F1 2016

[JudgeDredd]

In case anyone is interested in a good F1 game...this is one imo - I have 20 hours in it.

I've bought every one of these since Codemasters started the series. Whilst I am not one of those that thinks they've done a bad job, I'm also not one of those who thinks they've been outstanding. I've always viewed the series as a cross of sim and arcade but generally leaning to sim. Sure they've not got all the features of a sim - but I'm talking really about the driving aspect.

In general each of their games have been a hit in some aspects and a miss in others. I really can't think of any one particular one that stood out as head and shoulders above the rest. Probably their last game (or was it the one before) where they shamelessly stripped everything out and left a bare bones game was a slap in the face to anyone interested in the series.

However - I am please to say that I think they have released an absolute belter here.

I choose Manor Marussia and a full career mode meaning 2x90 and 1x60 minute practice sessions, full qualifying and full race. I was dubious about the full race, but actually it turned out great. You have unlimited flashbacks. Considered cheating by some, I love them. They help for those moments when you have to pause to go to the toilet or you pause to catch something on TV or are just interrupted through no fault of your own. Sitting back down and "getting in the swing of the drive" can be difficult and often leads to a lapse in concentration and a crash...hence my love for Flashbacks. You can also save the game or save and exit, allowing you to continue next sitting



Good Points
Immersion
The feeling of actually being in an F1 team is very much here - at last! Meeting your PA (manager?), the practice options, car upgrades, sitting on the grid, slowing for pit entry, safety car, manual starts, formation lap - everything is here to make you believe you are driving in the F1 world.

Practice
It now has a purpose. No longer is it about how the car feels, how the tyres hold out, what it feels like in full fuel. You are doing those things, but with a view to garnering points to assign to upgrades on the car. The more points you get the more upgrades you can get. I'm also pleased to inform you that not only are they difficult to do - so a challenge - but they seem to differ from team to team. I was in a Manor and finding the tyre management OK. I went to Renault, and found it much more difficult to gain any points.

Once you've had your fun on practice you get to choose the upgrade(s) you want to focus on. Each upgrade you highlight will show your cars improvement over the rest of the field.

Qualifying
Doing Full Qualifying is the full format. 3 sessions with the slowest being knocked out in each session. It's very immersive, setting a time and watching to see how you do. Of course in a Manor, I was never getting out of session 3.

Weather
Weather and lighting are fantastic. I was racing Melbourne which started off dry. Some rain started and it came to the point where I knew I needed intermediates on. So in the pits and inters were put on. Further on, the rain was getting heavier. This wasn't just noticeable on the track - it was noticeable on the screen and in the spray being kicked up. It really was seamless dry, light rain, heavy rain, light rain, dry again....very, very well done.

There was also a dry line being made as the heavy turned to light and then to dry.

Race
The race was great and the AI wasn't too shabby. It is of course, an AI - but it was quite aggressive (I have it on Expert). Not to the point of running you off the road, but it won't give like it used to - so you better make sure you keep on track - because contact will likely be made.

Yellow flags are implemented and also Virtual Safety Car. In my full race I didn't come across the VSC but the Safety Car was out once so it's not like the safety car is over used (anyone remember Nascar 2003?)

Blue flags are implemented and they seemed to be well implemented, though perhaps a bit early at times. I was jumped twice by a car I was racing by having to let a faster car through...so you'll have to be on your game with blue flags. And if you don't let them by, a stop go penalty will be awarded.

Communication
Quite good. Engineer was letting me know when a faster car was behind me and to let it through "We are not racing the car behind...".  You can select from a variety of options and the engineer responds with meaningful information. You can also tell him to reduce or increase his input and to shut up altogether - that's handy.

I highly recommend using a microphone - the options on the comms menu are many and the comms menu only stays up for 5 seconds - so driving, bringing up the menu, looking through the first page and the second page to get the option you want can be very trying and very hit and miss!

Rival
Early doors for rivals at the moment, but your team mate is your first rival. Points are awarded to you for when you better him (position, sector 1, sector 2 etc) and awarded to him when he beats you. It seems to be done pretty well. These points determine your position within the team and your position in the team will eventually influence any contracts that might be forthcoming.

