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I haven’t seen Sky’s season review, and have no desire to. Sky have had two years now to improve their coverage, and they’re still not up to the BBC’s standard. BBC’s 2011 coverage was brilliant: Brundle and Coulthard commentating, Jake Humphrey as anchor and EJ/DC for analysis. Despite losing Brundle to Sky and Jake to BT, and despite Sky’s no doubt enormous budget, their coverage still lacks depth and detail.
I think that the difference is most obvious during the post-race coverage. The BBC shows overtakes from multiple camera angles, discusses important events in detail and squeezes in as many interviews with drivers and team principles as they’re willing to do; Sky’s discussion is altogether less detailed and they’d rather show a montage of clips rather than discussing key events and attempting to draw a conclusion. From the comments above, it seems as if Sky have simply applied the same formula of superficial analysis, shiny graphics and music-filled montages to their review show.
Go to the post by MrMorpheus- pretty much sums up my views, only slightly more moderately…
You don’t need to have actually driven an F1 car to know that the handling in the demo is ridiculously unrealistic.
As I explained in a previous post, I play with TC turned off, and you can floor the accelerator in the middle of the corner in 2nd gear and you’ll be fine. You can’t do that in a road car, let alone an F1 car! It feels like you’re driving on rails, which is what the previous game was like with TC turned ON!
There’s a complete lack of realism in the handling, which would be funny if they weren’t asking £40 for it.
@Nicholas-Sunderland
If you have the full game could you tell us what the handling is like compared to the demo? Have they dialled down the steering sensitivity? How do cars handle with TC turned off? Do cars under/oversteer compared to the demo?
So I’ve been doing some more research…apparently FP2 and FP3 simply do not feature in the game. Whilst very few people actually play through the entirety of FP1, 2 and 3, this means that if FP1 is wet, then you don’t get any dry running before qualifying. F1 2012 is supposed to be the OFFICIAL GAME OF F1, and yet Codemasters think they can alter the structure of race weekends.
With regard to lack of tyre wear scaling, Steve from Codemasters wrote a patronising response: http://community.codemasters.com/t5/F1-2012-General-Discussion/Allow-me-to-explain/m-p/69630#U69630.
The reasons he gives are, in my opinion, ridiculous. This really is a deal-breaker for me, and right now I’m seriously doubting whether I’ll buy this game.
Also, apparently dry lines no longer appear as the track begins to dry. Source: http://community.codemasters.com/t5/F1-2012-General-Discussion/Reasoning-for-no-tyre-scaling/td-p/64958/page/6, find the purple text.
As far as I can tell, Codemasters have fixed a lot of bugs with the old game. Supposedly they’ve also improved the AI, but I’ve seen plenty of posts on the CM forum that disagree with this. They’ve spent time improving the sound and graphics, although with the latter I’m really struggling to notice the difference.
And of course, they’ve added this “young drivers” thing, which as far as I’m concerned is a total waste of time. Codemasters have talked about how much time they’ve spent creating it, yet the whole point of it is that it will only be played once. Not to mention the fact that most people won’t bother with it at all.
But they’ve also removed a lot of features: tyre wear scaling, FP2 & FP3 and the “live the life” side to career mode. With the release of the previous game, I remember Codemasters getting extremely excited with the “live the life” element- talking about although it isn’t perfect yet, it will improve with the next game. Obviously they couldn’t be bothered, and decided to remove it all together.
And another thing which I’ve only just discovered- Grand Prix mode is no more. So that means you can chose from either “quick race”, where you chose your car and are put in a random grid slot at the start of the race, or Career mode. And if you play Career mode, you of course have to play all the races in order. So if you just want to do a GP weekend at Singapore, tough, because you can’t.
It seems to me that Codemasters have spent so much time fixing the AI from the last 2 games and implementing the ridiculous “young driver test” game mode that they didn’t have time to work on anything else.
As far as I’m concerned, F1 2012 is a no-goer for me. Unless Codemasters make significant u-turns on the frankly ridiculous decisions they’ve made throughout the development of this game, I won’t be buying. The arrogance of Steve Hood, the game’s chief designer, is making me want to buy it even less.
I’m not impressed so far.
I’ve played the demo for several hours now (with all assists turned off), and I hate the handling. The steering sensitivity is ridiculous. At first I thought it was just me being unused to a new game, and sure enough after a few laps I managed to get the hang of it. I was no longer weaving down the straights and struggling to keep to the racing line through corners. But then a couple of races later, whilst trying to overtake another car down a straight, I realised just how sensitive the steering really is. Trying to drive close alongside another car I realised that actually, what I previously thought was a straight line, is actually not.
There’s no reason for the steering to be this sensitive. I’ve played a lot of racing games, including the 2 previous F1 titles, and I’ve never come across steering like this before. Even after a couple of hours practice, I haven’t got the hang of it.
And then there’s the problem with the back end, or lack of it. Like I said, I play with all the assists turned off and a manual gearbox. I played F1 2011 like this right from its release, and even after a year I was still making the odd mistake a losing the back end, as you’d expect.
But with the new game, the car feels like its on rails. You can floor the accelerator in the middle of a corner in 2nd gear, and you’ll be fine. Not even a hint of the back end stepping out. That’s utterly ridiculous. I read a review somewhere and they talked about how the “twitchy” feeling from F1 2011 is now gone. Well I’m sorry, but that’s realistic.
With F1 2012, Codemasters appear to have altered the handling to make playing the game easier. Even with traction control turned off, you either have to drop down to 1st or put a back wheel on the curb to get the rear end to step out. In F1 2011 you could lose the rear in 6th gear if you weren’t careful, because that’s what F1 cars are really like.
