Buy F1 2013
Formula One (F1) is the pinnacle of motorsport and the only thing more exciting than watching F1 is playing a F1 game. And as the 2013 season draws to a close, we can continue playing it with F1 2013 from Codemasters. The game is a driving simulator which pays great attention to detail and the rules of the motorsport.
F1 2013 carries on from where F1 2012 left off with the Young Driver Test that serves as a tutorial to help get new players up to speed. It is mandatory to play through if one wishes to unlock all the teams. The Game is a driving sim and Arcade racing fans might find that the drifting around corners style of racing does not work, especially with the tire degradation the game simulates. There are a lot of driving assists on offer like the brake assist, ABS, Traction Control and a racing line indicating ideal braking points. Experienced players can turn these off and new players will find that scaling these back will actually improve their lap times.
The game pays a lot of attention to the details like tyre marbles slowing you down if you drive off the racing line, the slight muffling you first hear when you put on the helmet in the game or even the engine noise changing with your camera view. The game is best experienced with headphones and a steering wheel controller. One might find the default key bindings for Keyboard to be rather silly, but the game lets you change them to your liking. The game offers a variety of camera views but the driver view is best when it comes to following a racing line. The only issue with the driver view is that you have no real idea of how much KERS you have left since all information is displayed on the immaculately modelled steering wheels.
So how does one make a new F1 game feel different when one is limited to only 11 vehicles and 18 tracks? The answer is by delving into the rich history of the motorsport to allow fans to relive the classics. Thus F1 2013 comes with select classic cars from the 80s and 90s as well as historic tracks like Estoril, Brands Hatch, Jerez and Imola. Some of these have to be purchased as DLC, unless one buys the Classic Edition which includes them all. These Classic cars can prove to be a handful to drive if one is spoilt by the modern cars. It’s also nice how the UI changes to reflect the era of the Classic Cars.
The other new feature is Scenarios which are small challenges with specific goals and various levels of difficulty. There are separate scenarios for the Classic cars and the 2013 cars which are limited lap affairs that involve either finishing in a certain position or beating a teammate or rival. All the challenges in this game come with global leader boards to add to the competition. It might have been a good idea for Codemasters to include a Scenario builder tool to add more user generated content to the game, but alas, that is not the case.
Graphically speaking, the game’s atmosphere looks rather drab as compared to Codemasters’ other release, Grid 2. The Car models are quite detailed, but the tracks and people models look rather dull. While the game offers enough action to blur out the ambience, it certainly offers little to make one want to stop and stare.
The Game offers a variety of Multiplayer options including Split Screen and LAN. Codemasters’ Racenet is also woven into the game and offers weekly challenges whose rewards are custom helmet liveries. The Timed laps force one to compete with their own ghost that allows a better understanding of one’s shortcomings around a lap. One can customise every aspect of the car to extract the best lap time from the conditions of the track and the car itself. One annoyance is that the detection for leaving the track is rather strict and can penalise your lap even if you run wide, which is pointless as running wide rarely grants one a time advantage.
The game’s standard fare from previous iterations like Career Mode, Grand Prix, Timed Laps and Season challenge all make a return. One can choose to run a full length Grand Prix with dynamic weather conditions if one chooses. Or just a short 3 lap sprint to scratch that racing itch. Longer races offer more details like fuel consumption, tyre degradation and fuel mix types that one must choose as per race conditions. They bring in the strategy part of F1 which should be of interest to fans of the sport. The car to pit radio can give a variety of useful information, and can be shut up if you know what you’re doing like Kimi.
So all in all, the game is a really good racing sim that does justice to its license. One minor gripe is the timing of the game’s release, which happens after the season is mostly over. Fans of the sport would certainly appreciate an earlier release so they can play out their fantasy season just as the real one is in progress.
*F1 2013 was reviewed on the PC platform
