Some impressions of F1 2012 from a play test at Codemasters last week...
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14-08-2012 12:31 PM
Myself & few other guys were lucky enough to be invited to Codemasters last week to have a play on the latest build of 2012.
We've been discussing our impressions on our forum for a while now but we thought you might appreciate some insights over here.
I think some of the other guys might be heading over to post their thoughts as well.
Handling
So I don't want to 110% judge the handling right away as I found 2011 very alien at the London preview event last year. Also using wheels you don't know etc mean you aren't 100% comfortable, but by the end of it I think I got a good handle on it all. The biggest changes are low speed corners are now under steer central if you take them wrong. You really have to scrub the speed off before entering the corner. In 2011 I'd do a hell of a lot of steering under braking. In 2012 you'll just go straight on if you try that. This was a nightmare initially but is actually awesome. From what I've read & from what Steve & Paul were saying after using a couple of teams simulators this is totally true to like. At low speed there is no aero effect so it's all mechanical, but then at high speed aero makes the cars incredible. There is a lot more confidence in the back end at speed now which is great, i'm looking forward to pushing when you can open DRS as this will be different i think. You very much have to respect the track but you can really attack it. Braking is different now. It's a lot easier to lock, with tweaking to your pedals I think you'll get comfortable fast & also we didn't go into set ups at all. Again this is something i'd read before that this is true to life as well, the braking is on a knife edge, again I wouldn't take this 100% to heart as I used the thrustmaster wheel / pedals & found the braking amazing so excepting to love it on my home set up. Everything handling wise I found positive. The curbs are also a lot more of a thing, take the **bleep** on them & they will really unsettle your car & cause you you a lot of problems. Part of this could be set up, I'd love to know if softer suspension will allow you to attacks them more, but what I played meant you had to REALLY respect them. For example I took far too much curb at the chicane after the bridge in Canada & it promptly put me into the wall. It didn't feel unfair at all.
I love the new front end. I did really like the paddock idea & part of me will miss it, but the new system is a lot cleaner, user friendly etc.
One shot qualifying is really great. It's awesome seeing the ghost cars of other players giving you an instant marker to where you are at & do you go all out & maybe make a mistake or put in a slightly safer lap.
Cars look stunning. T-cam looks amazing, cockpit view works great, the build we played I think still had some graphical work to be done on it, but this doesn't worry me at all, it was work in progress after all. Rear view I LOVE much better like this & awesome to see if your DRS is open. Race engineer is great. Tyre management is a mcuh bigger thing now. If you spin up the rears too much the temp will really rise & you'll notice wear. I'm really looking forward to getting deeper into this with longer races.
Difficulty wise I was playing the hardest setting we had available & it felt tough. I wasn't exactly driving to my best & was keeping in touch with torro rossos etc, you really noticed the hrt, catherhams, & marussias were as a group slower than the next this all felt good. Hard to say exactly how hard the ai is but i certainly wasn't nuking them, time will tell exactly where it's at, but it felt harder.
I loved championship mode I didn't manage to complete it in my games on hard. I also think there is great scope for DLC along these lines. (i've got a video of this i'm allowed to put live on Thursday)
We were shown some future ideas around codies racenet service & all I can say about it now is I think this is going to be great. There is huge scope for what they can do here & I think they are absolutely on the right track.
Audio wise the engines sound superb & a nice step up from last year.
There are lots of smaller details that i noticed that i liked. If you go into the gravel trap the tyres throw up gravel :smileyhappy: Also Marbles are more visable both on the track & on the tyres & have a much greater effect on the handling. Going off the track is much more of a punishment now, you will be slowed down greatly. This is a game that feels a lot more realistic, you will be rewarded for measured driving with moments of all out. I really can't wait to get stuck into it properly, bring on Sept 21st.
I'll add my (fairly lenghty) impressions below as well (excuse the copy and paste)...
First a caveat - I spent ages faffing around with the older Porsche Fanatec wheel I was using and don't think I ever really got it set up in a way I was totally happy with. It made the initial laps extremely difficult and obviously you just don't get a like for like comparison in those scenarios vs. your own equipment and set-up at home. By the end I felt fairly comfortable with it all, but some of the impressions might be slightly affected by equipment settings.
We were lucky enough to try a number of different modes, including the champions event chasing down Kimi at Spa. I really like this new feature, should be good fun completing all the challenges and getting golds, and adds a pick up and play element to proceedings (Codemasters have recognised the need to offer something that allows for 30 minute quick sessions rather than always feeling like it needs to be a good one or two hours put aside to play). Its introduced to the player nicely as well (won't spoil any details though!).
