F1 2012 F1 2012 Review Discussion

Tom · Sep 15, 2012

The RaceDepartment review of F1 2012 The Game is online. Find it here:
http://www.racedepartment.com/2012/09/f1-2012-the-game-review/

(mod-edit: updated with link)

Graham Laing · Sep 17, 2012

There are 5 other reviews around at this moment in time. Unsurprisingly they are all based on console play. Not a bad thing in itself, but missing out an important factor regarding PC play.

So kudos to you Tom for doing it on a PC, and picking up on something that it pretty important and therefore missed in those other reviews. No spoiler here, but take note of the final bullet points.

Alberto Casado · Sep 17, 2012

Gnu UK said:
There are 5 other reviews around at this moment in time. Unsurprisingly they are all based on console play. Not a bad thing in itself, but missing out an important factor regarding PC play.

I'm finding other reviews deeply useless.

IGN gives a 9/10. To me, this mark is what would be deserved by the second coming of GP4, nor less. However you read on and see:

The overall difficulty could be placed somewhere between the brutal F1 2011 and the challenging F1 2010 – not easy then.

Credibility plunging though the floor. Please put somebody that plays these kind of games to make the reviews?

So far kudos to RD reviewer for spotting the savegame problem (AGAIN...) And to the one from eurogamer that I guess didn't get his cheque from CM in time and thus gave it a 7/10

But for all the pleasure it provides, it's never quite enough to shift F1 2012 away from the sense that this is another minor update, and one that's guilty of making some of the main mistakes of its predecessors while even exaggerating others. The penalty system's been improved for F1 2012 - overtake a driver by cutting a corner and, in theory, you'll be given time to grant the position back, while there's now even the optional inclusion of the pit-line exit rule - but it's as erratic as ever in implementation, while a couple of graphical glitches marred a season's worth of play. Bizarrely - and most painfully for someone who spends much of his life wanting to be Kimi Raikkonen - the ability to take an existing driver through an entire season has now been excised completely.
It's another small step forward for the series, but that's not quite enough to dispel the suspicion that Codemasters' F1 team doesn't have the resources to create iterations compelling or different enough to justify the annual churn. F1 2012 is a good game, but it's some way off from being the classic it could be.

And finally, a word of warning, the metascore of Diablo 3 is 88/100, 11 positive reviews, 4 mild, 1 negative. The users score is 3.8 , ladies and gentlemen, credibility made it to the deepest dungeon...

Kartik Sri Harsha · Sep 17, 2012

@Tom Endres Is the Save game Problem still exist ?
Also can you give any info about Career Mode
Do we have any Refined R&D Objectives ??
Most importantly what about wet weather Driving for both AI and US?

Peter · Sep 17, 2012

Very good review.
No Grand prix mode = No buy.
Didn't do a career in 2010/2011 and I won't do it now.

Jamie Francklin · Sep 17, 2012

Tom Endres said:
It's online since 3pm (CET) sharp, to be found here and I added tons of screens and videos (some of which were used for the review) here.

Thanks Tom, great review- looks like the AI are muuuch faster. Can't wait for the release now.

Alberto Casado · Sep 17, 2012

Jamie Francklin said:
Thanks Tom, great review- looks like the AI are muuuch faster. Can't wait for the release now.

The ones in front, yeah. But the train that forms after the player car is... no news.

Timberr · Sep 17, 2012

Still don't get who at Codemasters decided to remove the Full Season. I mean, when making a Formula 1 licensed game, the first thing you implement would be the option to race the full season as a real driver, like in real life

BlazingRiCO · Sep 17, 2012

Full season is still available, but only in career, I thought ? Btw is it still possible to choose the length of races ?

Tom · Sep 17, 2012

Kartik Sri Harsha said:
@Tom Endres Is the Save game Problem still exist ?
Also can you give any info about Career Mode
Do we have any Refined R&D Objectives ??
Most importantly what about wet weather Driving for both AI and US?

Yes, the save game issue is still active. @Gnu UK (it was Gnu I believe) also posted details about it and how / when he encountered it while playing the demo. R&D is pretty much the same, do stuff etc. - wet weather was looking ok'ish but driving with default setups was pretty weird so I didn't upload a video of the Expert difficulty to spare you the pain.

@Alberto Casado Indeed but with custom setups that'll be less of a problem.

BlazingRiCO said:
Full season is still available, but only in career, I thought ? Btw is it still possible to choose the length of races ?

Correct. And yes, you can of course still change the race length. You can see the menu here (22-23 seconds into the video).

Zoltan Hadadi · Sep 17, 2012

@Tom Endres thank you for this high quality review of F1 2012! After the disappointment of the demo this review gives back my excitement of the game!

Jamie Francklin · Sep 17, 2012

Alberto Casado said:
The ones in front, yeah. But the train that forms after the player car is... no news.

I see your point.

iammx · Sep 17, 2012

After playing 2011 a lot on PC I never encountered the save corruption but am more than a bit weary that it's still there. Is there a guaranteed work around for this? Too late to get a refund now. :\

Tom · Sep 17, 2012

iammx said:
After playing 2011 a lot on PC I never encountered the save corruption but am more than a bit weary that it's still there. Is there a guaranteed work around for this? Too late to get a refund now. :\

Having a backup is crucial, so make sure to have it available in case anything happens. It's stored online through Steam but it's possibly better to have it on your own HDD.

X:\Steam\userdata\<user ID>\218390\remote

That's where my version saved it's data. Replace 218390 with whatever the application ID of the release version is. You can find said ID by right-clicking on the desktop shortcut.

steam://rungameid/218390

The highlighted part is what you're looking for.

