2014 has been a year of rejuvenation. Though games have often felt few and far between, the new games consoles have often helped to free developers from the limitations of the old, while in the world of Formula One, reams of new rules and regulations have brought in new engines, dramatically shaking up the grid when it comes to race day. Sadly, F1 2014 doesn’t take full advantage of these opportunities, stuck as it is on the last generation of console and with F1 2015 already on the horizon.
The most immediate and fundamental of differences compared to last year are done quite nicely though, with the three different engine suppliers represented with rather unique sounding power units. The Renault engine growls much more so than the Mercedes, which has a piercing turbo whine that could potentially drive you to distraction, while the Ferrari engine has a distinctive rattle as you reach the rev limiter. It’s a noticeable shift to a much lower tone when compared to the hellish scream of the V8s that have dominated the sport for so long.
The changes manifest themselves most noticeably when you play with manual gearing though, with a tangible effect on the gameplay as you need to be more aware and alert to the new pitch and sounds of the engine to determine when you want to shift gears. You can easily receive the warning about an overheating engine if you consistently get things wrong, but you’ll also be much more likely to spin up the rear tyres and have the car squirming and sliding underneath you in that case.
Naturally, the cars from the lower end of the order, such as the Marussia and Caterham, are quite a bit more challenging to drive, more likely to get away from you and without quite the top speed that you’d like to challenge for higher positions. By the time you get to the better and faster cars, with the Mercedes being the pick of the bunch, these cars are eminently drivable and feel rather planted to the ground.
However, there is a strange split between playing with a controller and with a racing wheel – between a Dualshock 4 and a Driving Force GT in this case, as I was playing on a PC. Simply put, when playing with a controller I was able to turn off all the major assists like traction control and ABS and still have a relatively easy to handle car, where I could still brake late and put the power down quite hard coming out of a corner.
The game is much more lively when playing with a racing wheel though, and with the same lack of assists, requires a lot more finesse on the brakes, accelerator and steering to avoid locking up into a corner or spearing off the track as you accelerate. Even the faster cars are more susceptible to this. Though I personally think it’s much more fun and it’s certainly much more challenging, it can often lead to you being something of a roadblock to the AI behind you while other drivers scamper off into the distance, and there’s not going to be much of a contest between the two control types when it comes to racing online.
Disappointingly, the game does lose a degree of authenticity, as it fails to fully keep track of how the sport has evolved in the real world. DRS returns, of course, but there’s no sign of the “overtake button” which is there for drivers to override the computer controlled ERS – apparently too late a revelation to be included in the game – and while the Red Bull Ring and Sochi Autodrom are a pleasure to see and drive, the run off area at Monza’s Curva Parabolica is still gravel rather than tarmac. Williams fans will doubtless be disappointed to see their alternate, Martini-free livery used across the board, rather than just in the countries that require it by law.
Similarly, it would have been nice to have the option of having gear shift beeps – I mean, how many times have we heard radio messages to “respect the beeps” this season? – and a greater focus could potentially have been applied to fuel management, which has been a much greater part of this year’s championship, rather than continuing with the existing systems.
That these kinds of finer details are missing is a clear sign that Codemasters are effectively treading water ahead of F1 2015, their new game engine and their jump to the newer, more powerful games consoles. It’s not just a lack of advancement in the feeling of authenticity, but the overall presentation of the game feels practically identical, with a menu system and introductory dialogue which seems to have been ripped straight out of F1 2013. Even the game’s overall structure is largely the same, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing as it caters to different tastes and levels of skill.
The Young Driver Test has been replaced with a single shot evaulation test, to help you determine the right difficulty level for you before diving into the various game modes. For the diehard race fans, the full career mode now lets you pick whichever team you like, rather than just a set of lower order teams, but you can then customise the length of a raceweekend and whether you want to tackle 7, 12 or the full 19 races.
