WeView Verdict: F1 2011

As predicted when I selected F1 2011 for WeView, a lot of the opinions on the latest F1 title from Codemasters look at it in contrast to 2010’s version. This is pretty much inevitable with these yearly franchises though, the very tight iteration around a single concept lends itself well to year on year comparisons. Knowing very little about F1 in general, let alone the Codemasters series of games, I had absolutely no idea how this latest title would stack up against older games in the series, so lets get to those all important opinions and see if I can learn something.

From a quick skim over the comments it seems that people aren’t all that happy with 2011’s F1 offering. For example although SpikeyMikey23 “Loved 2010.” he wasn’t all that keen on this year’s game saying he “Despised the graphical depreciation,” and that he “Only bought it for the TSA F1 champ and not really touched it since.” He concluded by noting that without a major improvement in 2012, he’ll be avoiding the game until the next generation.

[drop2]He’s certain not alone with his complaints of graphical issues, in fact they seem to be a fairly common issue. “Avoid, at least on the PS3,” said JamboGT, citing the “bad framerate, dodgy physics at times, terrible aliasing,” as his valid reasons for steering clear of this year’s game. His advice? “…get 2010 and hope 2012 improves a lot.”

Sitorimon wasn’t happy with the graphical issues either. They noted that the “Frame rate issues really bothered me with this game despite all the excellence in general elsewhere. Its all very well putting all the bells and whistles on but not at the expense of something so important as frame rate.” That really is a shame, when an otherwise good game is spoiled by something as core to the experience as the frame rate.

Of course, there were at least a few of you who were pleased with the game. For example, this was Death_in_Flamez’s first foray into F1 and he seemed to have a good time with it. “F1 2011 is my first F1 game and for anyone looking to break into the bustling franchise/sport then it’s a truly great game for you! ” was his opinion on it, which seems like some pretty solid praise for the game.

OllyBobs seemed to fall in line with Death_in_Flamez, being new to the series and enjoying it as well. They did have a minor criticism of the title first though, noting that the “The only thing I can think that needs improving is the character customization.. there is none apart from your name, helmet colour and where your from.” Which seems to be a perfectly reasonable comment. He concluded by saying that “Aside from that, great game!” so a little more praise for the F1 title.

The question is was there enough of you praising the game to outweigh the negatives. The only way to find out is to take a look at your verdicts. Things are a bit odd there this week, with a tie coming into play. Sixteen of you cast your vote this week, and at the bottom we have Rent It and Bargain Bin It, both coming in with two votes each. However, it’s a tie at the top too, with both Buy It and Avoid It coming in with six a piece.

Whilst the recommendation does look completely split, it’s worth noting that there were some who gave the game a bit of a split opinion, rating it differently for different people. Taking this into consideration it does look like Avoid It might just nudge it, but it really is too close to call this week. With the tie occurring at opposite ends of the spectrum it’s trickier still to come up with any consensus about this game, so we’ll just have to leave it there.

As always, if you have any games you’d like to see make the cut for a WeView drop them in the comments below. I’ll make sure I cast my eye over them when selecting tomorrow’s game.

9 Comments

  1. I didnt buy this because my girlfriend at the time beat me every time we played each other at Eurogamer expo. I sucked at it.

  2. The first avoid it on weview. Instead you should get F1 2010!

    • Actually modern warfare 2 was the first avoid it on weview.

      • really? forgot about that one. Thats one of the better COD’s. Would hate to see what Blops and MW3 would get

  3. The graphics don’t particularly bother me if the gameplay is there, but unfortunaly the penalty system, safety car and online racing frame skip glitch were never fixed. They only seemed to fix the 11/11 problem with the update patch and not much else.
    All that said though, it is a great game that I still enjoy and my verdict was Buy it..mainly as the price of the game is now at bargain basement anyway.

  4. For some reason I did avoid it :-/

  5. Hopefully this years version (if there is one) would’ve improved greatly. I think I’m one of the only people who actually like what this seasons cars look like!

  6. Avoid it. Codemasters have shown that not only are they phoning it in with the PS3 version, but that they have no intention of supporting their year releases beyond the initial band-aid patches. They did the same last year (despite promises to the contrary) and it looks like they have dumped this years game after two patches – neither of which address the key issues with the PS3 version, or several of the game play issues on all versions.

    As much as it pains me to say, I will be avoiding 2012 until it has been thoroughly reviewed… by the fans.

    • I wonder if it’s because they have too many projects on the go, that they can’t give their full support to one or the other?
      I mean…the F1 series, the Dirt series, the Dirt spin off Showdown, Grid 2 in the works…..and anything else that I might have missed! {:O

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