Its been over a decade. Thats more than ten long years since the last truly decent F1 game. F1 97 is still a top class racer even to this day, and many F1 fans have been longing for a next-gen equivalent. F1 2010 is Codemasters’ attempt to inject their golden touch into a flagging series, which has most unfortunately turned out to be hideously embarrassing for them.
At its core, the game is typically well-presented, the menu’s being pretty much copy-and-pasted from Race Driver:GRiD. A complex upgrade and settings menu allows car nuts to spend hours tweaking all sorts of variables, and once you’re on the track the handling is superior to all other racing games before it. A dazzling sense of speed and a perfectly effective rumble setting suck you in, and if you’re using the cockpit view with a racing wheel then it can really give you a head rush!
Unfortunately this is where the praise is going to stop. A week after the title’s release, some clever people over on Codemaster’s official forums began pointing out aspects of the AI and game design that are, to put it bluntly, completely lazy and broken. Massive inconsistencies in the AI were unearthed, including lack of tire and fuel wear simulation for AI opponents, dodgy pit stopping, predetermined lap times in both qualifying and races, and much more. A crisis meeting occured at Codies’ HQ where they quickly formulated a swift apology and promised a patch would be on the way to fix some issues.
Its a real shame that F1 2010 will be a disappointment for many F1 fans who were hoping that F1 2010 would be a return to form, a game worthy of the Formula 1 franchise that would appeal to both casual and hardcore players in the same way most of the greatest racing games have done. Anyone hoping for a realistic simulation of the real thing will be bitterly annoyed at the developers, especially those that bought the game on release. If you’re just after a fun racing game, though, it might be possible to look over all it’s faults. Let’s start counting down another decade, then…