So what about other areas of the game? The graphics don’t seem to have improved since the last game, or at least not noticeably. The new menu system is…new; not really an improvement on the previous game, just different. The sound is better, for which I give Codemasters credit for.
But then, whilst on the Codemasters forum I cam across a post that was talking about how tyre wear does not scale for shorter races in the new game. If this is true, that’s a major step back. Very few people, myself included, do not have the time (and/or inclination) to drive a full 100%, 90 minute race. In F1 2011, as we all know, tyre wear used to scale to the length of the race. So option tyres in a 10% race only lasted 3 laps.
In the demo you can only take part in a 5-lap races, so I haven’t actually tested this claim. But if it turns out to be true, I would seriously reconsider buying the game.
In review then, F1 2012 appears to be a step backward from the last game. A few months ago I wasn’t even considering the possibility that I wouldn’t be buying F1 2012. But unless there are significant improvements from the demo before the game is properly released, I’ll probably be sticking with F1 2011.
Whilst he’s not going to be wanted by any of the other top 4 teams (McLaren, Red Bull or Mercedes), he could possibly be a potential replacement for Grosjean. The problem is, Renault has no reason to get rid of him.
So which teams does that leave? The most obvious destination would be Sauber, in exchange for Perez. However, I still have my doubts over whether Perez is good enough yet (my money’s on Webber going to Ferrari). So the only possibility, assuming Massa won’t want to drop to the bottom 3 teams, is Williams. And if Maldonado doesn’t improve, there’s likely to be an empty seat by the end of the season.
He’s not bad, but I’m not sure he’s good enough to be in F1. Call me cynical, but I just don’t think he’d have got as far as he has with his famous name. I’m not saying he wouldn’t have got anywhere, but his name as certainly played a part in getting him into F1.
I would not be at all surprised if he gets dropped at the end of the season, if he doesn’t improve soon. In my opinion, Buemi and Algusuari deserved a better chance, and I’d like to see them have the opportunity to drive a decent car.
01) Alonso
02) Vettel
03) Raikkonen
04) Hamilton
05) Button
06) Schumacher
07) Webber
08) Rosberg
09) Di Resta
10) HulkenbergWhy wouldn’t Ferrari want Webber, given the chance? Okay, so he’s not a long-term investment- that’s what Alonso is for- but he’s a solid driver who will reliably bring it plenty of points given a decent car. I actually think Webber would be perfect for Ferrari, but, as you say, what incentive is there for Mark?
I agree, neither Ricciardo not Vergne are ready for Red Bull yet. I can’t discuss the lower formulas, but I don’t think Buemi, or Algusuari for that matter, are good enough. Like you say, Red Bull won’t get rid of Webber unless they find someone special, and Mark’s likely going to want to stay until that happens.
Eventually though, Webber will retire and Red Bull will need another driver. Rosberg is very possible, or possibly Raikkonen as well. Both of these drivers will probably be looking around for a better car within the next couple of years, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see either of them at Red Bull at some point in the future.
I don’t see why Webber would want to go to Ferrari. Mark’s not going to be around a lot longer, maybe a couple more seasons, and his best chance of winning a World Championship is surely at Red Bull. Of course if Red Bull have someone lined up to take Webber’s place, and Mark still wants to stay in F1, then maybe Ferrari wouldn’t be such a bad idea- I’m sure they’d prefer Webber over Massa.
In other words, Mark would only go to Ferrari if he’s unable to stay at Red Bull; and Red Bull will only kick Webber out if they’ve got someone good lined up.
Also Sky’s coverage is more serious and less jokey, which is what I want. I’m here to watch a race, not Jake Humphrey taking the piss out of Eddie’s shirts. Also I got fed up with the pointless features showing HAM and BUT jet-skiing, and ridiculous “atmospheric” shots with them going: “the horse has tamed the bulls” and all those stupid metaphors. It’s a race not a gladiatorial battle. Also the BBC’s unnecessary feature of going round slums in India asking whether they’d heard of F1 or not, which was… urgh, it’s just not needed.
I understand why you dislike this sort of stuff; you’re not alone in thinking that the BBC spend too much time messing around and telling jokes. In theory then, Sky’s rather grown-up and serious coverage should be exactly for you.
But it’s not. Because even with all the joke cracking and “unnecessary” features in the slums of India, the BBC still manages to fit in more interviews, analysis and news than Sky. Sky’s post-race analysis is an absolute joke; for the first race they may as well not have bothered and just gone off air.
Compare this to the BBC’s post-race analysis, where drivers are never too busy to come and talk. We see slow-motion replays of significant events, often in the presence of the respective team principles or drivers, and we also get the insight from an ex-team owner and recently-retired driver. Damon Hill is obviously very knowledgeable, but Coulthard seems to be more up-to-date with the latest technical information.
The only slightly weak point of the BBC’s coverage is their commentary. Ben Edwards is not the best commentator around, and I far prefer the Brundle-Coulthard partnership. But on the other, I can’t stand Croft’s commentary, so frankly anything the BBC can put together is going to be preferable for me personally.
I hadn’t analysed it in this much detail, but these were broadly my thoughts prior to reading this. Vettel did give Karthikeyan enough room, albeit only just. The reason they collided was that Karthikeyan was too quick moving to the left, presumably to try and get in Vettel’s slipstream.
To me it’s cut and dry. Okay Vettel could have given Karthikeyan a little more room, but crucially he still gave him enough space. The incident was therefore 100% Karthikeyan’s fault, and I don’t see how anybody could argue otherwise.
