F1 2012 demo coming

[pk500]

F1 2012 demo to drop Sept. 14 on XBL, PlayStation Store and Steam, one week ahead of release:

http://www.virtualr.net/f1-2012-demo-co ... -september

Yeah, I know there's a Racing Sim thread. But is this a racing sim? And it seemed to be the most popular racing game at DSP last year.

I'm anticipating this demo very much.

[dbdynsty25]

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15530

[GB_Simo]

It needs a demo this year. Wise move by Codies.

Last year was a blast online but we all saw the bugs. Offline, where I do the bulk of my racing, the penalties were wonky, the AI wouldn't overtake, the backmarkers and the AI's attempts to clear a path during qualifying veered from comical to lethal but never got better than that, tyres you'd never used would still accumulate wear through practice, the AI used traction control so they were unbeatable off slow corners and in the wet if you didn't use it too (I don't)...and for all they say they've fixed the bugs, they said the same last year too. A decent amount of consumer confidence went walkies last year, maybe not so much among the casual fan but definitely among the hardcore, so providing everything works as it should this year, it's a good chance to win it back.

Providing everything works. Still looking forward to this one but with a degree of apprehension.

[pk500]

Ah, sh*t. Sorry, DB. Lazy, sloppy by me.

Return to the regularly scheduled F1 2012 thread, fellas.

[dbdynsty25]

It's not like anyone replied to that one at all, so it doesn't matter...just thought it was amusing.

[dbdynsty25]

Demo's out now.

[F308GTB]

Demo's out now.

Got some laps in.

The good - it has Monza, which after a spectacular race Sunday, had me in the mood for the track. Also, did an illegal pass in one of the turns (all wheels off) and a countdown started for me to give the position back.

The bad - wish the track in the demo were Austin, no online player demo

[GB_Simo]

I liked the illegal pass thing too. I guess that's the Codies way of simulating the teams getting on the radio to Race Control and asking if they should give the position back - be interesting to see if the time you're allowed scales up for longer races, though I'd guess not.

A couple of races finished along with a completed Young Driver Test and I don't quite know where I'm at. I think the AI might be a bit racier this year - they certainly seem it - though they might still give up too easily when trying to overtake you down a straight. More checking required on that one. I love the presentation, with David Croft clearly getting into it and Anthony Davidson narrating a hot lap of the circuit, which might prove useful to people learning the sport and the tracks for the first time. The whole Young Driver Test setup is exactly what last year's game was crying out for as an introduction to the sport, KERS, DRS and all the intricacies of the sport, so it's going to be much more accessible to those among us who don't follow the sport closely.

Then there's the handling and I've no idea how I feel about it. I did two races at Monza, one from the back of the grid where I raced through to about 8th (I made most of that up at the first corner - sent one up the inside, hoped for a gap and fluked my way into one) and one where I won from pole. Coming through the pack, it felt like the car was being affected by dirty air and I was getting big understeer through Parabolica, which was cool. Running alone, the car felt like it was on rails. It just gripped everywhere, which seemed odd because I had a low-downforce setup on the car. Under normal driving conditions I couldn't see the need for traction control because I couldn't spin the rear wheels up at all. The car would only spin if I hung a wheel off the road or hit a kerb too aggressively but I didn't feel like I got any warning. I had loads of grip, then I had none at all, with no obvious transition.

While I was faffing about in the menus, I found that you can go back into the Young Driver Test and have a free run around Abu Dhabi in either dry or wet conditions. The F1 nerds among us might be interested to know that you share the track not with the established drivers but with those who ran last year's Young Driver Test, so Jules Bianchi in the Ferrari, Alexander Rossi at Caterham, Sam Bird with Mercedes, Jean-Eric Vergne in the Red Bull as a precursor to his race drive with Toro Rosso this year and so on. The McLaren felt a bit more difficult to drive there than a Williams did at Monza, which shouldn't really be the case and has me a bit confused about how this year's handling model works. I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of others who've tried that mode out, particularly since I freely admit to not being very good at driving around the Abu Dhabi circuit.

One other thing: go back into Young Driver Test after you've completed it, select Free Run Wet and have a squint at the environment. This game is beautiful to look at.

[Teal]

Two thoughts:

1. Pretty impressive demo.

2. I SUCK. Always have, apparently always will, at driving games that you have to finesse...lol.

[F308GTB]

One bug that still persists - cars that hit you from behind and spin out ends up with you getting a penalty. Hamilton ran into my rear tire when I had position on the turn, spun, and I get penalized! It's one of the things that drove me nuts with 2011.

