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F1 2015 |OT| Bernie says "Think before you buy.”

pants

Member
No career mode. No season challenge. No rival system. No online co-op. No champions mode. No classic content. No split screen. No functional safety car. No motorhome. No paddock. No TV interviews... The list goes on.

pgDAKIx.jpg
 

Lach

Member
After skipping on 13 and 14 (got 13 eventually on a sale), I've decided to get this at launch even with all the missing features.
 

Fox Mulder

Member
No career mode is absolutely unforgivable. The "Championship Season" mode allows you to pick any car at all and race it as a real F1 driver (you can't just create a driver.) This mode even comes with team instructions and expectations...but they absolutely 100% do not matter. Not even for achievements. I beat my first team expectation and got the only achievement relating to it, so now they're utterly pointless given that you can't be fired, can't be hired by better teams, and even if you were to get promoted to be the #1 driver for the team, it wouldn't matter as there's no R&D or long term plan.

You race the season, then it ends. Then you start a brand new one if you want.

Quite how Codemasters keeps screwing things up like this every...single...year...is beyond me. It isn't just the "new engine" either. Every version has SOME massive oversight. Previously, it's been the AI not needing to pit, or being able to lap faster on heavily worn tyres. Or it's been the lack of AI retirements. Or it's been the lack of a current-gen version.

Career mode has always been barebones, at least after 2010 with the interviews. You got on a new team by beating a rival you pick, and no other drivers made moves. The season repeated exactly the same each year. It added some immersion with using your name, but wasn't a deep mode or anything.

Sports games have similar year to year feature issues due to the strict yearly releases and short dev time. This is the first current gen game codemasters has put out on consoles and people seem to at least not hate the core fundamentals like framerate and handling and the AI looks better to me. I can live without some features for a year. F1 in forza or pcars isn't better.
 
Loving the title! From all I've heared thus far I might be glad to effectively pay "only" 25€ or the PS4 version.

P.S.

I should be a full Member on this orum fairly soon. Thanks OP ;)
 

danowat

Banned
Lack of content is really driving me away from getting this before the obligatory "codies discount" kicks in.

Looks nice though........any comparisons between the PS4 and XBO?
 

Azzawon

Member
Okay, going to elaborate on the small amount of time I had playing last night. (No assists, Expert AI)

Did one race at Melbourne in the Mercedes (started Championship Season), and I must say everything about the UI is a massive step up. Much better than having your last used car in the middle of the screen with a cheap looking menu underneath.

Once I got on track, the first thing I noticed (obviously) was the handling. It's fantastic and immediately better than any other Codies F1 game. It doesn't feel like you're driving a boat any more, thank god.

I'm using a Thrustmaster TX wheel on the XB1 and I will say however that the force feedback leaves something to be desired at full strength. Whether this is supposed to replicate the feeling of power steering in the F1 cars, I don't know - but it doesn't feel right.

I also noticed that it's very easy to lock the brakes going into corners and I'm finding myself braking quite early at the moment until I get used to it. On the other hand, throttle management with no TCS is surprisingly forgiving. I was quickly able to get to grips with putting the power down out of corners without trouble, but I will still need more track time to perfect acceleration out of slow corners.

The AI is more consistent in the races and much, much better at racing wheel to wheel. They are quite aggressive at times however, and tend to leave their cars in odd places going into corners (outside of T11 at Melbourne), resulting in me finding the wall pretty hard.

That leads me onto damage, which is the same old story as the other games. It's far too forgiving and it takes a serious whack to do any kind of damage.

As a whole however, the basic game is a huge improvement over previous iterations and will work as a massive stepping stone in future titles. The lack of content is a huge disappointment but I can say with confidence that what's actually there is good.

Edit: If anyone's interested, I've highlighted the race from my Twitch stream so you can view it here. (Only aid is the braking line, I'm still learning the stopping distances of the cars after plenty of pCARS and Forza :p)
 

MaxiLive

Member
Great OT VE3TRO.

I look forward to giving this a proper go this weekend. From everyone's impressions it seems like the game is missing features but the actual racing and car feel is really good.
 

Jezbollah

Member
Good OT, love the name. Is Mexico really on the 2014 season of tracks?

Yeah from what I'm reading and seeing about the game, not buying it seems the right call for me now. What with Project Cars filling the racing joneses.

I am guessing that the time they invested into making this new next gen engine means they needed to get money in asap rather than wait until september and release something with the proper game modes that Gamesradar highlighted.

I can only assume the F1 license is way more expensive than even I thought and that CM's business model means not much in the way of margin. Problem is for them that they're making it easy to pass on these F1 games...
 

