In the same way that the strength of TOCA was your ability to dip into different disciplines, the strength of F1 2016 is that each facet of what you’re doing is just as engaging – it keeps you in a sweet-spot for longer.Īdd to this the new Championship Mode, which allows you to race in events which deviate from official championship rules, and also allow you to take advantage of the new suite of classic cars. That these things are just as fun as the racing itself means that you don’t have any down time. Take to the practice course to net lap data for your paddock test your fuel-conservation, your tyre management, and have your tech guys analyse your driving patterns to build a bespoke strategy for the upcoming race. Practice plays a vital role not just in your growing skill, but in the progression of your driver and your team. F1 2016, benefitting from a singular focus, puts you into a structured career mode that revels in the variety outside racing. Project Cars, with its open structure and rudderless sense of play, allows you to jump into multiple disciplines as your heart desires. There’s a precedent here, looking in particular at the heady days of TOCA, for a textured, exuberant love of motorsport. It is perhaps due to the much-vaunted competition of Project Cars, with its ‘Formula A’ class – which some considered a better representation of Formula 1 than F1 2015 – that Codemasters has wrapped a wealth of features around the core driving experience to stay in the lead. And just like that game, F1 2017 offers you a rare, simple reward: the satisfaction of learning how to be better at something that’s difficult.Īt least as far as the driving itself is concerned, yearly improvements live in small, meaningful margins. The driving feels intensely real and immensely exciting, the sense of speed eclipsing that of, say, Project Cars, while providing an experience at least equal in detail. Speed must be tempered with glacial patience, each overtake a chess move anticipated sometimes laps in advance. Each corner is sculpted with a shifting glissando of brake and throttle, a constantly improving art of precision and daring.Īs you’re lead along gently through career mode – surely the best way to acclimate to a new F1 game – you become intimate with tiny margins and the discipline required to flourish in these narrow spaces. This feels absolutely wonderful, failure proving an exhilarating, rewarding teacher. Your lesson comes early and harsh, as torque overwhelms your rear wheels, your palms jellied with juddering vibration as understeer looses you from the apex. Swathed in downforce, you may be forgiven for feeling freer than you are to approach chicanes with a heavy foot. Encouraged by the adulation afforded to the hardcore purism of Dirt Rally, F1 2016 was a more refined affair, and this year’s entry hews closer to that approach. With F1 2015 – a reboot and the first to appear on PS4 and Xbox One – there remained a glint of the forgiving margins of the catch-all glory days of TOCA. With upstarts like Project Cars and Forza Motorsport offering their own formidable take on Formula one, Codemasters finds itself jostling for position and having to fight for its lead. Methodical steps are made, with each yearly iteration, to do the premium motorsport licence justice. Long the celebrated domain of now-defunct Studio Liverpool, the oldest and second-largest development team in SCEE’s paddock (who left the licence, and the earth, behind as they screamed into the future with WipEout) it was a weighty name to take on. Having established its craft and talent with Colin McRae Rally (now the Dirt series) and TOCA Race Driver, Codemasters secured the F1 licence in 2008. It isn’t unlike the landscape of racing game development. This is to say nothing of hungry upstarts like Haas and Sauber, looking to scorch their own marks on the tarmac. There are stories here: AMG Petronas, with its vast resources and dominant drivers looks to stay on top Scuderia Ferrari, with its rich, storied history looks to take its ‘rightful’ place back in pole position McLaren Honda has ambitions of colouring its faded glories with fresh paint, sober but ambitious. It’s go go go on gaming’s premier grand prix simulator, but can the latest iteration – F1 2017 – hold off the competition?Īt the start of career mode in F1 2017, you choose the racing team you want to join.

F1 2017 game review