Codemasters reveal first F1 2012 and F1 Online: The Game screenshots

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Codemasters have revealed images of their two forthcoming Formula 1 titles.

F1 2012 will be their third official Formula 1 racing title and is due for release this September.

As usual the game will be brought up-to-date with the latest season data including the new Circuit of the Americas track in Austin, pictured below.

The browser-based, free-to-play F1 Online: The Game which was announced last August is already in closed beta and is due to enter open beta soon.

Players will be able to run their own team, customise the design of their cars, develop their factories and monitor their progress in the races.

Pictures: Codemasters’ F1 2012 and F1 Online: The Game

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    Keith Collantine
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    64 comments on “Codemasters reveal first F1 2012 and F1 Online: The Game screenshots”

    1. It’s the first time the cars look good already from the first screenshots (referred to F1 2012) – a good sign!

      1. I wouldn’t say that they look good, but well that’s not Codemasters fault!

        1. I bet that one of the first modifications will be change to 2011 car models…

        2. @oel-f1 I think it just reaffirmed that the Williams has the worst nose.

          1. Nah. Still Ferrari IMO.

    2. I’m playing the Beta for F1 Online tonight – looking forward to it. Nice amount of customisation, for once.

      1. I hope this game will be as much fun as it promises!

    3. DK (@seijakessen)
      31st May 2012, 16:23

      Finally we will be able to do custom liveries and decals!!!!!

      I can only hope now that these can be shared on Xbox Live…

      We can do the Marlboro McLaren or John Player Special Lotus liveries in their full glory. :-)

      1. Isnt that only for f1 online though? and not the xbox’s F1 2012?

      2. after playing around with the livery customisation in the beta, i can say it is a touch limited. hopefully there will be more options in the final release

    4. Nice to see that codemasters already has the 2012 models done.

      1. That McLaren is already out of date ;)

        1. I think they take the cars images from Melbourne,and they stay like that, in F1 2011 no matter what track you play on, the McLaren has a silver diffuser, which is the one they rushed thru and didn’t have time to paint before the first race!

          1. I could have sworn the senior game designer of F1 2011 said they took the car models/data from the Spanish GP.

            1. PC version should destroy xbox or PS3 version, especially if it is DX11 enabled, i hope it is :D

            2. @athan Was F1 2011 not DX11?

            3. F1 2011 used DX11 I believe.

            4. @mike That’s what I thought too. I play on a W7 X64 box, 2.66GHz dual core i7, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR3 memory. Not sure if my card actually supports DX11 though!

            5. I don’t remember seeing an option to switch it to DX11, maybe they added it at a patch? F1 2012 must be DX 11 enabled. I have an i5 @ 4ghz, 16 gig ram, EVGA geforce gtx 560ti SC 1gb ram, fully DX 11. Play all game on 1900×1200.

            6. If I remember correctly, F1 2011 was DirectX 11-ready out of the box, and F1 2010 had support added with its first patch.

    5. I was really looking forward to playing the closed beta of F1 Online. But I found i just couldn’t get on with it.. I like the idea of running the team etc.. but the top down racing of the car using the left/right mouse buttons for accelerate/brake and side to side on the mouse for steering really annoyed me..
      I cannot wait for F1 2012 though, still play 2011 a couple times a week and still loving it.

      1. The steering you get used too and it becomes very very smooth. I only used left mouse button for throttle, i use keyboard to brake, feels better. Very good game once you get used to it. Only down side are people just crashing into you all the time. Hopefully this will be resolved in the future.

    6. Now all we need is for F1 2012 to be just as good graphically on PS3 as on Xbox and PC. The PS3 version of F1 2011 looked terrible, almost unplayable… PS2-like I’d say!

      1. I would hope graphics would be superior on the PC then Xbox or PS3.

        1. Well I doubt it because I imagine the overall market is bigger for PS3 and Xbox as both consoles can handle the game whereas some PC’s now just don’t have enough power, so it is probably better to focus on the bigger market as they will do, I think with PC games now, you can’t set the standards too high.