Tyre Wear
It does seem to be very well modelled. You can certainly feel when the tyres are going off and getting past their best. Also, blistering is modelled visually which was a nice touch. I'd liked to have seen flat spots worked in also though.
Update - the marks on the tyres appear to be marbles from when going offline


Not So Good Points
I'm not calling them bad points, 'cos I don't think they are that bad.
Practice
The Practice element docked me a chance at some points because it said my pace was relative to position 22 in qualifying when my actual target was 21. However, my pace in practice was around 18th or something...so I found that odd (and as it happens, I did qualify 18th!).

Qualifying
It finished rather abruptly. What I mean by that is I was sitting in 14th and there were several cars on track - a lot of whom were going to beat me. But when the session ended, it simply ended...I didn't see each of the cars beating me...which they did and I ended up 18th. I would liked to have watched as one by one their times tumbled and they pushed me down.

Pits
Your car is still automated once you enter the pits. Why? I would like to drive into my pit box - though I do understand that without a pit limiter button it would be very hard to drive at a constant 37mph down the pits.

Formation Lap
Once you get round to the form up stage, your car is automated...again, why? It's great that the formation lap is here - but it would've been nice to take the car to the startup grid.

Comms
Very hard to go through the menus with the controls. Fast keys would've been handy, though they have implemented voice comms. This seemed to work pretty well, even with my Scottish accent.

Weather Forecast
I think this could be better implemented. I knew rain was coming, but it was a bit of guess work when it was going to hit. This made selecting the pit strategy a bit of a guess also.




So in summary, this is imo the best one by far - for giving you that F1 feeling, that sense of belonging, the feeling of having purpose in the team, the AI, - this really is gripping. I've deducted a couple of points for the auto take over of your car and the other "not so good" points.

Score : 8/10

If I find anything else during my season, I'll post here - especially if anything pops up that changes my mind.

[Asid]

Hi JD

Thanks for that review.

What do you use to control your car? What about on-line mp?

Some screenshots would also be great

thanks for taking the time to post this.

Regards

[JudgeDredd]

I use a Steering wheel and pedals. IMO, it's not worth playing a racing game unless you have those. Not if you want any real enjoyment out of it anyway.

Online, I have no idea I'm afraid. I think I heard Codies saying 22 players would be supported, but I'd be amazed if that was actually the case as I don't believe it's been a stellar part of their game in the past. Racing games are inherently bad experiences online. There's too many people want to ruin things when things go wrong and the "warping" effect seen in many MP gaming experiences make driving a nightmare.

I do not play online, so I really have no idea.

I'll post a video of circuit familiarisation and tyre management when I get the chance, though there are many, many videos out there on Youtube showing these as well as actual racing experience, weather etc...and they're explained, where my videos would just be a video of driving - no commentary

[JudgeDredd]

So at the request of Asid on DoW forums, here's a little video of track familiarisation and tyre management tests

Bear in mind I literally woke up this morning, fired this up and jumped on track...so familiarisation of the track is rusty at first. Also for tyre management, I am on very used soft tyres - so not optimum at all. I had already maxed my points for both of these tests yesterday (as you can see from the opening few seconds) - so this was a run through to show how it works.

Track Familiarisation
So you have some "gates" to go through. You have to go through them at an optimum speed. Going through them slower than the optimum, and you will simply get a "green" light. Miss a gate, and you get a red light. Go through at optimum speed and go through "a set" of gates at optimum speed, and you get purple. It seems Perfect has some tolerance of green lights...I'm not sure how many, but as you can see, I had 3 green sectors and I got Perfect.

I believe you can run the test any number of times...though when you get 50/50, then that's good enough.

Tyre Management
This test involves 10 laps. The team chooses the tyre they want to test. You have to stay under a Target Lap Time (shown in the top right) in order for the lap to register. You get Red for heavy tyre wear and that gives you 5 points, Green for medium tyre wear and you get 10 points and for light use you get Purple and 15 points. Invalid laps times (going over the Target Lap Time) gets you a red lap but no points).

I don't know how the (optimum/expected) lap time is calculated - but it has nothing to do with anything going on in practice as far as I'm aware. That lap time does differ depending on the team you choose.

It makes absolute sense to do your track familiarisation before doing tyre management. The better you know the track, the less you'll be locking up and the better your entry and exit on corners, maximising your tyre endurance. So do track familiarisation first. I'd even say leave tyre management until near the end of the first practice or even until the next practice session...I don't believe you have to do them all in the one practice session.

As you can see from my tyre management section, tyre wear really does show in the game. I had set perfect scores on tyre management the previous practice session on fresh soft tyres. Using used, I was hardly able to grab a green never mind a purple lap!!

