improvements' Developer Diary

[Jason]

The demo comes out next week: full details

[Jason]

I played a little of the demo today (with a 1-year-old climbing all over me) and liked what I saw so far. I've never played any previous F1 games, so I don't have much to compare it too, but the liked the controls and graphics. I don't know if I'd buy it at full price, but I'm suddenly much more interested in this one.

[Brad Company]

You can find F1 2011 pretty cheap(15-20 bucks used). It has the current teams and drivers.

[GB_Simo]

I deliberately didn't say anything about this back in September, because having posted a few impressions at DSP, I became so angry at having spent £40 on a completely broken game for the third year in a row that I had nothing printable to say.

Sales are down here, with word having spread that Codemasters are pretty much incapable of glueing together a game whose components all work at the same time, so it's heavily discounted.  It's also had 12 patches on PC, 8 of which have relevance to console, where they've been bundled together as automatic updates.  That gives you some idea of how unfinished it was at release, while also giving me a route back in.

It's much better now.  There are things about the handling model that annoy me - it's very, very difficult to lose the rear end, for example - but while that's not necessarily true to life, it does make the game accessible and leave you to concentrate on hitting your marks, sorting out your tyre strategy (what there is of it - tyre scaling has been removed, so even in a 25% races, wear is not accelerated) and racing those around you.  My only concern offline is difficulty - Legend is just unreachable, ridiculously fast, but there was a big gap between that and Pro difficulty which left a lot of gamers, me included, too fast for one level and too slow for the other.  Codies have fixed that, not by introducing a new level, but by making Pro harder.  None of the other levels were rebalanced, so now there's a yawning chasm between Pro and Intermediate instead...

I'm not sure how much of an issue that would cause you and on that basis alone, I'm reluctant to recommend it, but I'm finally starting to have fun with it.  If you've played the demo, know that among the many fixes deployed since then is one that reduces the horrible, horrible understeer you've been feeling through every single corner.

[Brad Company]

I still like 2011 better, but I am a very casual F1 gamer,and mainly hotlap. I think '11 feels better in the cockpit than '10 or'12.

[GB_Simo]

I still like 2011 better, but I am a very casual F1 gamer,and mainly hotlap. I think '11 feels better in the cockpit than '10 or'12.

I agree.

2011 is definitely a better hotlapping game, because the cars feel more alive, more like how I've always imagined an F1 car would feel.  The only thing they missed the mark on for me was high speed cornering - you should have masses of rear downforce and yet the back is always more skittish through the quick stuff than the slower turns.

In remedying that for 2012, they went too far in the other direction, so the rear tyres are glued to the track in pretty much every situation and what you're usually missing, though admittedly nothing like as much since PC patch 5, is front end grip.  It makes the cars easier to drive and probably easier to race, since the penalty for running wide isn't anything like as great as the penalty for spinning off.  It makes them less exciting too.

I hate the way that the spin recovery trick from 2010 has returned too.  Whenever you're hurling yourself sideways into the scenery, squeeze the brake and the car magically stops spinning.  2011 had a much, much better grasp of proper spin control.  Not that I would know anything about spinning, obviously.

[Ted]

On sale on Steam right now for $13.50.  I think that's my price point.

[Ted]

9.99 on sale on Steam again.

[Jason]

F1 2013 is on sale on Xbox Live for $16.49 today only. I think I'm jumping on that deal. I'm really enjoying F1 2011 on the Vita and wouldn't mind the newer version on the XB360 for that price.

[Jason]

F1 2013 is on sale on Xbox Live for $16.49 today only. I think I'm jumping on that deal. I'm really enjoying F1 2011 on the Vita and wouldn't mind the newer version on the XB360 for that price.

I didn't really think too long about that one...I bought it. This is my first digital download of a full retail game from Xbox Live.

[Brad Company]

I think the historical stuff is DLC for '13. Let me know what you think about the driving model, etc.

[Jason]

Yeah, they have the F1â,,¢ 2013 Classic Edition Upgrade Bundle for $12.49.

[Jason]

I played it for about an hour last night. The graphics are great, although it could be that I've just gotten used to the Vita graphics. The driving model is much different than 2011. In 2011, the cars stick to the track like glue, but I was all over the track in 2013. I'm not saying it's bad, it's just that I need to adjust to it. To be honest, the cars in 2011 probably have too much grip. I definitely need to practice because I didn't even come close to winning any of the races I was in.