F1 2015 Reviews

  • I xDannyW II xDannyW I119,010
    27 Jul 2015 27 Jul 2015
    5 0 4
    I've never had an F1 game before and after going to Silverstone for the British GP, I felt compelled to break the duck and try the game.

    I'm no stranger to racing games, mainly the Forza series and back in my PS2 days the likes of Need for Speed.

    However after my new found love for Formula 1 I though I would splash out the cash on a brand new game and see what it's like.

    The first thing I notice is that this game doesn't like you to play on a regular controller. I haven't bought a game wheel yet, but if I play the game more and more I may feel obliged to spend even more money.

    After a few goes on time trial to get used to the game and some of the tracks I thought I would venture out on a Championship season.

    You are forced to pick a driver in this year's game, I knew that you could make your own driver in previous games, so I went with veteran Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen.

    The Championship season on the game is probably the most basic and shallow thing they could have imagined - or didn't imagine. You can choose three lengths of campaign, 25%, 50% or 100% race weekends. You can't mix up the days so you have a long qualifying session and short race, which I wanted to do due to a 100% race being very long. So I was stuck with a short practice, a single qualifying round (against a ghost) and a short race.

    The more you go into the season, the more you realise how the game is literally just back-to-back races. No stats, no ability to look back at previous results and the worst thing is once you have done all 19 races - that is it.

    So don't bother trying to get a Manor Marussia car into the points or Williams close to winning the Contructor's Championship - there's no point. You have no ability to build on your success, you simply start again with a new driver.

    You have the use of voice commands in this years game. Hold LB and speak to your engineer who you must say one of the commands to that show on the screen. If your playing at night and don't want to wake people up, it's pretty useless as it's impossible to use the D-Pad to select things at the bottom of the menu as it mysteriously closes down as you go to select your option.

    All this would be ok if you could ever hear you race engineer. I've messed with the settings and I can't get a good mix of audio levels. I have had to turn subtitles on and sometimes have to read them whilst racing as the voice of your engineer is so quiet. The only alternative to this is turn of the noise of you car - but who would want to do that?

    The races are filled with bugs; from cars turning into shadows, Mercedes constantly pitting both their cars at the same time, getting stuck in 2nd gear exiting the pit lane and so on. Don't get me started with the online bugs.

    The PlayStation version has been patched since and has a new interface in the race which shows tyre temperature but for some reason the Xbox version is still waiting for this upgrade.

    On the positive side, the game looks and feels beautiful. The 19 race tracks are spot on and the surrounding areas are enough to distract you from the race to admire how well of a job they did. When it rains, and I mean really rains, you get the great sense of what it must feel to be driving at the time as it obscures your view and you get clouded in the spray of the car in front.

    The game is fully licensed so all drivers faces are put into the game (despite them looking horrific), it's nice to see the adverts everywhere as it adds a really authentic feel to the races.

    On the whole, Codemasters seem to have taken more away from the game than what they gave it. I'm a little disappointed and I don't see people playing this game for very long unless they release new patches to update and upgrade the game, otherwise you will be buying a game that, unless you love it, will only be playing it for 2-4 weeks maximum.
    2.5
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    I xDannyW IThanks PuritanSoul. Just for the record I do enjoy playing the game, I just worry how long I will do for.
    Posted by I xDannyW I on 28 Jul 15 at 13:04
    AngelTiddlesCodemasters, EA and Milestone are all slipping, putting bug ridden games out after getting expectations up too high, and then not caring, so I've stopped caring about them, not buying their games brand new. Cancelled plans for buying this from Codies, MotoGP '15 and Sebastien Loeb Rally from Milestone, because frankly I'm fed up of the "Release it now and don't care later" mentality.

    Shame really, because I'm enjoying F1 2014, it is way better than 15 from these reviews.
    Posted by AngelTiddles on 04 Aug 15 at 14:32
    I xDannyW ICodemasters have now updated the game to show a damage/tyre temperature on the screen, you have to press cn_B to open it.

    This happened on Xbox waaaaay after it came out on PS4 and PC, but still some major glitches haven't been fixed at all.

    Pretty much had it with the game now, any buyers? laugh
    Posted by I xDannyW I on 28 Aug 15 at 13:13
  • Arctic Avenger2Arctic Avenger2221,399
    04 Aug 2015
    2 0 2
    I've been writing reviews for F1 Games for 2 games now here on TA. Since there are not any suggestions how to improve my reviews by those who commented negatively, I will stick to the writing style I've been using in the past.

    F1 2015 is the new F1 Sim Racing title by Codemasters. The release date was pushed forward at least one time but finally it was there. The expectations for me personally were very high: It is the first F1 game for the next gen consoles like XBox One and PS4 and additionally this is the first game I play on my XBox One. I knew it would be a challenge to get used to this game since the XBox One Controller feels much different than the XBox 360 Controller.
    When you first start the game you will be introduced by a game trailer (like it was in every F1 game before). This time the trailer looks more futuristic compared to the trailers of F1 2014 & 2013 since the cars are in dark colours and you will not see how the game actually looks like. At any rate the menue has been changed. In the previous games you had exactly the same gaming modes at exactly the same places. Here in F1 2015 you have new gaming modes such as Championship Season where you pick a certain driver and play the whole F1 season and Pro Season Mode where you are forced to play in Cockpit Mode and certain assists are turned off. Career mode does not exist anymore. This means you have new gaming modes and new buttons. Additionally you are able to change your game to F1 2014 which allows you to drive the "older" cars again- an interesting thing in my opinion as the handling model has been changed completely.
    When you go on track in Championship Season for example you will notice that there is probably the biggest difference concerning driving style compared to the previous game (F1 2014 in this case). The car is really unstable on the rear and you really have to take care with the throttle especially without assists. Additionally the games looks really fresh, it has bright colours it runs really liquid and it submits a really great atmosphere since the cars look absolutely awesome. Besides there are commentators before and after every Race (at least Championship Season) who will tell you details about the track and the past of the track. A camera will move over the track where you can see the drivers being interviewed by someone. Even the safety car stands in front of the grid at the start but it suddenly disappears as soon as you press "Start".
    Negative aspects:
    I have to say that I'm really disappointed about the huge bug list in this game. Again Codemasters seemed not to improve their bugs (every F1 game in the past had certain bugs) and they obviously did not test the game. The penalty system is crab, when you do a flashback it can occur that you need to let the driver behind you pass, it can occur that you are spawned on the start and finish line when you use a flashback in the pit lane because you did not manage to keep your car in the white lines, it can occur that your engine starts smoking but you do not lose any power...(the list can be carried forward)
    The online mode is horrible at the moment: You cannot drive normally with your friends. I will tell you a story: I played together with 2 friends and they said: Why are you so slowly? I said: I'm not slowly I just passed both of you guys. One of them said: I'm on P1 at the moment. The other one said: No, I'm on P1 at the moment. I said: WTF!? On my screen you are nowhere and I am on P1 at the moment.
    Well, this really unworthy for a next gen game in 2015. You are not even able to play online with your friends. I had no words for this.
    The Time Trial leaderboards are glitched again, you can leave the track and nothing will happen. There are lap times which are impossible (1 sector did not count or something).
    I really hope for patched to get released soon. Codemasters already announced them but it is uncertain when they will appear. At the moment I have to say that this game is completely buggy and especially online it is unplayable.
    If you did like my review please leave a comment below and a like. If you dislike it please tell me why.
    Cheerstoast
    3.0
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