F1 2012 demo coming

[GB_Simo]

Here's Eurogamer's review, in which the game scores 7/10, though I'm not sure I personally consider "this is nice, this is OK, handling's good, it makes the same mistakes as previous F1 games but I'm barely going to touch upon which ones" to be a review.

Then again, I used to write at Calvert Games, where the introductory paragraph of my "F1 Career Challenge quick impressions" article was about twice as long as that entire review, so maybe my perspective is a bit skewed. JC would have been all over F1 2012 back in the day but there's not a mention of it on his site so far...are you out there, mate?

Any of you chaps picking this up tomorrow? I've got my pre-order in for Friday's UK launch but I'm wavering a little so all impressions would be very welcome.

[TCrouch]

Had it preordered, then cancelled it. I seem to get these every year and play them for 1 or 2 nights, then shelve them forever. Going to break that cycle, based on the impressions I saw here.

[dbdynsty25]

Had it preordered, then cancelled it. I seem to get these every year and play them for 1 or 2 nights, then shelve them forever. Going to break that cycle, based on the impressions I saw here.

Definitely gonna gamefly it (which it should arrive tomorrow) to see how it is...buy if no one around here is playing, then I'll just stick with the already fantastic 2011 version my PC.

[toonarmy]

I pre-ordered it from Newegg with that $15 off preorders deal they had a few weeks ago. Even though the demo was pretty meh I did not cancel the preorder. It's hard for me to pass up a F1 game. Probably won't have it until the end of the week though since Newegg is not the fastest shipper to my locale.

[Zeppo]

I'm definitely getting it but I admit I'm not in a huge rush to do so. I'm not waiting for any price drop or anything like that, it's just with Madden, NHL and the footy games coming next week (of which I will have a very hard time getting only one right away), not to mention Borderlands 2, I am not feeling there is much room for me to stuff this game into my rotation right now.

It would be great if we could rekindle those sweet few weeks earlier this year when we had a good group of folks excited to race together online, but in my view there is no way that is happening in the fall.

[pk500]

That's a very fair review, Adam. But I think it's still being a bit kind to the driving model. The cars in the demo drive weird, with over-efficient rear wings and non-existent front wings. Plus the braking model has deteriorated considerably this year.

I'm not paying $60 for this game. It just doesn't include enough features and content to justify that price, especially compared with other car games that offer tons of cars, tracks and modes. Sure, those aren't pure racing games or games based on real series. They're "driving" or "car collecting" games like Forza or Gran Turismo. But they offer oodles of available content and value for money, even if the driving models or racing models aren't perfect.

But neither are the driving and racing models in F1 2012. And the game offers a pittance of modes, especially now that the basic Season mode has been removed. When online racing among DSPers would ebb with F1 2011, I at least found some magnetism to the game through progressing in the Season mode. But like Terry, I fear I would drive a few offline races, have a great time racing with DSPers for a few weeks and then wonder if I was going to keep the game and let it collect dust for about four months until the 2013 F1 season started in March 2013, hopefully rekindling my offline interest and DSP online racing interest.

I don't want to sound like an elitist prick, but no console game is going to match the driving and racing available through iRacing, which I love. So a console racing game better have either really FUN driving and racing models or a lot of fun modes to peel me away from iRacing to satisfy my virtual racing jones. Especially, as Zep said, at this time of the year, when there are so many AAA team sports titles released.

DIRT 3 was able to pry me from iRacing for a while. I wonder how long F1 2012 will be able to do it, and I'm not willing to undertake that experiment after paying full fare.

This might sound like heresy, but I'm actually eye-balling Need For Speed: Most Wanted or Forza Horizon because both look really fun with a ton of content. They can be beer-and-pretzel racing games while I use iRacing for my serious racing efforts.

I'll undoubtedly grab F1 2012 at some point. But I doubt it will be until a price drop unless my boys BEG for it, which is possible.

Very eager to read impressions of those who buy the game this week. Fingers crossed the grip and braking models in the retail game are better than the demo.

[Teal]

NFS: Most Wanted is a day one purchase for me. A proper sequel to Paradise City is just what the doctor ordered.