I've found both the above things really help with my lap times and familiarisation of the track. They also give the practice a meaning.

In the Tyre Management section (15:20) you can see Vettel squeezing up the inside of me into the hairpin at turn 1. The AI will do that. One of the "Not So Good" parts of the game is the mirror is blocked by the hud at the bottom right (of course, it wouldn't if I was a real simmer and sat down in the car properly!!). But you have to know the AI will do this a lot now.

 

[JudgeDredd]

I forgot to mention in more detail about the race start and manual starts.

It's a fantastic feature. No more does the AI go hurtling off down the pit straight to the first corner. It seems to work incredibly well...though I have only done Australia so far.

The AI isn't super outstanding at the first corner still, but it definitely seems to be much better than previous games.

[Asid]

Thanks JD

Let me know how your season progresses

[Lusik]

I had F1 2013 and played it rather frequently at some point. I heard that 2013 was the words of all the titles as they did not have their physics guy on the project. I may try it. I've been an F1 fan almost as long as I've been an aircraft enthusiast. I still remember watching live F1 events when Senna, Prost, Mansel and other great drivers were racing.

[Longknife]

Thanks JD!

I have been wondering about F1 2016. I play 2015 on occasion & wonder how they differ? Your video makes me believe visually they are pretty much identical. I imagine with 2016 they updated the car paints. Anything else change?

Asid you simply must have a wheel to do better then mediocre at racing sims. I use Fantec wheel & pedals & recommend them highly!

Anyone else on Iracing? We could setup private races there for just us or form a team.

[JudgeDredd]

There's a world of difference.

Everything I mentioned in my first post are either significant changes or additions to the game. It's by far the best one I've played. The immersion factor itself was worth the ticket price for me. The manual starts make starts great fun instead of "Oh look...there goes the AI". Manual pit entry meaning no more cheating firing up to the line and allowing the AI to bring the car immediately down to speed. Tyre wear seems much improved. AI seems much improved (not infallible though). Weather change during a race was amazing.

This is the first F1 game where I actually don't mind doing the full race distance and that's down to the immersion the game gives you. I don't want to break that immersion by doing a 50% race anymore (though you'll notice I don't mind using the Flashback feature  ) and I certainly don't want to cut down on practice sessions.

I loved iRacing, but I kind of got bogged down - I didn't really understand what the interface was allowing me to do and ended up going down a route I didn't really want to. Not iRacing's fault necessarily...I just didn't know where I wanted to end up and so didn't know what path I should be going down.

Also - I didn't really care for the monthly subscription AND the additional cost of cars and tracks.

[JudgeDredd]

I posted this on another forum (slightly edited)

I have played rFactor and rFactor2 and a whole host of fantastic racing games. Some proper sim, like GP Legends, others a bit lighter like pCars and RRE. I love driving games and the more sim like, the better. I think my ultimate gaming overall experience in driving sims was GTR2.

I couldn't compare these to F1 2016 though. F1 2016 gives something else all the other driving games I have do not give - an F1 experience. And for the first time, it does it really well. I really do feel immersed in the F1 world. However, in this iteration there's something else...a better AI. Honestly the game is like F1 itself. You could find yourself running the race with no-one around you. And slowly but surely the AI will be catching or you will catch one. And like F1, they can't hold off the inevitable and nor can you. If you are going to be overtaken because you're on older tyres, then you will be taken.

I had a Race in Dubai last night where the car in front had jumped me in the pits. It was a front runner to me anyway (Renault perhaps?). But anyway, I wasn't making any in-roads and about 5 or so laps gone, I started to notice I was catching him. Slowly but surely, I started to reel him in...and caught him. Why? He was on super soft tyres and I was on soft. I do believe that's why I noticed the difference. The reason I think that was the reason is because of the practice sessions. Running full practice, I could see not only how long the tyres were going to last, but also what they felt like as they started to degrade.

Also, how my driving affected the wear. For accelerating out of corners with your wheels "less than straight" will cause wear. Do this with a higher degree of turn in the wheels, and you'll notice the wear even more and you'll notice this when driving the practice laps for tyre wear.

When I caught the Renault, it wasn't a straight swap of spaces either. It can be if you do charge in...the AI will try and avoid you. If it can't, you'll make contact and this will likely result in a damaged wing - and that will affect your downforce in corners. So there's as much emphasis on you avoiding contact as there is the AI...but you can both go into a corner and duke it out and there doesn't have to be contact. I haven't had the AI hit me where I've actually thought "That wasn't my fault"...it has been my fault everytime, whether that be a too tight turn in, and over shoot under braking or lack of awareness...it has honestly been my fault each time.