[pk500]

This demo isn't thrilling me. It isn't disgusting me. It's mediocre.

The driving model is the same except it's a bit easier. Instead of needing ABS and full TC like last year, I needed only medium TC and no ABS and could get away with no TC if I was really careful. Otherwise, the cars feel the same as F1 2011.

One of the weaknesses of F1 2011 was improperly simulated braking power. F1 cars can stop at mind-meltingly short distances. Any time a driver tests an F1 car for the first time, his first comment after climbing from the cockpit is astonishment at the braking power. F1 2011 didn't simulate this that well, and it seems like F1 2012 simulates it even worse.

The demo's graphics are pretty. Crofty's commentary is mega. The sound and atmosphere are terrific. But all of that was in last year's game, too.

I'm just not sure I want to drop $60 on release day for a new track in Austin and a couple of new game modes. I'm disappointed by the promised improvements in the driving model. The driving model wasn't really improved; it was just dumbed down a bit, made more accessible.

I might wait for a price drop on this one, especially with a soccer game, NBA 2K13 and Assassin's Creed III on the horizon.

Maybe I've been spoiled by the dramatic improvements this year in the gameplay engines of Madden 13, NHL 13 and the PES 2013 demo, but this feels like a very small step forward for this series. It's F1 2011.5.

[dbdynsty25]

I'm just not sure I want to drop $60 on release day for a new track in Austin and a couple of new game modes. I'm disappointed by the promised improvements in the driving model. The driving model wasn't really improved; it was just dumbed down a bit, made more accessible.

Keep in mind...it's a demo. They need it to sell copies so it wouldn't surprise me if they did dumb it down a bit while still making it more sim like during the full release. You can't sell a ton of sim games for the most part...so making it accessible to the masses with the demo may sell them a few more copies. That said I'm renting first like I usually do and end up buying through gamefly for 45 bucks either way.

[pk500]

Another thing I don't like about this demo is the imbalanced physics model.

F1 2011 felt like driving on ice without assists, with the front and rear of the car. It was diabolical, but it was consistent.

The F1 2012 demo features bags of rear-end grip, as Simo said. But the front end doesn't feel nearly as planted as the rear, creating a weird physics sensation. A properly balanced F1 car should feel like it's on rails, because it is. But the front ends of these cars feel squirrelly, almost like the front end is washing out in dirty air even when on a clean track.

I know that a real F1 car has more mechanical grip (wider tires) and aerodynamic grip (bigger rear wing, diffuser, Coke-bottle aero) in the rear of the car. But the added grip in the back creates a strangely disconnected feeling at the front. It just doesn't feel like the car is tracking through corners with the front end.

Maybe setup changes will fix that. Maybe it's just me.

[pk500]

I'm just not sure I want to drop $60 on release day for a new track in Austin and a couple of new game modes. I'm disappointed by the promised improvements in the driving model. The driving model wasn't really improved; it was just dumbed down a bit, made more accessible.

Keep in mind...it's a demo. They need it to sell copies so it wouldn't surprise me if they did dumb it down a bit while still making it more sim like during the full release. You can't sell a ton of sim games for the most part...so making it accessible to the masses with the demo may sell them a few more copies. That said I'm renting first like I usually do and end up buying through gamefly for 45 bucks either way.

I'm not holding my breath, dude. Codies have said throughout the development process that they wanted to make the game more "accessible." That's fine. Add more grip to the front and rear ends.

But as I noted above, it feels like Codemasters have made the game more accessible by adding more rear grip and no extra front grip, creating an imbalanced sensation when driving. The car just doesn't track through corners like last year's game.

[GB_Simo]

One of the weaknesses of F1 2011 was improperly simulated braking power. F1 cars can stop at mind-meltingly short distances. Any time a driver tests an F1 car for the first time, his first comment after climbing from the cockpit is astonishment at the braking power. F1 2011 didn't simulate this that well, and it seems like F1 2012 simulates it even worse.

I traded in 2011 a while ago so I can't compare but you might well be right. It's definitely made more obvious this time, though, by the hot lap videos. Watch the Monza one that comes with the demo, try braking where Ant Davidson says you can brake for the second chicane and let me know whereabouts in northern Italy your car ends up stopping. Even in the Young Driver Test, it takes what feels like an eternity to get rid of the last 50-60 mph when you're stopping in the designated zones.

[Zeppo]

I haven't put very much time into the demo at all, but I'm very reticent to pronounce the full game already DOA from just this little taste. Surely the driving model may, as always with this game, be imperfect and aiming to strike a balance between authentic simulation and playable game. Certain areas may be better or worse from version to version, but I'm not nearly ready to pass judgement on the final game's driving model quite yet.