[webdanzer]

They removed Tire Wear Scaling for this year. You wonder why they go and remove features like that...

[DChaps]

I will be purchasing it today mainly because I already had traded in games to prepare for it, and I am too old and slow to appreciate Madden, NHL, FIFA, NBA2K13, etc. I barely touched the demo, but with the MS Wheel I really did not feel any difference in the handling. I am basically paying $60 to get a first look at the new US venue in Austin. I am surprised at how many features they have removed, particularly the Season championship where you could play as an existing F1 driver. How annoying. I will try to post some impressions/comparisons (hanging onto F1 2011 for now) later tonight if I get a chance to pick it up.

I wish games like this would just use DLC for new seasons, drivers, tracks, etc. as opposed to the new version every year with minimal updates/fixes, or even worse, features removed. A two year cycle would at least seem reasonable, but as long as consumers keep buying every year, I guess there is no reason for them to change.

[pk500]

They removed Tire Wear Scaling for this year. You wonder why they go and remove features like that...

Seriously? That's terrible. Tire wear scaling was one of my favorite features in F1 2011, especially in online racing.

[Gurantsu]

I'm passing on it, although being a track whore I may get it later at a discount to try Austin. But since I still have 2011 on PC, I really have no incentive to get 2012 based on what I've read. It's a shame, but it doesn't seem to be a step forward at all. Maybe a lateral step, but no sense dropping 60 bones on a lateral step.

Codies needs to hire Geoff Crammond NOW!

[GB_Simo]

They removed Tire Wear Scaling for this year. You wonder why they go and remove features like that...

Seriously? That's terrible. Tire wear scaling was one of my favorite features in F1 2011, especially in online racing.

Seriously.

The lead designer's going to be writing up an explanation of how it works this year at some point, but all reports are that tyres wear at the same rate whether you're doing 25, 50 or 100% races (which are apparently the only available options as it stands). That would completely remove the fun of wondering how many stops Zeppo's going to make, of explaining to Alex why it is that he needs to stop at all, of hearing you blame your crew and their lousy tyre pressures, seeing me heroically misjudge pitting under the safety car every single bloody time and so on. My pre-order is cancelled, not for the same righteously indignant reasons as the ever-hilarious Codies forum dwellers but because I really want to hear some impressions of how it all works before I plunk 40 quid down for a copy.

[toonarmy]

LMAO! What in the hell were the designers thinking? No regular season mode, now no scalable tire wear. I don't have the time to do my career at 100% race length. To add insult to injury, even if I did want to do 100% it is being reported on the CM forum that there is no in-race save available now that 100% length is being stressed in order to get some semblance of realism. There is also only 1 practice session available in a race weekend , and it is limited to one hour. I guess tire strategy is not considered important to Codies any longer. Ah well, hopefully the game will still be fun.

[Dave]

Wow, I hadn't been paying much attention to the build-up for this game so this is all pretty disappointing.

I don't know that it makes sense for me to drop $60 to basically be able to drive the Circuit of the Americas since that's the only option in this year's game that isn't available for F1 2011. I can still close out my first season in 2011 and move on to a better team with increased difficulty and enjoy that for a while.

[pk500]

Brutal news on no scalable tire wear or in-game saves. And only one practice per race? That's lovely, especially if the weather changes.

I think I'm eventually going to look for a copy of F1 2011 on the cheap to satisfy the Formula One jones of my sons and me.

[Zeppo]

They removed Tire Wear Scaling for this year. You wonder why they go and remove features like that...

Seriously? That's terrible. Tire wear scaling was one of my favorite features in F1 2011, especially in online racing.

This.

Ridiculous. I anxiously await the explanations from the head gurus at Codies as to why this would be a thing they deliberately chose to do.

The one practice thing doesn't really bug me personally because I pretty quickly gave up on the full weekend in the 2nd game and have found the short weekend option to be the perfect game mode for me, but yeah that definitely registers as LAME from the perspective of realism, especially considering the first two releases in this series.

Wow. I'm happy now that I held off for a while. I'm very curious to hear some impressions, but just because of the tire thing I have firmly adjusted to 'wait for a cheaper copy' mode.