Alongside this, there’s the quicker, more bitesized Season Challenge, in which you take on a 10 race mini-season of single shot qualifying and 5 lap races, where beating your designated opponent allows you to jump to their race seat, pushing onwards and upwards to better teams time and again. It’s a nice and quick system, letting you play the game in manageable 15 minute chunks. Then there’s the scenarios in the Proving Grounds, that see you take on a number of tailored challenges, putting you in a variety of tricky positions, from fending off faster cars with damage to your front wing to racing on dry tyres in damp conditions, and plenty other permutations.
Yet the F1 Classics have disappeared without a trace, having brought cars and tracks from the 80s and 90s into the series’ last outing and laid potential foundations for the future, this means there is quite a large step back in the amount of content on offer.
What’s Good:
- The sights and sounds of the new era of F1.
- From Season Challenge to scenarios, it caters to both casual and diehard fans.
- Desperately holding off faster cars round the last few corners of a race, to grab a points scoring place for Marussia.
What’s Bad:
- Practically identical presentation to F1 2013.
- Strange handling disparity between controllers and racing wheels.
- With F1 Classics missing, there’s less content compared to F1 2013.
- Several inconsistencies compared to the real world sport, and could have drawn more heavily on the source material.
F1 2014 is ultimately a disappointing release, not because F1 2015 is just around the corner, but because it doesn’t do enough on its own merits to push the game series beyond F1 2013, a game which I already felt was struggling with a degree of stagnation. It’s still fundamentally a good game and the recreation of the sport’s new rules and regulations do help to make driving the cars a slightly fresher challenge, but in terms of the game’s presentation and overall recreation of the sport, F1 2014Â is going nowhere fast. Bring on next year.
Score: 6/10
Version tested: PC
Avenger
This review has left me wondering now. It’s certainly a great thing to point out all the absences of the real world sport, and it’s ended up making the game sound lacklustre. On top of this, YouTube videos have revealed that the Mercedes dominance is clearly there in the game (something which might mute the sense of competition).
I’ll probably go with my original plan (I think) and wait for it to drop price heavily and then buy it. I hope they do a lot more with F1 2015, although it’s one game I’d have to wait for until I buy a next gen console. Hopefully, with 2015 season in general, they’ll be more competitiveness engine-wise with Honda’s entry, and Ferrari’s and Renault’s new approaches.
Stefan L
Oh, you can readily compete with cars of a higher tier. You can drag that Ferrari, Red Bull or Williams up into the lead, so long as you’ve mastered the track, have the right assists and difficulty settings for you.
When you take it online, you can set the car performance to equal, just as for the last few years.
bunimomike
It’s an interesting situation and one that I feel the scores hopefully reflect. Too little done and very much a tweaked game from the year before. I can’t help but feel this title should be £20 and nothing more. Surely, that would also reflect the development time necessary for it when you consider that many of the assets were surely reused.
Avenger
Or retail price + £10 voucher off for F1 2015 at least. I’ll be waiting for a £20 price mark before buying the game.
It’s humorous that the major differences of this game come from the changes in the sport more than anything else. If there had been little change, then the game would’ve been like a reheated meal (similar to FIFA on the Vita).
freezebug2
The success of these F1 games for me primarily is the online integration between like minded people, the single player career just doesn’t cut it. As the last iteration was almost devoid of friends to participate and compete with, I’d more or less decided to forego it’s next release.
It does look nice but I can’t really justify playing the career only yet again with the occasional session in a lobby of randomer destruction derby fans!
Sitorimon
And in the two races I’ve done online so far – its crash heaven on the randomers. Eugh. I have to say so far there’s been some plesant changes but it really is 2013 with new cars, fat hippo steering and an emphasis on corner exit. It also feels like there’s more graphical glitches on the rear wings of cars for me too. Aside from that, it’s exactly as I’d expected. Cookie cutter but I do wonder what kind of state the 2015 game will be. It’s all feeling a bit..kickstartery.