We also went through the Young Drivers Test event, which outlines some of the basics and provides additional info on functions like DRS and KERS, as well as one of the shorter races where you have to select a rival and beat them in the race, using the new one shot qualifying (OSQ) function in the process to speed up the course of a 'season'. Thought this worked well, seeing the ghost of the fastest AI car while trying to set your own time.
Crucially we had the freedom to select our own longer distance race sessions and this is where I started to get a real hold on the new handling model. Started off in a Ferrari at Monza, 50% race with OSQ (no assists, hardest difficulty). First of all, as promised the back end is way more predictable. Going through Ascari at speed you can be far more confident that it won’t step out on you provided you get your line right. That's a key point though, you have to approach corners in a totally different way this year to ensure everything is set up right to hit the apex and get you on your way. I had problems with this at first for a few reasons but predominantly because I blew my engine something like five times trying to play it like 2011, downshifting in rhythms as I usually do. I wouldn't say I go down the gears particularly fast (certainly not in the way I've seen some Youtube videos abuse the 2011 model) but I was still trying to use some engine braking and it was just killing the car. Paul Jeal and Steve Hood were in the room at the time this was happening and we had a brief discussion about it being a deliberate choice, coaxing the player in to braking hard and coming down the gears a little more gently now. It's a case of slow in, fast out this year. Fail to do this and you will under-steer, badly. I'd say this is the biggest take out for me re: handling. Going off the racing line also really affects the ability to turn in and make the apex, more so than in 2011. You also get some nice tyre smoke on lock ups (no flat spots though).
Once you've got your head around it its fine - there is still engine braking, its just more realistic now and closed to abuse. Oh, and the engine sounds awesome. Another step up from the effects in 2011 and lovely with some headphones on. So cracked on with some qualifying laps and got quicker and quicker. You can still lose the back end through the corners and correct a powerslide, but there is more trust in the car now - a good balance as promised. Riding the kerbs is fun too, new suspension model means you can actually get some height off the bigger kerbs if you clip them a bit too aggressively, unsettling the car in the process.
I ended up switching tracks to Budapest as I'm not a huge Monza fan (got in to the 1.23's I think it was in quali, good enough for 4th but didn't fancy the 50% race there in the end). Immediately noticed how much more detailed it looked vs. our race the other week on '11. Cant place exact examples, just an all round feel. AI pace was really strong, could only qualify in about 13th I think it was after some practice laps (still ahead of Massa though!). Race start was good, less positions gained on the AI off the line but still probably a tiny bit easy to jump a few (better than last year though). Loved this race - I'd got my head around the braking early stuff and was getting better and better at judging it all, but still lost it a few times on the penultimate hairpin as the left front seemed to lock as it went light and unloaded (just like Jenson experienced there in real life the other week). Ran wide and got punished for it on two or three occasions, under-steering and fighting to get back on track and the racing line. The racing felt really tight, had some great battles with AI midfielders and seemed to get a bit more info from the race engineer on fuel management stuff which was good. Didn't play with brake bias at all, but it’s definitely there!
This is getting a bit wordy now so will try and summarise other stuff briefly. Cockpit view seems to have been tweaked perfectly and is very useable - I may consider a swap to this again. T-cam is a lovely place to admire all of the added polish mind, including the sun flashing off bits of body work on other cars as you fly around the track together. I also really liked the look-back view now - you get a big chunk of your rear wing close up from a drivers height, it just looks cool - a small thing but a welcome change. The cars are modelled brilliantly (despite the ugly noses on most!). Something else - I've seen a few people moaning about the colours looking washed out on the game footage of 2012 in the dev diary released yesterday. They should stop worrying, it didn't look washed out at all when playing yesterday. Nothing like the colour palette from 2010 (which I think is what some are concerned about).
Front end is all new - your car is showcased rotating in the middle of the screen with a simple list of modes across the bottom (Forza-esque perhaps?). No showroom mode that I could see, but its all been redesigned to be easier to navigate. It looks sleeker overall.
You can now choose a fuel strategy from the start of a race from three levels - cautious, standard and aggressive I think it was (or something like that!). Basically it’s your starting fuel load, so if you don't like messing with fuel much then I guess just begin with the standard amount and don't worry about it in the race. If like me though you tend to faff with it a bit then running with more or less from the start will add to the amount of strategy you need to apply to ensure you finish with enough in the tank. I had a look in the pre-race tyre screen as well and its pretty much the same as before with the rings denoting tyre life and freshness, but with an added explanation text too.
Anthony Davidson's track guides seem useful - they don't require a load screen or anything, they just run in the menu when you select them which is cool.
Confirmed that there won’t be any more online players than 2011. More about tweaks to the online connection system rather than adding new features so doesn't look like we will get things like custom grids or an online practice session. Hopefully the reliability issues (people dropping out) have been sorted so that custom grids aren't really needed anyway (fingers crossed).
