Let me start this post by saying that I have invested over 100 hours playing F1 2010 on my XBox 360. I love racing games and I love F1. I could barely contain myself when F1 2010 was released, and duly got my sweaty paws on a copy as soon as I could. I think that maybe I was so seduced by the jaw-dropping graphics and realistic physics that I never really noticed the issues during my first season with Virgin Racing. By the time I started my second season I was with a better team and always out front and therefore didn’t really notice the problems either, though I started to suspect that something wasn’t right in qualifying. At the end of my 4th season, I ended up accepting a contract at Ferrari by accident, couldn’t undo it, so decided to start again with Lotus. Now the problems became very obvious indeed.
The simple rule:
If you make a game ultra-realistic, or sell it as a simulation, then you had better make damn sure you make every aspect realistic. I use video games to calm down after a stressful day of coding. I want to escape the real world, and live in a fantasy world for just a little while, where I am a world-reknowned F1 triple champion. What I don’t want, is unrealistic game elements spoiling that fantasy.
So, here are all the problems with this game.
AI times in practice and qualifying are simulated…
…meaning that the AI cars on the track are completely disconnected to the lap times they are given. Anyone who has played the game for any length of time will have spotted this. When I’m qualifying, I seem to be flying past every other car on the track like they’re barely moving, yet despite this, they get quicker lap times than I do. This is not acceptable.
Codemasters have admitted this. They say that because they allow you to jump to a sector, or fast-forward qualifying time (whilst sat in the garage), there is a problem when switching between live simulation and time simulation. Because of this, Codemasters decided to simply fake (or estimate) all the AI car times in practice and qualifying. In their official statement they make the following comment about accelerated time:
“With 30 times speedup, we cannot simulate car physics at 6000+mph without losing some fidelity.”
I’m a programmer by trade and I’m not buying this. Speeding up game time does not mean that the cars are travelling at 6000+ MPH, it simply means that the calculations have to be performed 30 times faster. Now if the CPUs in the XBox 360 or PS3 can’t handle this, don’t provide a 30x time accelerator. There’s already a 6x time accelerator, and I daresay both consoles could easily cope with that.
To me, this seems like the developers have invented a plausible-sounding excuse for the simple fact that the game is badly programmed. Codemasters certainly have access to great developers, and I really don’t believe that they couldn’t solve this problem – it’s much more likely that they simply ran out of time. In fact, most of these issues seem to smack of a developer struggling to meet a deadline.
So, the cars you see on the track are nothing more than space fillers to slow you down, and that’s not acceptable for a simulation and it’s not realistic.
Do the AI cars always pit during a dry race…?
I’m not at all convinced that they do, and I’m not the only one. In fact this is listed in Codemaster’s statement as something they are looking into. I haven’t been able to conclusively prove it due to the lack of data shown post race, but I’m fairly certain that during 2 races in my current season, Alonso has failed to pit and has therefore finished ahead of me. If this is the case, then it’s a simple bug to fix.
Rubberband AI
Arcade racing games often use “rubberband AI” for the cars you are racing, i.e. the computer controlled cars tailor their speed to your own. This works in an arcade game as it delivers a more entertaining experience, but it has no place in a simulation. I’m not sure whether this is happening during a race (although there are plenty of people who think it is), but I have noticed that during qualifying, you can blitz past another car like it’s standing still, then all of a sudden it speeds up and stays on your tail for the rest of the lap. Not realistic.
Pit Stop Fiascos
Why am I always kept waiting in the pits if there are any other cars in the pit lane at the same time? It’s ludicrous! Yesterday, I sat waiting for 12 seconds after my tyre change whilst the team lollipop guy let every other car out before me. I went from 6th to 18th and stayed there – race ruined. It doesn’t matter if they’re half a mile down the pit lane, he won’t let me out. This is not what happens in Formula 1. Even if the lane is clear, there’s always a pause of a second or more before he lets you go. These delays cost races for human players, but never affect AI players.
Car and Team-Mate Setup
Ever had your engineer tell you during a poor qualifying spell that you should look at your team mate’s setup and copy his? Ever worked out how you can do that? No, me neither. You can’t view your team mate’s setup and you can’t copy it. In fact, the whole car setup is completely pointless. I put my car on the most extreme dry setting for every race, regardless of the weather, because it seems to have little effect other than to slightly slow you down through corners, but that’s hardly an issue when you can drive so fast everywhere else. Which leads me neatly on to:
Why are weaker teams able to compete?