The AI isn't without it's faults. But it is a whole decade better than it has been in any of it's other games imo. Some aspects are repetitive - cut scenes for example - but not overly so. The engineer coming up to you to hand you a sheet telling you how the research has gone between races, your PA coming up to you to tell you various things, your Engineer. The engineer is damned annoying actually on track. Hearing your engine is absolutely essential for changing up and down and him yacking about no inclement weather is just frustrating...made more so when he says it at the wrong times - but you can tell him to shut up and then ask him things with the excellent speech in game comms.

I've now performed 2x90 and 1x60 minute practice, full qualifying and full race at Australia and Dubai and I'm not in the least bored with any of it and am looking forward to China because it's put me in the game.

Overall, if you like driving F1 games, then I could not recommend this highly enough. YMMV - everyone's abilities are different. But imo this is the best F1 game out there if you're looking for an F1 experience with good AI, excellent tyre modelling, great driving model and a feeling of contributing to the team, then this has to be the one.

For the record, I'm driving one below the top AI level. My Marussia does seem to qualify well, but race wise it's a different story. Again, I think that's down to the tyre modelling because in Qualy, you can throw the car about and not care about the tyres. Do that in the race and your tyres won't last and you'll need an extra pit stop. Take care of your tyres and you will be caught by the cars you would imagine catching you.

In Australia, I qualified 18th and finished the race somwhere like 16th. In Dubai I qualified 8th and finished 14th. I don't really know if that side of it is porked - comparing it to real F1 - but I like the fact my car can get better.

Good
AI
Tyre modelling
Feeling of being in an F1 team
Driving model
Speech comms
Manual race starts
Safety Car
Virtual Safety Car

Not so good
AI - it's not always on the ball...but it is mostly
Safety Car - more an AI issue - the AI seems to take an age to catch up with the Safety Car sometimes and fluctuates it's speed considerably...there's no way I should get a safety car call, pit to change tyres, come out and not catch the safety car again before it's pulled in because the AI is driving too slow (or perhaps the Safety Car AI is driving too fast!)
Virtual Safety Car - this is likely AI also - they seem to fluctuate ALOT in driving style, causing you headaches trying to keep a delta

What I want to get to is not using the Flashback system - that certainly helps my position within a race. I don't mind using it if I have to get out the chair, cause it takes a bit to get back in the cockpit, but other than that (using it because I over cooked a corner), I should stop.

Crucially though, 2 races in (remember - FULL races...over 5 hours per race in total) and I've not got any points, though I have felt the experience rewarding. I've felt like progress has been made and, as such, points are a secondary issue to me. I'm beating my teammate, I'm getting resource points for development of the car, I'm finishing roundabout where I would imagine and having a hoot whilst doing it.

[Longknife]

Great review JD! It makes me want to get it. I have yet to find a modern F1 that I truly liked. I will definitely have to give this one a go.

I don't have the time for full races so usually run 50% on 2015 or on iRacing. Tire wear & management on them is important but nearly as much as a full race.

I truly wish someone would redo GP Legends! I love the cars of the 1960's! I race them some in R Factor & Asseto Corsa. RFactor is pretty good & Assetto Corsa is prettier but neither are what I would consider truly good.

[JudgeDredd]

They are truly great games. But as I pointed out - for "being part of a team in the world of F1" - this one is it.

GP Legends was outstanding. I guess the worry is remaking it and killing it...but if you don't try...!

There is absolutely scope for a racing simulation developer to make the F1 through the years. That would be awesome. So where the current F1 has a 10 year season (which I hope can be carried over into the next season with all the changes), someone could develop a game with a real life 10 year season starting in, say, the 60s. It just takes a dedicated developer (and a heap of cash).

Plus - there is always the issue of us gamers. We're a hugely critical bunch   

[Asid]

Thanks for the update JD

I like and play

GTR2 + Power & Glory mod
GT Legends
Race 07

They are a bit older but very nice with lots of free mods available.

Regards

[Longknife]

I like and play

GT Legends

Hey Asid,

I take it you're not using Win10? If so how did you install GP Legends? MY PC wont let me (no security certificate).

[Asid]

Hi Longknife.

I'm using GT Legends not GP legends.

I am on Windows 8.1

Regards