It`s the last race of the season. We`re down in Dubai, at the Yas Marina circuit, home to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Nico Rosberg is hot favourite, having won the last 5 GPs, but can anyone over-throw him? Will Lewis Hamilton run close? Or will Rosberg take another title. They`re all in the grid, ready to rock and roll. The lights are going… and it`s Go, Go, Go! This August, you have been given the chance to make your own history. You`re about to become a legend, and the F1 driver that you dreamt you`d be when you use to watch F1. You`ve got the chance. This is F1 2016.
F1 2016 is the latest game to the F1 franchise developed and published by Code Masters. This year, we are offered a much more improved career mode, 21 Circuits, all eleven teams and drivers competing in the GP championship are also on offer. This year also sees a lot of the customization within the races return, with the options to choose the time of day they`re going to race, the weather conditions, damage settings, and having complete control and customization over our car and it`s performance handling is something that is key and been massively worked on for this year.
The biggest focus and improvement for F1 2016 has been the career mode aspect within the game. You now have the option to create your own avatar, and add personal details and really customize to your style and the way you want. And this is already a big improvement over last year where you`d only have the option to take control of a current F1 driver. Contracts are going to need to be negotiated with what driving team you want to race under, and statistically and strategically you`re going to need to do well in the practice rounds by earning points. Points will be earned and these will enable you to improve your car features and performance. Having a great practice round will improve your score, so strategically racing around a track knowing how sharp corners are, what tires you`re going to take out in the conditions are key, and will help contribute to your point score. But perhaps the biggest addition to career mode is the Research and Development aspect. This ties in with the points you earn in the races in order to be research and be able to enhance the performance of your car. If you`re someone who can race around the track carefully, not coming off the track and cutting corners, you`re going to reap the benefits of earning those points. If you`re someone, a bit like me who likes to speed around the track and not always be careful around the corners (which at times have cost me dearly when I`ve lost a wheel) then you`re not going to get to where you want to be very fast.
Customization is key and apparent throughout F1, and this year sees you have complete control of what you want your race to be like. Do you want full damage on? Do you want to have the complete F1 experience? Or do you prefer a stream-lined F1 experience? Have you got a friend that just can`t those grips on the tires working? You have complete control. You`re able to add and modify assists within the race, and have complete control. One of the newest features in the races are the manual starts where you`ll need to hold down the clutch while hitting the required number of revs to release. It`s a pretty good and cool feature to be added this year, and one that`ll require you to work on your timing. If you get it right, you`ll get a pretty good start to the race. Get it wrong, and you`ll either stall, or you`ll get a penalty for shooting off before the lights have hit that magic colour, and it`ll invalidate your lap.
You also have complete control over the AI difficulty within a race, and for the highly-skilled F1 players, there`s a good test to be made by playing against the higher end AI players. You`re able to change them from easy to very hard and depending on what you`re skill level (or what you think you are) you are able to customize the game to that. There isn’t any difference in terms of the controls from last year, and in fact, it`s pretty much the same controls that are apparent across any of the Racing genre games.
Everyone loves a good pit stop. Providing you get it right. This year has seen the return of manual pit stops, which can be good, but also have the opportunity to be very costly. Twice I went around, very close to the end, about to win the race and accidently drove into the pit-lane, costing me the wins. But having the opportunity to manually be able to pit in this year is great. If you`ve just been taken out by someone in the race and have lost something – no worries. You can get that sorted when you hit the finish line. And this year, F1 uses Kinect, something that not many games do now since Kinect was heavily pushed away last year by Microsoft, using the voice commands to communicate with your team. You can ask a variety of things regarding the weather, other drivers, and suggested pit stops and tire changes. It`s a pretty neat little feature to add and utilize through the use of Kinect.
One of the interesting features that have been added for this year are the in-game rivalries, and some of these are a true representation of real life. For those who are F1 fans will be aware of the rivalry between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton. That`s transferred into the game, and you`ll be rewarded for completing objectives that you`re given for finishing above your rival.
There are other modes within F1 that are also part of the fan favourites, including the Time Trial aspect and of course, Multiplayer. However, both of these feel very similar to last year, and it`s apparent within F1 2016 to see where the focus and improvements have been implemented from Codemasters.
F1 2016 is a game that offers a much improved career mode and in-game experience in terms of control and customization. For fans of the F1 franchise, it`s a must-buy. Other aspect modes of F1 perhaps feel the same as F1 2015, but the career mode within F1 2016 will keep you going and for what Codemasters have implemented and focused on, it`s a better experience.
A huge thank you to Koch Media UK for supplying us with a Review copy of F1 2016
Game: F1 2016
Developers: Codemasters
Publishers: Codemasters
Genre: Racing
Price: £54.99