I picked up my F1 2010 review code (PC) on Friday, and sunk about 5 hours into it yesterday. I can't go into too much detail for risk of breaking the embargo, but I can make a few general points:
1.) Eye watering visuals. Without doubt the sexiest racing game I've ever seen. I'm running all settings maxed, 1920 x 1080 with 4XAA, on my
[email protected], GTX 470 and 8GB DDR3, and it run super smoothly. The rain effects are sublime, but the real star of the show are the tracks. There's just so much stuff in the background that I'm often distracted by the view.
2.) Handling is not as hardcore as iRacing. While the cars have a propensity to spin if you apply too much gas coming out of a corner, they don't appear to mind if you drive them across the grass at 150km/h. I've lost count of the number of times I've cut a corner, with hardly any slowdown as a result. The force feedback also isn't quite as lovely as iRacing - it is good, but iRacing's bumps and steering feel more realistic.
3.) Car damage is quite forgiving. At times it feels almost like bumper cars - I'll often make contact with other vehicles, rubbing tires, with no penalty. I've got damage cranked to full, and full race penalties enabled. I'm more often given a penalty by the stewards than seeing any physical damage.
4.) The sound engine is superb. The screaming whine of the F1 engines are captured beautifully, as is the trackside ambiance.
5.) The AI is brutally hard. I've set it to amateur, and have come last in every race so far. It's quite strange - while the handling seems easy when set to full real, the AI is still hard when set to its most basic.
6.) Overall the game is fantastic fun. While hardcore simmers may dislike the ability to drive over grass and bump and grind with other cars, most racers will love the way the game makes you feel like an F1 driver, piloting a rocket ship on wheels.
I can't say too much more, but I thought it'd be best to get people's expectations in line with the final product. The game is 95% there as a hardcore sim - it just needs the off-road and contact behaviour to be tweaked to make it perfect for iRacing fans. Hopefully this will be moddable by the community, or perhaps Codies could be persuaded to release a "Hardcore mode" as DLC that is much more punishing in this regard.
Enough talk from me - got to write for the rest of today so I can play more tonight.
