I could therefore hardly be expected to insert the DVD and it going to play - after so much has been ahead in the development diaries Codemasters promised what I had always missed in a good F1 game: A challenging career mode, interviews paddock, press conferences, contract negotiations with the teams, to name but a few.
So I threw myself equal in a 7-year career, turned more quickly all aids off and set the difficulty to the maximum (down to go yes still). With a contract from Virgin team, we went into the action. With the expectation that it should be my goal to beat the other two small teams (Lotus and HRT), so I started the first training session. A quick pick up a default setup of the race engineer and get moving on the track - I was finally able to admire the great graphics and test the driving experience.
What can I say, to my great disappointment, I was able to drive on the track times after 4 rounds, with whom I was faster than great teams like Renault, Mercedes GP or McLaren. And although I had not yet tried to optimize my setup. Granted, I know most routes already of rFactor, so that the "learning phase" will be invisible, but I would expect that someone like Anthony Davidson who has allegedly tested the game during development, the routes knows equally well and therefore would festellen must that it is far too easy, a Top 5 - to achieve placement with a Virgin.
Through the rest of the weekend went on this, in every training session I was loose with 1-2 flying laps in the top 10, while the AI driver partially 40 laps and drove more without coming closer to my times. In Qualify I made it easy in Q3 and landed at the end of the grid. 5
So my motivation was already in the basement, to when I can already travel by Virgin as far forward as it should be only when I would get in the following seasons a contract with a stronger team?
But it got worse: In the race I felt like a Trabant, like a stationary obstacle. From grid position 5 I was passed within 2 rounds in 24th place. The AI cars drove in the race suddenly lap times, 5 seconds (!!) were faster than the pole position time from the Qualify. I was against it for a few seconds slower than the Qualify as my tank was full to the brim. So I was completely no chance and the 100% race distance became a torment.
But I did not give up easily and played the season continues. We noticed quickly that there are a plethora of bugs in this game. The game is bugged worse than anything I have ever played (and that was a lot in the last 20 years).
Here is a ranking list of the worst bugs that I noticed:
- Lap times of the AI cars are completely random in the race. Every car, whether HRT or Ferrari can be equal to drive fast. So it happens in every race that suddenly "Bruno Senna" in HRT drives the fastest race lap.
- The lap times of the AI vehicles appear to be completely pulled-fetched. So the leader of the race runs maybe 10 laps times in the range 1:35, then suddenly time 5-6 laps times of 1:42, then 1:29 4-5 rounds, etc. - The race is so unplayable and the race results are often completely random (Toro Rosso wins in front of a Lotus in 2nd place and an HRT at No. 3 is not uncommon).
- There are virtually no overtaking between the AI vehicles. For example, if is a strong car as Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull, making an early pit stop and in 20th place out, then he will remain at No. 20 to the vehicles driving ahead of him in the box. His lap times then level out to the lap times of the moving vehicles around him.
- There are no failures in the game. Both the players car as well as the AI cars can never go something breaks, which almost always come every 24 cars to the finish. Only when one is chasing your car at 300 km / h in a wall, you will be out of the race, with 200 km / h to continue as if nothing had happened.
The only failures of AI that there occasionally, come from the fact that the cars are disqualified because they do not have space while lapping. The AI is too stupid to realize that they will be rounded up, so she makes a further and will eventually disqualified. Technical failures or accidents - complete existent in the game.
I think it should be clear that it makes no sense under these circumstances, the career mode to keep playing. So I tried it once with the online mode. Again mistake after mistake - in a multiplayer race can from me incomprehensible reasons, only 12 cars to participate (one from each team). A serious online championship is therefore already excluded from the outset. Even apart from that, the online mode is littered with elementary errors. The worst part is that stopping the lap time is not working. Sometimes the game forgets in the lap time to take one of the sectors with, thereby resulting in Qualify times which is 30 seconds faster than anyone else. The multiplayer lobby is a bad joke. It occurs in a session and can "provide" push a button. If this is done not - not matter - the host of the session can start the game at any time, regardless of whether the players are ready, or are still busy with the car settings.
Conclusion: The game would have on the design and the game idea forth the potential to become a reference in terms of F1, but all the mistakes are so serious that the game can be described in any way as a motivational or "playable". While Codemasters has announced yesterday to bring a patch that should fix some of the errors, but the faulty AI is not listed in the Career Mode, and the Forum of Codemaster continues denied permanent, that there ever is a bug in this area. So it is apparently intended that the lap times of the AI vary within 10 seconds in a race and are completely random and independent of team or driver strengths.
Review:
Graphics: 4.5 / 5
Sound: 4/5
KI: 0/5
Multiplayer: 0.5 / 5
Game 1/5
Overall: 1.5 / 5 stars