          1. What? So you’re telling me 6 year old tech can handle the game better then current PC hardware? Many times they make the PC game with much higher graphics power and dumb down the game for console.

            Here’s a comparison between F1 2010 PC vs consoles:
            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XuYsbtMAQ8

            1. PC version should destroy xbox or PS3 version, especially if it is DX11 enabled, i hope it is :D PS3 and xbox are still on DX9 aren’t they?

          2. You’ve gotta be joking.

            1. Joking about what?

          3. Ehm, @formula-1, the reason many PC games offer sub par graphics nowadays is that developers are focusing on making them fit for the outdated graphics chips in those consoles,. PC’s are able to use far better settings, if programmer would bother developping them for PCs modern infrastructure.

          4. Not true at all, with the right graphics card and as other have said, the PC version will be far superior. MS and Sony systems are set in stone there is a very limited area to work in as for PC it is much greater thus giving a much more quality looking game. What you’re saying isn’t right and is very much the opposite.

    7. Gave the tutorial bit on the beta a go last night and didn’t like it much, I’ll give it a proper go tonight though and see how it feels. As for F1 2012, I’ll buy it and I’ll probably enjoy it a lot too.

    8. Might have to buy this to have a blast round COTA!

    9. Some more customization options would be a nice touch for F1 2012 as well… I’d like to have my own helmet design.

    10. SennaNmbr1 (@)
      31st May 2012, 17:48

      I hope it doesn’t have the stuttering problem.

    11. Another dumbed down arcade game from Codemasters.

    12. Those noses don’t look any prettier as rendered polygons, do they?

    13. The closed beta is getting more feedback about problemas with software than feedback about the game itself. They’ve managed to solve it now, at least I haven’t had the same problem. The game is nice, it has a good amount of costumisation, although the team logo could be even more costumisable. I just don’t like that we have to steer with the mouse. It makes it feel a bit strange. I just prefer steering with the arrows, but otherwise it’s a good and entertaining game.

    14. Third screenshot of F1 2012, helmet looks to be Maldonado but the T-bar is yellow instead of red as it should be.

      1. SennaNmbr1 (@)
        31st May 2012, 18:58

        Pre-order cancelled.

        1. COTD

    15. Dread to think what people will think off it after they drive it!…:-)

    16. jimscreechy (@)
      31st May 2012, 21:05

      They are going to have to change the mock of that Mclaren nose for starters

    17. I know the Wii doesn’t usually count but pretty sure this is the 4th consecutive game including F1 2009.

      Still playing 2011 whenever the other half lets me rearrange our living room to put the wheel in front of the TV!

      1. 2009 I wouldn’t really count in the same category though – 2009 was rather blatantly a dumbed down arcade game. 2010-2011 still isn’t sim-level, but it’s a lot better than 2009 in that regard.

    18. Well the F1 Online game looks alright so far. The cars look kinda cool in a fun sort of way. Looking forward to giving it a go. I already play iGP and that’s really good so this will surely be some stiff competition.

    19. Looks brilliant, although I can’t help but think that this game’s release date is far too late. Usually sports games come out at the beginning of the season not towards the end. Won’t stop me from getting my hands on it of course!

    20. I’m in the F1 Online and its an awful mess of a ‘game’ that shouldn’t ever be played by humans

    21. I for one will not be buying this game. Codemasters do not deserve my money as they release games then just move on to another, built off the exact same engine year after year. The physics, handling and general feel of the last two F1 titles were rubbish. Yes I did buy them, but this is one game that won’t be getting my money.

      1. Well, they are expected to bring out a new game every year. So you can forgive them for getting on with the next one quite early. Secondly, they don’t forget about the last one, as shown by the patches they brought out that fixed most of the bugs. Thirdly, The 2011 was fantastic, the physics were brilliant. I suppose it depends on your set up, but with a wheel and a pc the game was simply amazing.

