Like I don't want to rate it 8/10, it deserves higher, but the number of issues I have with this game is insane. So I'll vent about the negatives first and then the positives.
The graphics, look unimpressive for something made in 2018, even on Ultra settings, they don't look appealing at all. If logic works, you would expect the graphics to look good on Ultra at the expense of FPS, butLike I don't want to rate it 8/10, it deserves higher, but the number of issues I have with this game is insane. So I'll vent about the negatives first and then the positives.
The graphics, look unimpressive for something made in 2018, even on Ultra settings, they don't look appealing at all. If logic works, you would expect the graphics to look good on Ultra at the expense of FPS, but no, the graphics look almost exactly the same as High but the game drops about 50% of the frames.
My rig runs the game just fine at Ultra settings, I'd be getting around 55-60 FPS in-game, but as soon as I alt-tabbed out of the game to do something else, switch back in, and boom, FPS DROP, the game will then proceed to run at constant 15 FPS for the next 5 minutes, before it will come to its senses, and go back to 55-60 FPS. Another place where the game acts weird for no reason at all is when you use a flashback, you use a flashback, then the game just gets stuck for 2 sec, and you miss your braking point, and off into the wall you go. The game also has this issue during flashbacks, during replays, in the garage .etc, and it’s a fairly common issue.
The AI feels a bit unfair to me, and in heavy rain, it still feels like they are driving on rails, they are hardly hindered by the weather. The damage model of AI is also questionable, sometimes they will hit you in the back at 300KPH, and not even their front wing is going to be damaged. Also if the AI feels like you are making the sin of defending to their overtaking attempts, they will not go for a divebomb or try to find a gap, they are seriously going to just straight-up rear-end you and spin you out so that you end up in the tyre wall, and they don’t even get a single scratch on their front wing.
Now that the negatives are out of the way, let’s talk about the positives.
This game is one of the best F1 games out there, it’s a complete package, the career mode is great, the tracks are highly detailed (although some are unrealistic), the cars sound great, you great audible feedback if you go on a kerb. If you go into a tunnel, you’ll start to have radio connectivity issues, and then you will not be able to hear your engineer, which is a nice touch.
The R&D is such a great feature, it’s so satisfying to see your team, which is at the back of the field when the 1st season begins, to be fighting for championships at the end of 3rd season, because of you, they’ve got such a fast car. Not only the R&D is required for performance, but also for durability because if your gearbox has too much wear on it, chances are that it will fail, and each failure will be unique, you could end up missing a gear, or even worse, it could fail completely and you’ll have to retire.
The 25% per cent race, is the way to go if you don’t want to spend hours, a typical race then is just 23-25 minutes long, and you still have a good experience. You’ll never get bored with this game if you enjoy this genre, because there is so much happening during a race, that you will be completely immersed, you have to worry about your tyres, you have to worry about the fuel, you have your engineer reminding you of the gaps to the cars ahead and behind, and when to pit. You make a mistake into a turn, then the car behind is in a position to overtake you, you swerve right and left, in an attempt to keep the car behind, they get ahead of you, you then brake late into a corner and retake that position, honestly it is just a very immersive experience.
Driving aspect in this game is tailored towards both, casuals and professionals. I’ve tried both Keyboard and a Controller, and both of them are well optimized. The difficulty system of this game is just fantastic, you have so much customizability to set the difficulty to what your pace is. The assists can also be adjusted so that you don’t have to worry about spinning out into the gravel, and just have a fun time playing the game. As it is a simcade, the simulator part of this game is well designed also, as this game can be ruthless if you make a simple mistake like accelerating too early out of the corner with all assists turned off and then it will reward you by spinning your car 360 degree, and that’s how it should be.
I’ve now had over 100 hours in this game, and I still play it to this day, something about this game just makes me come back to it often, and start the career mode again and again and again and again...
Honestly, even with all its flaws, this game is still awesome, but I’d recommend you to get F1 2020 or wait for F1 2021 instead because those are far more polished and refined than this game.
TL;DR: The game is good, has some optimization issues, slightly unfair AI, underwhelming graphics, great career mode, great gameplay, easy to control/hard to master, 8/10 game.… Expand
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