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Review:

11th August 2005:
Formula One 05
Go, go, go for the official title based on the world of motorsport's finest challenge!
Posted by Chris Snook - PlayStation 2 - UK and Europe

Even the most die hard fan of Formula One must admit that the last few years have been less than exciting and that this year for the first time in a while is showing a real possibility of being a scrap for the Championship title right to the wire.

Into this steps Formula One 05 the latest F1 game from Sony, officially licensed and packed with all the teams and races from this years championships and quite a bit extra to boot. Being the official game of the season it follows the racing calendar and the qualifying and practice sessions for those race weekends, with each car faithfully recreated ready to be raced and tweaked as required.

As expected there is a championship mode, time trials, instant action races, practices and whole individual race weekends to take part in, with challenges to complete in order to unlock new cars, helmets and the test track.

The meat of the game is the Career Mode, where you start off as an unemployed rookie, looking for a team to race in for the season. You gain an agent and via trials a team, from then on you are racing for that team on a contract and have set goals to achieve - a certain place number, a targeted point finish and the like. That you are competing for the F1 Championship, starting in Australia on the Melbourne track and finishing with the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai this October, the culmination of the longest race season in F1 history, is not lost on you. Slowly you build up a reputation and advance, often with comments via 'e-mail' and news articles, options for better drives become available or if you are doing well you may wish to stick with your current team. Strangely though there is no commentary or pit chatter to distract you which can be very eerie.

Certainly so after the straight championship season, which does have commentary but none of the career story options, it is a straightforward season as you try to claim as many points as you can as you rattle through the season. In many ways it is almost a let down after the Career mode. Of the other modes, the Instant Action is the most useful more as a practice system than for anything else as without another human player to go up against things can get split into one of two ways fairly quickly.

There is an online option via the broadband adapter and whilst it is again good to see that this is being promoted, accessing the servers is a fiddly business and can take a while to complete, with so many confirmation screens to say yes to, it is possible to get confused easily. For the experienced, no real problems but for the novice it could be overwhelming.

That said it is a cracking racing game, the visuals are stunning and the recreation of the tracks is nothing short of brilliant. In Melbourne you see at the place it would be a cycle lane marking and there are similar deft touches on each of the different circuits, it is nice to be able to see these things. Running through the tunnel at Monaco is also an experience as is the Indianapolis circuit, with the one banked corner sweeping onto the home straight. There are other things, including dust puffing up from a car in front, rain spots on the visor as it chucks it down, spray from a wet track also flies up into the air and clouds visibility. You even see reflections on the car paintwork

The cars themselves roar and rev with some accuracy as gears change, there are also the occasional chunk as a gear is changed quickly. Beyond this there is only the commentary, to keep you occupied and whilst it is serviceable there are moments where it is dire and sounds unconvincing, despite using James Allen and Martin Brundell, the ITV commentators there is the usual dissonance as phrases get mashed together, one classic from the pre-race pre-amble "Fourth is Michael Schumacher, in the highest placed Bridgestone shod car, sitting behind his team mate Reubens Barrichello�". It just distracts. More useful is the pit chatter, where your support team supplies info on your cars status and when to come in and pit. This is for some reason this seems to be missing from career mode, quite an omission.

There is no problem with length, you can race a whole GP if you want - all two hours worth for those with titanium thumbs - and there are nineteen of them to complete. Handily you can pick lesser feats of endurance with a twenty percent race length being ideal. There is a lot to do but whether there is really enough to keep people coming back id debateable. Play wise it is well polished, control response is crisp but long term play per session is hampered by the DualShock design, it is just not up to the job of constantly pressing down a button or keeping an analogue stick pressed forwards. There is no way to reassign these either as placing accelerate on a shoulder button would be more comfortable in the long run.

There is no real way of judging the difficulty levels, due to the plethora of driving aids on offer it is possible to almost have the car drive itself with only minimal intervention to turn left or right. That is not to say that these aids are a bad idea, as without them the F1 05 is almost unplayable but they do give a false sense of achievement. By far the best aid is the track line ribbon, showing acceleration, braking and turning points. The interactive pit stops again appear superfluous and do not add much, pressing three buttons in a specific order is not that challenging, though to be fair this is more due to rule changes in the sport eliminating tyre changes during a race. Other flourishes though work, cars can spin out (for some reason they never remain on the trackside as a reminder), rules flags are shown, engines can disintegrate, sometimes with amazing alacrity and between loading screens you get driving tips and coaching on what flags, and terms mean.

In all F1 05 is a refined product with a good amount horsepower under the hood but caught out by less than desirable control issues and a sport that mutated part way through the season. It is good and may well be for a while but it may not have long term appeal.

Chris Snook

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Review Summary:

Slick Formula 1 based racing title, with some clever moves and a well polished presentation that is pleasant on the eye, it is let down by a lacklustre commentary, controls that are not comfortable for long time use and a sense that one mode is nothing more than a stripped down version of another. Worth looking for but is at best a top three finish and not a Championship winner.

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Formula One 05
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