Replays have been improved massively - new camera angles now make for better TV-style perspectives and great footage to look back on.
Slip streaming isn't as pronounced anymore and has been balanced well from what I could tell.
Some stuff I wasn't so keen on - tyre squeal. I think it was too pronounced when under-steering or starting to lose the back end. Bit too much of a giveaway for me that you were about to lose grip. Admittedly it probably needs to be more noticeable than it was in 11, but ideally I'd like it dialled down a bit as an audio cue vs. the level its currently on. Also, pit stops - it's not all in car now and is a more cinematic experience. Personally I'd prefer to stay in car - felt like it broke the immersion aspect a little.
Agree that there should be a grip penalty for going off the racing line, but it felt like I was being really heavily punished for doing so when trying to make a pass through a corner (outside of turn 2 at Hungary for example) and just ended up drifting wide with massive under-steer. In fairness this could just be a case of needing to get used to the new game over time and driving accordingly.
One other minor thing I wasn't keen on - going four wheels off track currently seems to engage some sort of auto-braking and (possibly, couldn’t be sure) steer mode, fluttering the throttle and almost guiding you back on track it seemed. I guess this could end up being a positive in terms of penalising people for exceeding the track limits, but there were times when I'd gone a bit wide (not miles though) and would have preferred the game to let me lift off manually and try to stop myself hitting the wall rather than introduce some sort of help. This might be something still being tweaked though.
Erm, I've probably forgotten loads of other stuff but think that's plenty for now! Hope it answers a few questions and gets the excitement levels raised even more - I think the new handling model is going to appeal to pretty much everyone, whether you preferred 2010 or '11. Its a nice balance combining the best of both games and should make for some close racing. It already seems to have done the trick in terms of bringing lap times more in line with real life as well...
Finally, massive thanks to Ian/Helios for organising the day, and to Andy Gray, Paul Jeal and Steve Hood for showing us some pretty exclusive stuff, answering questions about the game and (most importantly) letting us play it. Its patently obvious that they all love F1 and are doing everything they can to build the best game possible within the boundaries set out by current technology and restrictions imposed by FOM.
Ok, here we go...
Firstly, massive, massive thanks to all at Codemasters for inviting us to be among the first of the great unwashed to play F1 2012 and for making the day so enjoyable. Ian, especially - huge thanks for acting as guide for the evening drinks.
Right down to business, so many things to get through so i think what i'll do is whistle through the points i'd jotted down prior to the visit and then sum up anything else below that.
Rear stability at speed - Gone is the wishy-washy floating rear of '11. at speed the rear is very stable and on new rubber T10 at the Hungaroring was easily (and scarily) flat. In fact it took a while to get the confidence to believe the car would stick such was the difference. Similarly at the top of Eau Rouge the car was still planted. The only thing i wasn't sure on was the car at the bottom of that corner felt twitchy rather than compressed and totally stuck to the ground?
Equal cars on-line - With how different the game felt from '11 and only one or two chances for an online race this was actually always going to be impossible to determine. We did ask Steve and Paul about this and they said they believed they were very close but understandably didn't want to commit to a 100% answer.
Trail Braking - I'll get on to trail braking but first i need to talk a bit about how different corner entry seems this year. Enter a corner to fast in '12 and you'll be running to the circuit limits at least and more likely be off on to the grass, gravel, etc. Following time in a real F1 simulator the team have really accentuated how clumsy these cars are at low speed over '11.
No longer will you be stomping on the brakes and machine gunning the gears while trailing a lot of brake into the corners. I tried this on my first lap at Spa and went straight off at Rivage. Instead you need to apply the brakes, wait for the revs to fall a bit and then change down the gears each time waiting for the revs to fall a bit. You also need to get much more braking done before turn in than last year. You can still lightly trail the brakes but that will be to scrub the very very last bits of speed, a fraction too much and you'll be wide. Braking itself felt like there was a lot more fidelity, I felt i was able to back out of a lock with accuracy and also determine a lock up more easily than this year.
Abuse of track limits - Going off track is a fair bit more serious now if you hit a gravel trap or are on grass. gravel will really slow you down to a crawl and the grass seemed a fair bit more slippery. As for exceeding the white line, there still seemed to be a fair bit of leniency - At Monza I messed up Ascari a few times fully running over the green verge without warning, maybe it would have flagged me if i'd run subsequent corners wide - hopefully is more stringent in time trial than race. would like to have seen warnings for more than 2 wheels over the white line though regardless.