Fox Mulder

Member
As a whole however, the basic game is a huge improvement over previous iterations and will work as a massive stepping stone in future titles. The lack of content is a huge disappointment but I can say with confidence that what's actually there is good.

Good to hear. If they had more features but bad handling and AI, people would complain too. Getting the core game is important for the first game on a new engine and generation of consoles.
 
Another thing, Williams F1 is missing the Martini logo and the red strips. What the hell... Legal issues with advertisement for booze?

I have two theories. The first and probably correct one is that alcohol branding would kill it's E rating. My second and more speculative theory is that since the liveries are the pre-season testing ones, they grabbed the version they have to use in Abu Dhabi, where the first tests happened.
 

Ryne

Member
I have two theories. The first and probably correct one is that alcohol branding would kill it's E rating. My second and more speculative theory is that since the liveries are the pre-season testing ones, they grabbed the version they have to use in Abu Dhabi, where the first tests happened.

Your first theory is correct, that's why the Martini livery wasn't in F1 2014.
 

Fox Mulder

Member
I have two theories. The first and probably correct one is that alcohol branding would kill it's E rating. My second and more speculative theory is that since the liveries are the pre-season testing ones, they grabbed the version they have to use in Abu Dhabi, where the first tests happened.

The Bahrain livery still has a red stripe, the Martini logo is just replaced with a similar looking one that saying "Racing" instead.
 

VE3TRO

Formerly Gizmowned
Fuck sake I start on Prime come in for Options and get Primes again. So either box and lose places, DQ or just restart the whole damn race. >_>

Rowan-Atkinson-watching-formula-1.gif
 
Career mode has always been barebones, at least after 2010 with the interviews. You got on a new team by beating a rival you pick, and no other drivers made moves. The season repeated exactly the same each year. It added some immersion with using your name, but wasn't a deep mode or anything.

Sports games have similar year to year feature issues due to the strict yearly releases and short dev time. This is the first current gen game codemasters has put out on consoles and people seem to at least not hate the core fundamentals like framerate and handling and the AI looks better to me. I can live without some features for a year. F1 in forza or pcars isn't better.

I wouldn't expect F1 in Forza or Project CARS to be better. They're not games entirely about F1, with an F1 licence, being released after the developer has been honing F1 gameplay for eight years.

Career mode has always been barebones, sure. But it's been there.

Just found out the reason I didn't see the safety car after a crash is because the safety car IS NOT IN THE GAME.

Jeez.
 

Azzawon

Member
This is the type of game that could really benefit from a demo. People need to get their hands on it to see if they'd enjoy or not because at a glance it really does just look like a barebones, lackluster game compared to previous titles.
 

mr_lakitu

Neo Member


Hamilton's hair doesn't work. And where's Rossberg, didn't he finish runner up to the World Championship and was part of the winning manufacturer's championship?

One team mate per team innit. Can't have merc hog the bloody game cover as well as the tarmac.

Great OT. I too was concerned by the lack of, well, EVERYTHING. But what choice do we have guys. Tell me, what choice :'(

I dream of a Formula All game. One that combines all the formulas. It shouldn't be hard they mostly share the same tracks, formula e being the one mostly different but even then not massively so. They could take 2 years to develop it then each year release £20 dlc that updates teams, sponsors etc.
 

mr_lakitu

Neo Member
You do realise Rosberg is on the right hand side of the game cover in his car, right? :p

Thats not what I meant and you know it :p First time I looked at the cover, It's like generic movie poster time. They should have gotten bbc graphic guys to throw in some idea.
 

Azzawon

Member
Thats not what I meant and you know it :p First time I looked at the cover, It's like generic movie poster time. They should have gotten bbc graphic guys to throw in some idea.

Hahaha yeah I know :p it's a very generic cover, but I do prefer it to previous games in all honesty - much better than a plain car and plain driver on the front, the older game covers lacked identity.
 

mr_lakitu

Neo Member
Hahaha yeah I know :p it's a very generic cover, but I do prefer it to previous games in all honesty - much better than a plain car and plain driver on the front, the older game covers lacked identity.

That's true. It could be and have been much worse. I watched a twitch stream as soon as I woke this morn and I'll get it, no doubt. It's F1, on new gen. But my god the commentator needs to stfu. Every 2 seconds he's screaming in your ear.

Haven't read/have missed impressions of voice commands. Hows that work and with what? PS4 cam, Kinnect, Headset w/mic?
 

VE3TRO

Formerly Gizmowned
Did the old games have problems with pit stops and tire changes? I've repeatedly asked to be put on Prime when I come in and 2 times in a row they put on Options.
 

