Find F1 just too boring to watch? Don't worry - if this simulation is anything like authentic, then the people taking part aren't having any fun either. Perhaps that's why they all drive so fast - they're just desperate to get it over with. Whatever, this really very attractive game is hand-wringingly dull.
Here's why: the handling is terrible. In fact, it's so flawed there's simply never a time when it's fun, or even satisfying, to drive these cars. Despite being helpless fans of the real sport, even in its current state - we're being generous calling it a 'sport', for instance - playing Formula One Championship Edition quickly becomes a chore. And that's a shame.
It's particularly sad because the earlier editions in Studio Liverpool's long-running F1 series were fantastic, soundly destroying EA's good-looking but poor-handling efforts. Maybe it's karma, maybe feng shui, but for some reason we've come full circle. EA's mistake is now Sony's. Quite why is beyond us. And no, we don't subscribe to the idea that they're hard to drive because they're F1 cars. There are certain basic principles of physics no matter how much money you spend. Tyres slip if you put a lot of force through them, for instance, and steering should react in a linear, predictable way. Formula One gets both these things wrong.
Perhaps in a misguided attempt to replicated the hated traction control, the rear tyres are now glued to the road at all times. You actually have to put one in the dirt to induce a spin. What this basically means is that fantastic mountain of horsepower behind you is as tricky to deal with as the sighs of a dying asthmatic. There's simply no sense that these cars are unleashing 80 horsepower, let alone 800.
Sub-traction
Not only is this deeply unexciting, it's not even realistic. In real life F1 cars still slide, and their drivers can still use their throttles to steer, but you can't do any of that here. You just press and go. What's more, very smooth drivers like Jenson Button avoid triggering the traction control and go faster for it - it would have been great to try the same thing. But you can't even hear it working. It's fake. You just press and go.
But even while the back end can be left totally to its own (electronic) devices, the front is all over the place. It's never predictable, and because the back won't slide however much you provoke it, there's little you can do but wait as it ploughs across the track, then panic as it suddenly lunges into the corner. What should have been a smooth arc becomes like the edge of a 50p piece.
Steer pressure
Naturally the fastest turns require the greatest precision, and here the game should deliver its greatest thrills... but no. That sluggish, unresponsive steering makes it hard to take even approximately the line you want. Subsequent corrections are a big soggy mess too, and the whole thing turns into a kind of giant burning pair of trousers pinwheeling through the universe in a silent Y of pain.
Actually, it's like the on-screen driver's taking foreign-language dictation rather than reading your mind. Yes, that's more apt.
We should mention the Career mode, where you work to impress better teams, or the regular Championship mode or the ability to scale right up to a full GP. Yes we should, just as we mentioned them when they appeared in Formula One 05. But if your dinner's so undercooked it's bleeding, it doesn't really matter how ornate the plate is, does it?
same here