Diego Lopez · Sep 17, 2012

I see Tom beat me to the punch review....too bad I played it before he did

for those wanting to "back up" their saves

http://www.gamesave-manager.com/

very helpful and easy for those worring about game savings...especially the ones with "corrupt" files.

Graham Laing · Sep 17, 2012

Diego Lopez said:
I see Tom beat me to the punch review....too bad I played it before he did

for those wanting to "back up" their saves

http://www.gamesave-manager.com/

very helpful and easy for those worring about game savings...especially the ones with "corrupt" files.

Yeah, it great software, I use it all the time, and it includes Steam Spreader so you can move your most used games to SSD or to your fastest drive, without any re-installing. It can move any game or folder, not just Steam games. It uses symbolic links to re-direct the OS to the new location.

Please note F1 2012 is not supported yet (just '10 & '11), though no doubt it will be updated fairly quickly

Alberto Casado · Sep 17, 2012

http://community.codemasters.com/t5...nitial-Impressions-Full-Game/m-p/64118#U64118

Somebody grabbed a leaked version for x360

Tyre wear doesn't scale for shorter than 100% races. An option tyre will do 18 laps at Abu Dhabi, irregardless of race length. 50% races tend to only need one stop, dut to the tyre lasting so long compared to the race length. Tyres did scale for different race lengths in F1 2011 (option only lasted for 9 laps at Abu Dhabi in 2011), requiring a similar number of pit stops whatever race distance was selected.

Fuel strategy doesn't seem to work. Whatever strategy I chose, on whatever race distance, I was always +3 laps once the lights went out (same as F1 2011). Although fuel is used quicker when in fast engine mode.

LED flag boards still don't function for yellow flag incidents. I haven't seen a safety car yet, but I will assume that it will be like F1 2011 where they only work when the safety car is out.

There's quite a big differnce between AI performance in the different difficulty modes. Pole times from Abu Dhabi - Legend 1:42.6, Pro 1:45.8, Int 1:50.3. If you do a 1:47.x as your best lap, you're going to fall between professional and intermediate difficulty.

Marbles can be picked up in the same places in Abu Dhabi as the demo - including the straight with the support pits and start grid. You will pick up marbles if you drive to the right there, where the real life racing line is.

There seems to be some aliasing issues with the Xbox 360 version - lots of jagged lines.

AI are still pretty easy to outbreak, especially if you chose large brakes and high pressure.

Tom · Sep 17, 2012

Diego Lopez said:
I see Tom beat me to the punch review....too bad I played it before he did

Not even my friend from Britain knew what a punch review is.

Also, how did you get to play it even earlier?

Alberto Casado said:
Tyre wear doesn't scale for shorter than 100% races. An option tyre will do 18 laps at Abu Dhabi, irregardless of race length. 50% races tend to only need one stop, dut to the tyre lasting so long compared to the race length. Tyres did scale for different race lengths in F1 2011 (option only lasted for 9 laps at Abu Dhabi in 2011), requiring a similar number of pit stops whatever race distance was selected.

Fuel strategy doesn't seem to work. Whatever strategy I chose, on whatever race distance, I was always +3 laps once the lights went out (same as F1 2011). Although fuel is used quicker when in fast engine mode.

LED flag boards still don't function for yellow flag incidents. I haven't seen a safety car yet, but I will assume that it will be like F1 2011 where they only work when the safety car is out.

There's quite a big differnce between AI performance in the different difficulty modes. Pole times from Abu Dhabi - Legend 1:42.6, Pro 1:45.8, Int 1:50.3. If you do a 1:47.x as your best lap, you're going to fall between professional and intermediate difficulty.

Marbles can be picked up in the same places in Abu Dhabi as the demo - including the straight with the support pits and start grid. You will pick up marbles if you drive to the right there, where the real life racing line is.

There seems to be some aliasing issues with the Xbox 360 version - lots of jagged lines.

AI are still pretty easy to outbreak, especially if you chose large brakes and high pressure.

1) They last long, that's right. The options weren't even fully light red after 5 laps in in a 25% race at Spa (11 laps).

2) No, definitely not. I just did a quick race in Spa and I started at "Optimal" and got up to +1 at the most. Maybe a bug that's been fixed?

3) They do, I've seen (read: caused) some yellow flags and the LEDs near the odometer work fine in the version I'm playing.

4) Gaps are pretty large, that's right. However, it's been mentioned the build notes that the AI isn't final yet in the version I'm playing.

5) I did not pick up marbles when I followed the usual line, so this must either be a bug or it's been fixed.

6) No 360 version here, sorry.

7) Depends on the corner but in general it is, indeed.

About the tyre mystery, received feedback from Steve Hood via Twitter.

Conclusion: 100% fans are at an advantage when it comes to this change. Since I only tested 3, 5, 25% and 100% races it didn't cause too much trouble to me. The first 3 didn't suffer from it and the latter had a more realistic feel to it. 50% distance might suffer from that change, tho.

iammx · Sep 17, 2012

Wait a second... no tyre wear scaling? I can't be reading that right? F1 games just took a step back in time about 15 years with that ridiculous decision. Why even have pit stops in the game at this point? My calendar says Sep 17th not April 1st.

troy_e · Sep 17, 2012

Alberto Casado said:
The ones in front, yeah. But the train that forms after the player car is... no news.

Yeah, that's really annoying. Seems like its caused by the AI behind you not being aggressive enough to make a move stick. If a RB in front of you can build a gap of 5+ seconds over you in a few laps, I don't see why the other one should get stuck behind. Maybe this could be fixed via an AI mod.