Fox Mulder

Member
Did the old games have problems with pit stops and tire changes? I've repeatedly asked to be put on Prime when I come in and 2 times in a row they put on Options.

The games have usually required you to request any pit stop changes before you hit pit lane and they confirm if over the radio. Can't just wait until you're driving up to the box to pick tires.
 

VE3TRO

Formerly Gizmowned
The games have usually required you to request any pit stop changes before you hit pit lane and they confirm if over the radio. Can't just wait until you're driving up to the box to pick tires.

The game was glitching showing the wrong tire (Options) on the car while in Race Director it said they were Primes.
 

Bojanglez

The Amiga Brotherhood
Your first theory is correct, that's why the Martini livery wasn't in F1 2014.

If that theory id scorrect, how come FIFA has an E rating? A lot of teams have alcohol based sponsors in that.

Also alcoholic references themselves are not prohibited in the E classification (e.g. Sid Mier's Pirates http://www.esrb.org/ratings/search.jsp?titleOrPublisher=Sid+Meier's+Pirates!&searchType=title)

I imagine it's an overprotective legal department within Codemasters or the FIA that have set this rule.
 

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
It's really weird that you can't customize the Championship settings for practice, qualifying, and race mode, but only have these presets to chose from. The UI elements for custom settings are even right there in the UI! They are just greyed out. I am almost inclined to believe that this is a bug.

CJjthHVWcAAbZyc.jpg:large
 

Azzawon

Member
If that theory id scorrect, how come FIFA has an E rating? A lot of teams have alcohol based sponsors in that.

Dug this up from Codies' blog last year:
Where is the red stripe on the Williams Martini Racing car?

Well… this was quite the topic of conversation yesterday on Twitter between a lot of fans and those who work in the sport. So here’s the thing…we would have loved to have featured the full race livery and we worked very hard with all of our partners & sign off parties to come up with a solution. Unfortunately due to circumstances outside of our control we’ve had to use a modified livery for the game, just like Williams Martini Racing have to when competing in countries that prohibit the advertising of alcohol. We’re continuing to explore ways to address this in future releases.

Sauce: http://blog.codemasters.com/f1/08/f1-2014-and-beyond-your-questions-answered/

It's a bit of a non-answer I know, but I do think it has something to do with the age rating. Alcohol sponsors on cars of all things don't tend to go down very well. That's why last year's McLaren had its 'MP4-29' test livery in the game (Johnnie Walker) and Smirnoff/Kingfisher were missing from the Force India livery too.
 

Ason

Member
It's really weird that you can't customize the Championship settings for practice, qualifying, and race mode, but only have these presets to chose from. The UI elements for custom settings are even right there in the UI! They are just greyed out. I am almost inclined to believe that this is a bug.

CJjthHVWcAAbZyc.jpg:large

Yes, very strange indeed, however there is an option if you wanna race a season with your own settings, I quote myself from the other F1 thread.


Small tip. What you can do instead, kind of a hidden feature.

Go to Quick Race and create your own Season. There you can choose up to 19 tracks, what order they should appear.
Also, practice, qualifying and race length is unlocked and avalible to set how ever you like.

Frankly I don't know what is diffrent from creating your own season like this, or pick the default 2014 or 2015 season from the main menu?
 

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
Yes, very strange indeed, however there is an option if you wanna race a season with your own settings, I quote myself from the other F1 thread.

Curious decision to hide that feature in the "Quick Race" menu. You usually wouldn't expect anything else but setting up a single race there.
 

Ason

Member
Curious decision to hide that feature in the "Quick Race" menu. You usually wouldn't expect anything else but setting up a single race there.

Yepp, agree.

Also, If the option to "Add track" (X on Xbox One) isn't shown when you choose Quick Race, make sure to quit your excisting Quick Race-event, otherwise that option won't show.
 

kanuuna

Member
I wish there was a demo. 69,95€ for the digital copy on PS4 is tough, even if the Eurogamer review seemed fairly positive.

Also, nice work with the title.
 

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
I am enjoying the game quite a bit. The core driving feels great, the framerate is rock solid. That easily offsets the missing features for me.
 

Risgroo

Member
Already put 4 hours into the game, really enjoying it. Cars feel great with a wheel(except the Williams, which turns like a tanker), and the AI are MUCH faster and actually put up a fight. I was playing as Hamilton in Hungary, and both the McLarens mugged me out of the final corner. Feels bad.

There's not a lot of content here, but this feels like a really solid foundation to build on.
 
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