Comments on: Review: F1 2012 (PC)

By: Bennett Ring

Bennett Ring — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 02:03:56 +0000

The tires are bugged when it rains. For example, I was doing a full weekend at Abu Dhabi. First practice it’s pouring with 100% chance of rain. Engineer tells me to take wets – I hit the track and they overheat immediately, and provide no grip. Swap to primes despite the rain and it handles perfectly… while still pouring.

Then head into a race and it starts pouring. The AI pits… and puts on options. I do the same just to see what happens, and they handle perfectly. A few folks are noticing the same issue on the forums =\. Basically if it rains you have to guess which tires will work, as it doesn’t appear that the visual effects match the actual track condition.

By: Murray Hibble

Murray Hibble — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 01:50:56 +0000

Yeah, definitely could have mentioned mirrors particularly on PC, no excuse for then their.

What do you mean by tyres in the wet? Preview code stated that wasn’t right yet but review code worked fine in that regards.

And holy crap man, I already did 2000 words of pernickityness, your list is too exhaustive, I think I’ve touched on the key points that will appear to all but fanatics (like yourself). As for damage, I love how it looks but would love to flip over and bust everything leaving just the monocoque but Idon’t think the game lacks for it.

Proper full damage modelling would have to be on their whiteboard.

By: Bennett Ring

Bennett Ring — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 01:44:02 +0000

Nice review mate but when I played I noticed a lot of issues that weren’t covered here, including but not limited to:

- mirrors still don’t work
- damage is pathetically under-modeled (and I don’t buy the licensing excuse for a second considering earlier games had much more detailed crashes. It’s the same excuse the Gran Turismo team used until they decided to include damage)
- tire choice during wet weather is broken
- AI performance is incredibly inconsistent – fast in slow areas, and slow in fast areas
- tire scaling has been disabled
- corner cutting doesn’t get penalised

…and on, and on. These were forgivable in the first iteration, but to see so many fundamental issues remaining three years later was a real disappointment for me. I still really dig the game, but not to the same extent as the first two.

By: Murray Hibble

Murray Hibble — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 21:11:54 +0000

rammruuter, I too prefer reviews with detail over ones that treat it as a story, thanks for your nice comment :)

By: zhukov

zhukov — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 18:02:28 +0000

^as for the advertising (e.g. Marlboro cigarettes) they could just replace it all with something else. The old NASCAR games did that for the alcohol sponsored teams (e.g. all Budweiser logos were removed).

By: zhukov

zhukov — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 17:57:52 +0000

Would be nice if they had the creative freedom to at go back to earlier eras of F1.

At least a mode where you could race through the decades as legendary drivers on famous tracks.

By: rammruuter

rammruuter — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:43:22 +0000

Finally a descriptive review that actually covers almost all the games features/problems! The game looks great and will be a first day purchase for me.

I’ll definitely be coming back to this website for reviews! Its not often you get a fair and unbiased review.

By: meji

meji — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:57:00 +0000

I have really enjoyed F1 2011 it was a big step up from F1 2010. Think I might have to pick this up. I will win that world championship for you Mark! even if i have to have the name Mark Webbar and steal your seat at RBR to do it!! ;)

By: Murray Hibble

Murray Hibble — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:46:21 +0000

It’s definitely got some give… what I mean is that if you try to take a corner like it was a Need for Speed game, hit the curb and just put down too much power you will snap-out. But if you nurse your throttle you really do feel like you’re taking your tyres to the edge of their grip… it’s a fantastic feeling.

By: caitsith01

caitsith01 — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:32:25 +0000

“getting onto the accelerator too early or taking a curb too high is still frequently punished by spin-outs”

Can you provide some more detail about this? IMHO this was the problem in F1 2010, it was actually too easy to spin out suddenly.

In particular, do the cars have a small amount of “give” before they spin?

In real life, when F1 drivers get on the throttle you can see a small amount of sliding and understeer before cars will actually spin out. Those moments when cars snap out of control are rare in reality and usually coincide with a very flukey hit on the kerbs or a mechanical problem.