In real Formula 1, you won’t see Virgin or HRT anywhere near the front of the field, yet in the game you can jump into one of these cars, change the setup to dry via the engineer menu, and then romp past the Red Bulls, Ferraris and McLarens down the straights. I won a championship in a Virgin Racing car – how likely is that? Even if you stick a great driver in a crap car, it will still be slow.
How do I change research and development focus?
The game keeps telling me that only driver 1 in a team can change R&D Focus, but I’ve never been able to do this. Another feature that got left out due to time?
Where’s the podium???
So, you’ve slogged it out and got that hard-fought podium finish… only to discover the game has no podium. You go straight to the press conference (always after the other two drivers are already in there seated) to get asked the same three questions by the same short-haired female reporter.
Sensitive Team Bosses
I lost my ride with Red Bull for criticising the car after the penultimate race of the season, despite having said nothing but positives about the team all year, and despite winning the drivers championship for them. I would have thought contract renewal would be automatic in such a situation, and not jeopardised due to one comment about the car. What’s the point in allowing you to make a negative comment if it’s just going to wreck your game? In real life, drivers highlight faults with their cars all the time, and they don’t lose their contracts over it.
Contracts, Drivers and Numbers
When you start the game you get to chose HRT, Lotus or Virgin, and you replace driver 2 at each of these teams when you join. That driver disappears for the season, fair enough. What’s odd is that he won’t appear again unless you leave, at which point he returns to his original position. OK fine, the game can function without Timo Glock, but when the same thing happens when you move to Red Bull, it’s just weird. I moved to Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel disappeared. I went to Ferrari and Massa left the game. In fact, these drivers never switch teams, and that’s just crap.
If you do manage to put up with the game’s faults long enough to win a championship, you’d be justified in expecting your car to sport the number 1 the following season, but no, that doesn’t happen either.
And why exactly did Ferrari offer me a contract as number 2 driver when I had just won 3 championships on the trot? That’s not realistic either.
Yippee! It’s raining!
I love it when race day features heavy rain. Just set the car up for very dry conditions, take care to avoid the kerbs, and you will be significantly faster than everybody else. Just like real F1… not.
Where is the data?
My engineer occasionally tells me that I just did the fastest lap. Great. I’d actually like to be able to see that data after the race, but I can’t. Where’s the full breakdown, the lap-by-lap performance data? This stuff is important to F1, yet it’s completely missing from the game – presumably because it would clearly show that all the timings are in fact fake.
Season Calendar
There is no season calendar. That’s pretty annoying. Such a simple thing to add, but no, I’m expected to remember in which order the races happen.
Stupid Penalties
Why exactly do I get given time penalites when an AI car crashes into me? The whole penalties and flags system is rubbish. There’s no safety car.
Slow Race Starts
No matter what I do, everyone else seems to be able to go around the first corner quicker than I can. Is it because my tyres are cold? It’s not like I’m given the warm-up lap to warm them up, assuming of course that the tyre simulation actually works and isn’t faked like the rest of it.
Dodgy Barriers
Particularly prevalent at the Singapore circuit (and also at Monaco), this problem completely ruins all illusion of realism. There are points on the track were the barriers don’t meet flush, so there is a very slight lip that you can crash into. Drive a bit too close to the barrier and hit this lip and you will stop dead. The car doesn’t bounce off, or spin, it just stops on the spot and you’re stuck watching all the other cars fly past you. Did no-one test the circuits before the game was released?
Give me my money back!
There are more faults, but I’m fast approaching 2,000 words on this post, and I’m getting tired. The long and short of it is this:
- F1 2010 is an unfinished product, not ready for sale
- Codemasters promised a patch, and despite announcing it and other online sources saying it is available for XBox 360, I can find no trace of it and have never been prompted to download an update.
- F1 2010 is an arcade game not a simulation and should not be mis-sold.
- I feel I deserve a refund. I have been cheated. All the time I have spent in the game has effectively been worthless.
Rant over.
This is a new release to the XBox Live Arcade: a brilliantly executed comedy platform romp with slick 3D cartoon style graphics and amusing sound effects. Whereas the usual fare on Live Arcade is puzzle games, Cloning Clyde is a full blown and challenging platform game with a sensible learning curve and plenty to keep you interested and coming back for more, including split-screen or online multiplayer in co-op or versus modes. 
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