I am just as interested in adjustments made to AI pit strategy, especially in non-100% races, the way the AI deals with rain and the switch from slicks to wet weather tires, and whether or not they've fixed things like seeing the AI pit on the final lap because of changing weather conditions, that sort of thing. Also I'm curious to see if weather will persist across sessions and be persistent within a day especially in qualifying.

Also the endless quest to find racy but realistic AI drivers is I hope making strides in a positive direction, but I'm not willing to make a final determination on that just from the demo. Never forget, both previous games also had certain tracks where the AI were absurdly quick and others where they were not very competitive at all, and I'm curious to see if those issues have been smoothed out or not. Further I'm interested to see how car development has changed if at all, because that is a very fun aspect of the career mode.

Which is to say, I am not finding this demo to be the total enthusiasm killer that seems to be the theme of the thread. I am actually very much looking forward to the new release, because I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt and expect a very similar kind of incremental move in a positive direction that we saw between the 2010 and 2011 versions of the game.

It's certainly not as if the 2011 game was a perfect gem of ideal flawlessness and all of a sudden they have introduced a host of problems for the 2012 game. 2011 had plenty of quirky, odd, frustrating and weird things about it. And yet the whole package produced a very fine and incredibly fun game that for my money is simply unmatched and gives me a kind of realistic-enough yet fun-as-hell racing experience I can get anywhere else, and with all the shiny F1 bells and whistles too.

[GB_Simo]

I am not finding this demo to be the total enthusiasm killer that seems to be the theme of the thread.

A tad harsh, I'd have said, insofar as only PK has had his enthusiasm totally flattened - Teal went for "impressive" and I'm not sure about the handling model but pro everything else I've found - but I get where you're coming from.

To explain my position a little further, I'd say that the thing I enjoyed most about 2011 was the driving model. You know I'm a racing nut so I like to have as much immersion as I can get in the on-track experience. Having inters that last half as long as the AI tyres kills it for me, having wets that seem to last twice as long kills it, having AI drivers who point blank refuse to overtake me down the straights but use traction control to nail a crazy pass on corner exit kills it, and so on, but I got away with it because I really enjoyed driving the car. I can't comment on whether the things that spoiled 2011 for me are still there - that's for the full release and fingers crossed it's OK - but I'm not absolutely positive I like what I felt from the driving model in the demo, which breeds a certain amount of inevitable concern given what I liked about last year's game.

I don't think Monza is the best track to show it off, for all sorts of reasons, but I wouldn't want you to think I'm writing this off either. If the strategy is right, the AI balance is right, the weather system works and so on, a simplified handling model need not be the end of the world and for online racing in particular, it should really close up the playing field.

[pk500]

I traded in 2011 a while ago so I can't compare but you might well be right. It's definitely made more obvious this time, though, by the hot lap videos. Watch the Monza one that comes with the demo, try braking where Ant Davidson says you can brake for the second chicane and let me know whereabouts in northern Italy your car ends up stopping. Even in the Young Driver Test, it takes what feels like an eternity to get rid of the last 50-60 mph when you're stopping in the designated zones.

Amen. I thought the left trigger was going to pierce the front of my controller last night because I had to press so damn hard to stop the car. I know carbon-fiber brakes require tremendous pedal force in real life, especially when cold, but they stop the car. That's the biggest difference between the braking model in F1 2012 and reality.

ABS seems largely redundant in the demo. You can drop a metric ton of concrete blocks on the left trigger, and you'll see only a wisp of tire smoke in a braking zone with ABS off. I doubt flat-spotting a tire is possible.

[pk500]

I agree with Adam. I don't think this game will suck, but I think Codemasters is pushing the driving model -- the most important aspect of a game to me, too, -- to a place I'm not sure I like.

Plus there's just SO much competition for my gaming dollar right now. If this game was released in February or March in the state I envision, it would be a no-brainer purchase for me. But there is a glut of AAA titles coming out now. And I really question whether this game will have staying power among DSP hardcores once FIFA, PES and NBA 2K13 drop within a few weeks.

Do I want to pay full price for two weeks of glee with DSP buddies? 'Tis the question.

