Verdict: F1 2010

This review may be late, but I decided to post it to honor the upcoming 2011 season opening in Malaysia. F1 2010 is developed by Codemasters, the same creators as Dirt 2 and the upcoming Dirt 3. It takes you into the shoes of an F1 driver, much like the style of Dirt 2. There are Races, Time Trials, Qualifying, and Practices. Everything in an entire racing weekend can be done. Now on to the gameplay.

Similar to Dirt 2, Codemasters made a really enjoyable physics system. F1's physics aren't 100% accurate, but with all aids turned off, the cars feel much more realistic than other sims I've tried such as rFactor and iRacing. That is quite a statement for Codemasters seeing as Dirt 2 was much less realistic with its physics than the original Dirt. The racing is also excellent with many different difficulty settings. You can completely customize your career difficulty with realism settings, flashback amounts, penalty flags, and more.

Driver's view. Everything on the HUD is customizable

The penalty system is very unforgiving. Newcomers will probably become frustrated with it at first. After a while, players will realize that it is a nice system and it is more accurate than those found in other games. The force feedback for the DFGT at least, is far superior to any other racing game I've played.

F1 2010 does lack some features. No safety car and no free race mode. Both do not take much away, but a safety car would add a lot of realism. Compared to a sim, there is less tweaking you can do to the car. However, there are plenty of options.

I strongly recommend this game for the PC. The console versions both contain far more bugs and runs much less smoothly. The PC version is also very moddable. The cockpit view always remains static - looking ahead, but with a mod for the PC version, your driver will lean his head to the direction you turn.

The AI is also very good compared to other games. In certain corners they are often unrealistically slow and they yield a lot more than they should, but it is still very challenging. There are also mods for the PC version to further the AI’s intelligence.

Multiplayer falls short in F1 2010. There are few games if any at all. Many players end up wrecking others at the first corner. The only way to play completely is by joining an online league.

F1 2010 is really an entertaining game. It has a large learning curb for beginners compared to other racing games, but it is truly a step forward in its genre. It has a ton of gameplay allotted towards singleplayer which really makes this game worthwhile.


Verdict: 9