Force-feedback- We were able to try the game on a variety of wheels from the MS wheel and Fanatec Porsche wheel to the incredible Thrustmaster T500 F1 wheel. each took some time to get used to as it was of course a matter of adjustment from home setup and an unfamiliar game. The first really big thing i noticed was that kerbs really knock the wheel, second that it seemed to weight up more in the corners - not as nicely as GSC 2012 does but it seemed an improvement. One thing that did feel a bit weird was that the car felt a bit vague in a straightline seemed a touch more difficult to maintain the precise track position you were aiming for than in '11. minor but noticeable. in most other respects it felt similar to '11 to me.
Realistic laptimes - with the changes to how the cars behave on during braking and corner entry the lap times have been brought much more in line with reality, we were told that the team had spent considerable time poring over lap data to ensure it as a close as is feasible.
Selecting Race Strategy - You can now select how much fuel to start a race with from 3 base strategies: Cautious, Standard, Aggressive. I meant to check if you could do similar for tyres but forgot, did anyone else lok to see if you could select between 1,2 or 3 stop races at will without manual adjusting from the default?
Tire Management - This area seemed improved with spinning up the rears leading to increased heat and wear, being cautious on corner exit will yield rewards. In the multiplayer race we did I swapped to new Options halfway through and they felt great so i blasted in some (relatively) hot laps but that meant my tyres were destroyed halfway through my planned stint. '12 seems to reward driving at a pace below the limit with controlled flashes of pace to gain track position. This is probably also the place to mention things like how marbles and any dirt o your tyres feels more pronounced and also lasts a fair while longer - actually punishing mistakes. Keeping an eye on the heat display on the SWIPE the tyres seemed to go through more levels of heat and each corner seemed to be treated on its own, so you could have a situation where only the left front was to hot and worn.
Audio Feedback- As Marmite mentiond in his post the tire squeal noises have been raised in the mix. There was some discussion over lunch with various opinions on whether it was too pronounced or not. there are a couple of different sounds, one for slip and one for sliding. I thought they were probably a touch too high in the mix, preferring the slight squeak from last year, I would prefer grip to be communicated through the wheel more but with the majority of the public playing on pads can understand why the bigger audio cues have been added.
Engine notes were more powerful, the McLaren especially sounded more guttural, while the Renaults were whinier.
DRS didn't seem to have an activation noise anymore?
Cockpit view - For me this was improved over '11 (which gave me headaches and felt too close). In '12 the view feels more drawn back with a slightly wider FoV, You can now clearly see both 90% of both mirrors and spatial awareness just felt much better for me. I could imagine using this as my default view in Career whereas i'd resorted to t-cam previously despite wishing to use cockpit. there was no Look to Apex which i consider a good thing.
Gear Changes - I've mentioned this a few times but it has it's own bullet on my list so it'll get its own bit here . This point was on the list mainly because of videos i'd seen of people flying down the gears in to corners, going from 7th to 2nd or 1st as fast as they could tap the buttons with no punishment, i've been guilty of similar ([media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5N6FKXamtY&feature=player_detailpage#t=112s[/media])
No more though. Try this in '12 and your engine will be strewn over a few hundred meters of circuit . Now you need to descend the gears rhythmically, with brief pauses between each to let the revs settle. I didn't get the rear to lock or step out under braking and gearing down though i expect attempts to have done this would have just resulted in engine failures.
Setups - I never got around to doing anything more than looking at the new setup screens. I spent my time just trying to adjust to the new handling model.
Ok, that was my list. now on to other things worthy of mention;
Kerbs are back. they jolt the FFB, and unsettle the car a lot on bigger ones. At t4 of Hungary i destoyed my car by clipping the inside kerb and thereby totally unloading the inside. similarly the chicane clattered the car and can harm traction on corner exit more. The bus stop at Spa is a real challenge with the cars feeling so clumsy at low speeds.
AI. Seemed much improved pacewise. Corner entry speed was the biggest difference, in that i didn't find occasions where they were massively slower than me (I raced Spa, Monza and Hungary on Legend). I did noice them clumping a bit still and doing small amounts of side to side down straights as if they were unsure of which track position to take.
Lighting seemed to have undergone refinement with a more natural and softer feel, tracks like Hungary had undergone hefty re-workings of track surfaces, track-side detail and so on. The cars looked great gleaming in the sunshine.
Pitstops now feature an external sequence of cutaway shots similar to what you see on TV. I liked it but others found them immersion breaking
Corner entry line is vastly more important with the new handling model
punctures require you to go VERY slowly, i missed the pit entrance at Hungary with a front left puncture while doing 50kph and in 2nd gear!
Rich fuel mix is now just up-up
Aerials - wobbly aerials!
Finally plans we were shown for Racenet are really exciting.
We played on both xbox & PS3, i couldn't notice a difference between the two.
AI car's seem really good, blue flagged cars drive a heck of lot better.