[toonarmy]

First off, I got a lot of enjoyment out of 10 and 11, so I would consider myself a fan of the series thus far. Hell, I even spent a lot of time on the 3DS version and still play the Vita version. That being said, I am disappointed with this demo. There are some physics and control issues that are bothering me. First off, driving down the straights is odd and twitchy when trying to make fine adjustments. I am using a DS3 controller, not a wheel, but I never had this much twitchiness in either 10 or 11. I have tried a bunch to smooth things out when passing on the straights, but the control is too twitchy for my tastes in a straight line. Second, in the turns there is way too much understeer at times. The cars just do not seem to control as well as they did in 10 and 11. In fact, it almost feels like I am driving a FWD car. I am keeping my fingers crossed that there will be remedy for these issues in the final release. Third, as has already been pointed out, the braking is bizarre for a F1 game, and I think that is being kind. IMO the braking flatout sucks and is unrealistic. These are supposed to be F1 cars, not stock cars.

And on an unrelated control/physics note, the removal of the championship mode is just plain goofy. WTF were they thinking to take out the option to drive a championship season with a F1 driver? I enjoy creating my own driver and moving him up the ranks, but I also really like to choose an actual driver and compete in a season or two. Taking out this mode is like a MLB, NBA, or NHL game not allowing the user to play as a real pro team and play a season.

These are merely initial thoughts. I am likely buying this game regardless since I love F1 too much to pass on it. However, I am concerned at this point and am hoping that there will be some settings and options that can make the driving model more to my liking.

[Zeppo]

It needs a demo this year. Wise move by Codies.

Judging by the overwhelming tenor of the feedback here, I'd say actually ... not so much.

Looks like it was a big mistake by Codies to release a demo.

[XXXIV]

It needs a demo this year. Wise move by Codies.

Judging by the overwhelming tenor of the feedback here, I'd say actually ... not so much.

Looks like it was a big mistake by Codies to release a demo.

Dont worry. I ignore demos for the most part. If you like it , At least I will buy it! Just like the last F1.

[GB_Simo]

It needs a demo this year. Wise move by Codies.

Judging by the overwhelming tenor of the feedback here, I'd say actually ... not so much.

Looks like it was a big mistake by Codies to release a demo.

Um, yeah, about that...

Opinion seems to be divided on the official forums too, though I can only stay there for 3 minutes at a time until I get a booster jab for my stupidity vaccine so my snapshot of that might not be quite right. I was thinking more in technical terms, showing gamers that the bugs and AI quirks of last year had gone, and it didn't ever enter my head that so many of us might not like the handling model. It's not like I hate it either, nor was I expecting realism's last stand - I've got iRacing for that, or would if I ever loaded it up any more - more that it just feels a bit off to me. Back at Abu Dhabi tonight, I'm still not especially quick (high 1:45s) but I'm consistent-ish now and I still don't ever know quite where the front end is.

It's plainly not going to be a bad game (let's hope I don't live to regret that statement too...) and the lead designer is on Twitter saying that the demo is quite a long way from the final build, so who knows how much of a pointer it is. I'm less excited now than I was 24 hours ago, though.

[toonarmy]

It needs a demo this year. Wise move by Codies.

Judging by the overwhelming tenor of the feedback here, I'd say actually ... not so much.

Looks like it was a big mistake by Codies to release a demo.

Um, yeah, about that...

Opinion seems to be divided on the official forums too, though I can only stay there for 3 minutes at a time until I get a booster jab for my stupidity vaccine so my snapshot of that might not be quite right. I was thinking more in technical terms, showing gamers that the bugs and AI quirks of last year had gone, and it didn't ever enter my head that so many of us might not like the handling model. It's not like I hate it either, nor was I expecting realism's last stand - I've got iRacing for that, or would if I ever loaded it up any more - more that it just feels a bit off to me. Back at Abu Dhabi tonight, I'm still not especially quick (high 1:45s) but I'm consistent-ish now and I still don't ever know quite where the front end is.

It's plainly not going to be a bad game (let's hope I don't live to regret that statement too...) and the lead designer is on Twitter saying that the demo is quite a long way from the final build, so who knows how much of a pointer it is. I'm less excited now than I was 24 hours ago, though.

Well, that's good to hear that the lead designer says that the demo is a long way from the final build. Perhaps they have done some tweaking to the handling of the cars and the overall controls. That's the primary thing that I am worried about. Some of the AI issues of the past two games haven't bothered me to the extent that they bothered other gamers, as I am fairly content with a F1 game if I can just get pretty good car physics and solid control, then drive the s*** out of the cars. Obviously, better AI is always a good thing, though, especially in longer races. On a positive note, I do like the overall visuals of the game, from the cars to the menus. And the sound is really cool when cranked up.

[pk500]

Could not agree more with both of your demo impressions posts, Toon.