        1. Not played Rfactor2 or iRacing then ;o)

      2. I agree, the physics are really bad…. 2010 & 2011, I won’t make the mistake a third time and buy this one.
        As it happens I dusted off 2011 the other day and it was worse than I remembered it, biggest waste of £30 ever.

    22. Hmmm… The blue cars in the Online game are pretty similar to the old ChampCar Panoz DP01. Always did think that was one of the sexier looking cars of the last 20 or so years.

    23. I’m sorry, but this is exactly the opposite of what I wanted Codemasters.

      You know what the best GP manager game is? It’s GPM2, released in 1996.
      Here’s the fan run site. http://www.gpm2world.com/

      I’m sorry, but driving with the mouse/keyboard? In a manager game? This is just another failure to add to the F1 manager heap. I want the Football manager of the F1 world. There’s a market, as you can see by the interest in this game (and many other failed half attempts).

      Why can’t they just do it right, this, what Codemasters have made, is no more than a gimmick. This was the best chance at a proper F1 manager game, and Codemasters have flushed it straight down the toilet.

      1. Hopefully they pull an “F1 2009” with this game :P

      2. Not once did codemasters say it was F1 manager, never, why do people keep moaning that they have done what they said. It was always billed as a free to play browser game with racing and management. The game is great fun too.

    24. September ?? 2012,. Anybody have a guess what date F1 2012 will be available?

      1. 2010 & 2011 launched around September 20th so I’d say it’s likely that the same will be for 2012

    25. If I buy F1 2012, I can race the 2012 season cars at all twenty circuits on the 2012 calendar.

      But if I wait a year for F1 2013, I can race better-looking cars at all of the circuits plus New York and possibly Hermanos Rodriguez, Mar del Plata and Paul Ricard (at the expense of Valencia and Spa).

      And if I wait two years for F1 2014, I can race at all the 2013 circuits with updated rules, and the calendar expands to Russia and will see the return of Spa.

      So … why should I spend $90 on a game now when I can wait a year or two and spend $90 on a game that, on paper, is already much better to my mind? What does F1 2012 that makes it an absolutely necessary addition to my collection?

      1. You get to play it from this september…
        Of course the progress is bigger from the 2011 game, to the 2013 or 2014 game, than the progress is from 2011 to 2012, but personally I think it’s a bit boring to play a game which isn’t the most ‘up-to-date’ on the market.

        1. @rasmusjt – I’m afraid that’s not a compelling enough reason. Sure, I can play the game in September, but if I wait a year, I can play a game that I want to play more than F1 2012 – because I love the look of the New York circuit, Hermanos Rodriguez is one of my favourites from the 1980s, and Mar del Plata looks interesting enough to have me intrigued.

          This is the problem that all yearly sports releases are faced with: there is very little in the way of difference between each game. It is best shown in the changes between F1 2010 and F1 2011, when compared between the changes between F1 2011 and F1 2012. 2011 saw the introduction of Pirelli tyres and DRS, which altered the core gameplay quite substantially. But 2012 hasn’t really had any changes of that magnitude, so at its heart, it’s really just the same game with an updated driver roster, new car designs and an extra circuit (with the removal of Istanbul). The ability to drive as Kimi Raikkonen at the Circuit of the Americas doesn’t do it for me – I’d much rather wait a year for prettier cars and a whole host of new circuits.

    26. William Brierty
      1st June 2012, 12:17

      I have heard well-sourced rumors that F1 2012 includes a completely reconfigured GP weekend in both Career and GP modes. Apparently F1 2012 will feature a programme of runs for each practice session, interviews with the media before and after each session, installation laps in practice, out laps to the grid, an interactive grid (similar to the garage), parade laps, pick-up laps after the race and cinematic podium celebrations. God I hope they are true!!

      1. Not one good reason to buy it then.

    27. well the F1 Online game,is a bad joke.The steering wheel is a mouse!Who thought at this “brilliant”ideea???The game is tottaly ruined,you cant play the real circuits,just some invented ones in the manager part,you cant paint the cars on there liverys,you cant corner in the fast corners easily and the image is wekk intended but badly executed as its the whole game!

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