I mean, I understand there were issues with the wear scaling in the past releases, but to go from there to "let's just throw that out" is really poor. Ugh.

[pk500]

This might sound like mindless hyperbole, but it's sincere sentiment: I enjoyed the scalable tire wear model more than anything in F1 2011. I loved how it added an important, realistic dimension to the race. I loved how it forced players in online races to adjust their strategies based on how quickly they chewed up tires. I loved how it added such variety to our online races. I loved how no other console game that I can remember included it.

And now it's gone.

I'm moving on to a new racing game target. F1 2012 doesn't interest me without scalable tire wear.

If I'm going to play an unrealistic racing game, at least make it an over-the-top romp instead of a game that promises realism but omits a vital feature to ensure realism.

[pk500]

A quick summary of my beefs with what I've experienced with the F1 2012 demo and what I've read about the full retail title:

Codemasters really screwed up with F1 2012 for PC and console platforms. So many good, realistic features from the first two editions of the game were omitted, for no apparent good reason.

1. There's only one free practice session per race. Unrealistic, especially if the weather changes during the weekend.

2. No Season mode. You can't pick your favorite driver and complete an entire F1 season. You must instead participate in a new Career mode. Why not give players both options?

3. Poor braking model. F1 cars have the most powerful carbon-fiber brakes of any vehicles in the world. F1 2011 simulated that very, very well. The braking distances inexplicably have been lengthened quite a bit in the F1 2012 demo. Foolish.

4. No scalable tire wear. This is a game-killer for me, and the main reason why I will not buy this game for any platform. Past editions of the franchise included tire wear even in shorter-distance races. This created incredible realism and plenty of strategic options that real F1 drivers and pit-wall strategists face every race. It was so much fun to try and guess when friends were going to pit in shorter on Xbox Live, adding another vital layer of strategy and fun. But Codemasters inexplicably has removed tire wear scaling from shorter-distance races in F1 2012.

Codemasters clearly is confused with the development direction of this franchise. They know F1 fans don't want an arcade game, but they also know pure sims don't sell on consoles.

So instead of offering something for everyone, Codemasters has made some really poor development decisions that have resulted in a muddled mess of a game that resides somewhere in sim racing purgatory.

That's very disappointing for a franchise that showed so much promise in 2010 and 2011.

F1 2012 resembles Felipe Massa's F1 career -- heading downhill fast.

[pk500]

One omitted feature I forgot to mention: The brilliance of the game causing me to blurt, in an altered stupor, "THIS GAME IS F*CKING AWESOME!" multiple times per race.

[toonarmy]

Codemasters clearly is confused with the development direction of this franchise. They know F1 fans don't want an arcade game, but they also know pure sims don't sell on consoles.

So instead of offering something for everyone, Codemasters has made some really poor development decisions that have resulted in a muddled mess of a game that resides somewhere in sim racing purgatory.

I've been reading some of the tweets of one of the people at Codies and he basically maintains that they left out the season mode because 90+% of gamers never play it. How does he know that? And, I'm calling bullshit on that. Who the f*** is playing this game if 90+% of people are not playing a core mode? He says that 99% of the people do not care about more than one practice. OK, I can buy that a certain percentage may not care, but I am positive it's more than one percent.

That brings me to the point of the audience for this game. F1 games do not sell to the casual race fan. It caters essentially to F1 fans. Some F1 fans want a more relaxed casual game. Others want a solid sim. However, that doesn't mean you leave out a major mode that was already in the game, and you sure as hell do not leave out one of the most important components in F1 -- tire wear. All because I want to play a shortened race does not mean that I want major components left out of the game. There is absolutely zero reason to take out options and modes that were already in the game. None. Casual fans do not want a stripped-down product, rather they want something that is more driveable, without authentic damage. That has been available. It's called driver aids and damage turned down to limited or none. Simheads can turn driver aids off and play with full damage. Taking out scalable tire wear does nothing but piss off both groups because both groups want that in the game since it has everything to do with strategy. Both groups want a championship season mode. And some people in both groups want a full three practice sessions and authentic qualifying.

