F1 2010 - Preview

The F1 license hasn't exactly been treated with the utmost respect over the years. Sony and EA's ownership of it over the last decade led to games that are a far cry from Bizarre Creations' original F1 titles on the PS1 or Geoff Crammond's seminal Grand Prix series. If you don't want to take our word for it, just ask Stephen Hood, F1 2010's Chief Game Designer: "I worked on Sony's titles; played the most recent ones," he said in a TVG interview. "It just seems like the checkpoints of a racing game: drivers, teams, tracks. The car handling is all over the place; you can't be consistent."

Codemasters took over the license back in 2008 and, since then, events in F1 have been fortuitous for the UK-based publisher: two British champions in the last two years, including one who claimed victory on the last corner, of the last lap, of the last race in the 2008 season; a shake-up last year that saw teams such as Ferrari threaten to leave the sport and a new team, Brawn win both drivers' and constructors' championships; the re-emergence of Michael Schumacher for this season and, of course, a Pussycat Doll strutting down the pit-lane alongside the advertisers' dream, Lewis Hamilton.

F1 is back where it belongs in terms of publicity, glamour, entertainment, and unpredictability, much of which it had missed for most of the 'noughties'. Following the more casually oriented F1 2009 for Wii and PSP last year, Codemasters is now redirecting the series towards devoted F1 fans and core gamers on the HD consoles. Make no mistake, F1 2010's development team is implementing cutting edge technology with a steadfast attention to detail, a loyally translated handling system, and AI that does much more than merely tow the racing line by presenting specific driver personalities (e.g. Schumacher's dominance in the wet). At least, these are the goals for the game and, judging by a snippet of hands on time that we've had with a pre-alpha build (which Codies is calling "25% complete"), these intentions are clearly evident.

What's immediately striking in the build is quite how much opponent cars bob around and twitch across curves and bumps in the race track. Take a closer look at cockpit cam coverage of an F1 race and you'll see that this kind of pounding and kinetic feedback from the race track is a constant battle for F1 drivers to fight against, far from the common misconception that the cars drive themselves and technology divides the competition a lot more than driver skill. Codemasters is forming high-end tech around each circuit's racing line as well, so that cars lay down more and more rubber with each passing lap and add more grip to the circuit as they go. It's kind of like the surface deformation technology in games such as MotorStorm and Sega Rally, only in reverse - where one digs away at the track, the other essentially adds layers to it.

If you step off this racing line and onto the 'marbles' for even a second, then the game punishes you instantly and near enough uncontrollably (the driver aids offer some help in this regard, but even with the ABS and traction control set to full it's pretty damn hairy). Unless you feather the throttle and steer back to the racing line with the caution of a mountain goat, then the rear end will snap away so quickly that your head won't be the only thing left spinning. End up in the gravel and your tyres will get coated with a layer of the stuff, making your next few corners pretty treacherous until the grit wears away and grip returns to normal. And these aren't just different animated skins that are being applied to the tyres either - as the first dev diary shows, F1 2010's game tech is rendering each insignificant little fleck of sand and dispersing it with active physics.

And then there's the weather system, for which Codemasters is not only promising dynamic forecasts that change as a race progresses, but arguably the most detailed effects of any racing game to date. At a technical level, F1 2010 updates the conditions across a circuit's surface for every 50cm stretch of track. Put another way, this allows it to recreate details such the waterfall-like deluge that forms on Interlagos' infamous Senna S curves whenever there's a downpour at the circuit. F1 2010 can read the topography, camber, and amount of water anywhere on the circuit at an incredibly fine level, meaning that famously treacherous areas of track will be just as slippery in the game as they are in the actual sport. Add to this some impressive particle effects that throw up clouds of spray from the cars during wet weather, making visibility close to none, and F1 2010's weather system appears to offer the whole package.

As far as the handling's concerned, it's certainly twitchy. Clearly there's a lot of work that's still to be done but there's definitely a lot of potential here. Unlike previous F1 games that feel more like you're driving on rails and the only punishment seems to come from overcooking it on the corners, F1 2010 offers up a range of pitfalls that drivers will have to keep a wary eye on. Taking an inch too much curve on one corner will put you in the barrier quicker than you can say Murray Walker, while turning into a corner without a smooth and gradual curve makes the rear-end violently step out. At this point F1 2010's build doesn't appear to have the kind of button sensitivity on the brakes that Forza 3 does (for example), but realism does extend to the fact that any attempts to turn in and brake at the same time are entirely useless (you'll just lock-up and go straight on at the corner).

So, this is the "Be The Driver" part of Codmeasters' development mantra for the game, where the aim is to provide as realistic and authentic a driving experience as possible. Interestingly though, Codies is being careful about not referring to F1 2010 as either a sim or arcade game, which is in keeping with the sort of experiences it's served up in the Race Driver series over the years (put simply, it's a bit of both and aims to please a broader range of gamers as a result). The second part of the development mantra is "Live The Life," which sums up a whole load of features under the game's Career Mode. Similarly to DiRT's motor home (albeit decidedly more extravagant), F1 2010 features a VIP home that forms a kind of hub in the game. This is where your agent resides, who has a comparable role to Jock in TOCA: Race Driver 2, although she's definitely much easier on the eye (unless you have a thing for old Scottish dudes, that is).

This agent forms a main character in the game and is responsible for everything from negotiating contracts with other teams, to managing your interactions with the media (which will include press conferences whenever you manage to finish on the podium). As the career progresses, the main challenge is to ensure that you finish in front of your team mate and garner interest from teams with better cars to increase your chances of winning. Unlike previous F1 game iterations, F1 2010 will actually include a technology race of sorts from season to season, where levels of R&D and car performance vary widely from one team to the next. Your team's technological progress in the off-season will then reflect the championship position you finished in during the previous season and so on...

Beyond these kinds of interactions from your VIP home and the paddock, F1 2010's gameplay will also be extended into the garage from a strategic point of view. Car setup options will be on hand to help tweak your race performance, while key decisions throw up a risk/reward dynamic of sorts as well (e.g. is it worth tuning up the engine for a higher level of performance but greater reliability risk?). Pit-stop strategies have made the cut too, ensuring that drivers will have to choose their number of stops before the race begins, while tyre strategy takes everything from blistering to fully blown punctures (no pun intended) into account.

F1 2010 looks set to land itself as the greatest game of its kind since Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix 4 in 2002. The build we've played is, as you'd expect at this stage, rough around the edges but if Codemasters can even get close to the high level of ambition it clearly has for the game, then we're in for one hell of a ride this September.