Well, well, well. It looks like the 2015 F1 season might not be as cut and dried as we all expected it to be, after the quite astonishing victory for the boys in red this morning. Of course, there’s a sense that Mercedes were really caught napping in terms of strategy and optimising their package, but it’s good to see that they have some real competition on their hands this time around.
Speaking of F1, Codemasters finally announced their plans for F1 2015 this week, fulfilling a promise made towards the end of last year that this game wouldn’t just mark the series’ appearance on PS4 and XBO, but also see a shift to a release much earlier in the season. With new modes, a new graphics engine and plenty more, F1 fans will only have to wait until June to get their hands on this.
“Yes! I’m glad this is coming soon,” wrote Mark Lee. “Should keep me occupied during the mid-season break too. 4 weeks is too long to wait for F1 action.” To which jeanhenry added, “Mid season is a killer, especially with the following race being Spa. Love that track.”
Others are harder to convince. Take Avenger, for example, who’s lost a lot of faith in Codies over recent years:
Suffice to say I’m sceptical. Those screenshots don’t look fantastic. Sharper, with more assets on screen yes, but I was expecting some pretty cool effects. Hopefully they’ll be some better visuals on display when a trailer arrives.
I also don’t have faith that they have what it takes to bring the physics and gameplay up to where it should be. They’d have to nail AI and driving physics, as well do away with all the shit about wider audiences and just do all the easy stuff for people yes, but get on with full weekends, in-depth tuning, tight contract systems and so forth. I’m just about fed up of being alienated because Codemasters want to appeal to a bigger audience.
Also for the online to be remotely attractive, they’d have to organise something like a licensing system. Can’t be bothered with the same twats who think it’s demolition derby.
Yet it still marks a high point for fans of racing games, with this set to be preceded by Project CARS in May. Camdaz said, “Nice to see the 2014 season bundled in with it. Looking forward to this more than any other game for PS4, oh except for Project CARS, which we may get before Codies game.” But then hornet1990 speculated, “I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if Project CARS’ Formula A does a better job of recreating the F1 experience than this does (presentation excepted of course).”
Well, we’ll all find out soon enough, won’t we? There’s not too long to wait for either!
Alas, motorbike racing enthusiasts will have to wait a little longer to floor their ludicrously powerful motorbikes in Milestone’s latest game, RIDE, with delays on all consoles… Or will they?
xxAlisha1995xx said, “My cousin and I both purchased this today on PS4, so I dont know how it’s delayed.” To which Tuffcub replied, “I’m guessing some stores didn’t get the memo.” Starman also wrote, “Milestone are doing a great impression of someone that hasn’t got a clue what they’re doing.”
We don’t know the specifics for the last minute delays, though it’ll doubtless be to do with some patch or other, but those that have played the game or tried the demo had positive things to say.
Freezebug said, “It’s not bad actually, very do-able in terms of control….using the road marker line thingy until the tracks are learnt. I think that it plays better than Milestones other half/MotoGP in terms of bike control.”
Jag also said, “I was playing it all last night, it’s brill. The only downside is the long loading times but the game is a lot of fun with an impressive amount of customisation. So far I’d say it definitely fills that Tourist Trophy shaped hole in my gaming collection.” Which is a pretty hefty endorsement.
Finally this week, the PlayStation TV had a big price cut in the UK, right out of the blue. Now at a much more tempting RRP of £44.99, I’ve seen a number of people snapping up the little box.
Yet there’s still a lingering confusion as to its true purpose. “What exactly does this thing do?” asked JR. “I know you can play Vita games on your tv and stream PS4 games in another room, but is that it?” To which Avenger replied, “I think remote play is the only reason why this would be worth buying short of accessing some past Vita games. At 44.99 it is a reasonable enough price to extend the PS4 into another room.”
Those that already have them have also had rather muted impressions. Tactical20 wrote, “I was all over this when I first heard about it. Then it turned out loads of the best Vita games weren’t compatible and the PS4 streaming was laggy to almost unplayable. Now just have PS3 (with Netflix) in one room and PS4 (with Netflix) in the other.”
From my own hands on time, knowing which games were compatible and ensuring you had a wired LAN network were key to getting the best out of it, and it could be even better, now that 60fps Remote Play has been added to the PS4. Alas, there’s still its curious edge use case, which led to Freezebug writing, “I bought it when the wallet was a chubby bugger but use the gadget rarely now…cracking concept all the same and nicely updated price.”
What do you think of the PS TV? Is it a device for you, or do you think you’re best off skipping it altogether?
A rather short and sweet update this week, starting off with B_Cambo, who has blazed his way through to the Battlefield Hardline platinum in the wee hours of the morning. Let’s chalk that up as a record.
And if there were records for Xbox games, Starman would also have one for getting 1000g in the Forza Fast & Furious game that they released recently. Youles has then collected 100% of the trophies on Stick It to the Man on PS4, while hornet1990 found his Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare veteran difficulty run far too easy for his liking.
Finally, R1MJAW has been polishing of platinum medals for story missions and gold medals for skill in The Crew, finished the story missions in Mutant Mudds on 3DS and apparently I missed that he had actually finally managed to get the Binding of Isaac platinum after the glitched out trophies were fixed. Hurrah!
A inferior race has been busily tapping your latest trophies into his tables, and you can head over to page 2 to view the latest trophy leaderboard. Meanwhile, I leave you with the usual submissions form below:
TSBonyman
I saw your tweets about the Blood Souls. One thing i’ve learned from watching people play Bloodborne is that you can’t be casual about anything. I’m sure you’ll recover. ;-)
Mick939
Hmm the ride delay may be a disk misprint, the godfather ps3 was delayed at launch because the disk was missing a label, and where I worked at time had a ton of them
Jag
I think it might be because it needs a day one patch. After playing for quite a while I’ve run into an issue where my save file has corrupted.
Others are having the same issue, which is a shame as I was having such a blast playing it.