What Codies have managed to do is alienate potential buyers from both camps by eliminating stuff that has been in past iterations of the game. I would guess it took more effort to eliminate these things than just keep them in as options. In this day and age developers need to be offering more options to customize a game to someone's liking rather than offering less.

CM are releasing an arcade-style F1 game later this year. People who do not want strategy and full race weekends and authentic seasons can buy that if they want a stripped-down F1 game. Perhaps F1 2012 is a good game on the track, and that will be nice. But it still is maddening that they have managed to f*** things up this bad in terms of the aforementioned points.

[pk500]

All good points, Toon.

After reading your comments, I think the Codies' development team was under some strong pressure from the bean counters at the company regarding F1 2012. Bernie Ecclestone does not sell the official F1 license for anything on the cheap. And it's possible the balance sheet from sales of F1 2010 and F1 2011 showed too much red ink because they tried to be sims, which sell to a smaller, hardcore audience.

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if the suits demanded a more relaxed game so sales to casual gamers would climb, generating revenue to justify Bernie's big licensing fee. The suits probably figured hardcore F1 fans like us will be lemmings who will buy the game even if it featured stuffed aqua dragons racing in toy karts.

It also wouldn't surprise me if this game sells better than F1 2010 and F1 2011 despite the derision it's receiving in the hardcore gaming and sim communities. Casual gamers don't even know places like DSP, OS, VirtualR and No Grip exist, so they're never going to see our criticism. And if they did, would they care?

Codemasters is following a familiar pattern here. The Colin McRae Rally series was a very strong approximation of a rally sim for consoles. It lost sales steam at some point and was reincarnated as the more arcadish DIRT franchise, which sells like condoms to sailors leaving a troop ship. Same with the incredible TOCA Race Driver series morphing into the arcade GRID series.

I think the F1 franchise is headed in the same direction, sadly.

[toonarmy]

That's possible. Perhaps I have skewed view since I live in the US, where only fairly big F1 fans buy F1 games since most gamers do not even know what F1 is. I guess worldwide the demographic is different.

[Dave]

I've been reading some of the tweets of one of the people at Codies and he basically maintains that they left out the season mode because 90+% of gamers never play it. How does he know that? And, I'm calling bullshit on that. Who the f*** is playing this game if 90+% of people are not playing a core mode? He says that 99% of the people do not care about more than one practice. OK, I can buy that a certain percentage may not care, but I am positive it's more than one percent.

They get telemetry from anyone logged into XBL or PSN, so they know which modes aren't used. I'll admit that I'm bummed they pulled the mode but didn't start one with either F1 2010 or 2011 so it wouldn't have affected me in the two years I've played the franchise.

That said, I agree with you guys that this version is taking it into racing game purgatory. While the US isn't the biggest market, there was a significant drop in sales last year. Not sure if they saw the same thing in their larger markets.

[toonarmy]

I've been reading some of the tweets of one of the people at Codies and he basically maintains that they left out the season mode because 90+% of gamers never play it. How does he know that? And, I'm calling bullshit on that. Who the f*** is playing this game if 90+% of people are not playing a core mode? He says that 99% of the people do not care about more than one practice. OK, I can buy that a certain percentage may not care, but I am positive it's more than one percent.

They get telemetry from anyone logged into XBL or PSN, so they know which modes aren't used. I'll admit that I'm bummed they pulled the mode but didn't start one with either F1 2010 or 2011 so it wouldn't have affected me in the two years I've played the franchise.

That said, I agree with you guys that this version is taking it into racing game purgatory. While the US isn't the biggest market, there was a significant drop in sales last year. Not sure if they saw the same thing in their larger markets.

So, since I rarely log on to PSN when I am playing single-player games do they still get telemetry on what modes I am playing? I would assume a lot of folks do not log on when they know they won't be playing online modes. Just curious.

[Dave]

Good question, that's above my knowledge level

Both of my consoles are set to auto log on and I rarely play any online modes. I assume the sample size is big enough that they can draw conclusions from it.

Toon, is there no Vita version this year? You played last year's on it, right?