Probably the most underrated game in PS3's history?

  • Thread starter Golfman
  • 48 comments
  • 21,884 views
Golfman

Golfman

(Banned)
722
This game is a real gem. In terms of graphical quality, AI, and the package as a whole, it stands above every other racing game on the PS3. But magazine reviewers hated it. Luckily, no one believed them and have enjoyed this game, as it still offers the most realistic, tense racing on the system, four years after it's release. The new F1 game has a lot to live up to. No offence to Codemasters, but Studio Liverpool have been making quality F1 games on Playstation for years, and this should have continued.
 
It might be a good racing game, but I doubt it is that easy to drive a f1 car (hearing from people who have tried f1 cars its extremly hard to drive) so I find it strange that fans is calling it a sim.. If i was more of a f1 fan then i would probably played it much more, but the physics just felt strange to me..
 
mr_VOLCANO
It might be a good racing game, but I doubt it is that easy to drive a f1 car (hearing from people who have tried f1 cars its extremly hard to drive) so I find it strange that fans is calling it a sim.. If i was more of a f1 fan then i would probably played it much more, but the physics just felt strange to me..
Click to expand...

There are many here who would disagree with you. I for one find it a realistic, engrossing racing experience that is still superior to almost every racing game on the PS3. Show me another PS3 racing game combines great AI, quality glitch-free visuals, tense races, and weather changes on the fly like F1:CE?
 
Yes there are many good things about f1ce, like AI, weather etc.. but the actual driving physics isnt all that IMO. I hear so much talk that f1 cars is very hard and twitchy to drive, cant say I experience that in f1ce
 
mr_VOLCANO
Yes there are many good things about f1ce, like AI, weather etc.. but the actual driving physics isnt all that IMO. I hear so much talk that f1 cars is very hard and twitchy to drive, cant say I experience that in f1ce
Click to expand...

If they had made it 100% identical to driving an F1 car in real life, it would be unplayable. It's realistic enough. Try playing it with all driving aids turned off and getting round a track without spinning out. It took me a while to get it right!
 
mr_VOLCANO
Yes there are many good things about f1ce, like AI, weather etc.. but the actual driving physics isnt all that IMO. I hear so much talk that f1 cars is very hard and twitchy to drive, cant say I experience that in f1ce
Click to expand...

There is a line you cross where simulation becomes frustrating and not fun at all. Let us consider that the reason we play games is the distraction from reality, and the ability to immerse yourself in the experience. If you made it as difficult as real life, then maybe 10% of us would be able to play it.
Its as realistic as it needs to be, its difficult, but not so much that you actually have to be an F1 driver to play it. Or are you saying a game can only be good if we cannot play it? :P

Its amusing too, because I hear over on the Codemasters forums that people complain F1:CE is too hard and therefore not realistic, this leads into the other problem that is how do you make a realistic simulation if you cannot make use of the many sensations the real thing has? You cannot feel the car around you when you play the game, so its impossible to re-create the physics without missing a key component that allows the real drivers to drive the real cars. So demanding 100% real physics its not sensible for a video game, as it would be too difficult to control with the limited sensory feedback you get.

So, I'd argue that F1:CE is the most realistic experience you can have as far as current console games and technology are concerned. It cannot be taken any further without becoming too difficult to play. The only things that can be improved are feedback to do with force feedback on the steering wheel, etc, but these things still don't give enough to mean a big change in the physics from how they are now.

To answer the OP question, no I don't think its the most under-rated game ever because:
1. Not everyone enjoys driving games.
2. Not everyone enjoys F1 or F1 games.
3. F1:CE is sold at quite a price at the moment, even pre-owned, which shows how valued it is. Clearly it is highly rated.
 
Last edited:
Well to be honest its a long time since I tried f1ce, and I have not driven a f1 car so I might be all wrong, but playing with DFP it didnt feel right to me. But I wished I liked it so I would have one more racing game to play in the waiting of gt5.
 
I agree 100% with everything Ardius has to say.

Physics? Hard to say, as none of us has had the opportunity to pilot an F1 car IRL, but I would agree that there's a limit to how close it's possible to make the driving experience minus the essential RL sensory inputs, without making the game impossible to play. The only important thing missing IMO, is a little more weight to the FFB under cornering (like FC/SCC) to help simulate the effect of g-forces.

What I really admire about F1CE is the way they provided all the elements necessary to make a great racing game, without wasting time on extraneous elements. Surely, given the opportunity & a couple of years extra development time, SL would have come up with an amazing F1CE 2. :indiff:

Not a great game for the general public, but the best racing game on PS3 for a racing sim fan. 👍
 
Golfman, I'm with you. 3 months ago or so I re-discoverd this game and play it till now. I play the championship with practice, quali, everything and race-length at 100% (difficulty at hard). It's A BLAST!
 
It is very underrated. I think that's probably because it's a more serious racing game but more importantly because it was an early release at a time when the PS3 was seriously stuggling to find an audience. Fortunately, it's the bees knees nowadays, but this game may have arrived too early for the glory days.

edit: and the talk about how 'sim' it is... Well, let's be honest. To drive an F1 car properly you need to dedicate yourself to it for quite some time. To win an F1 race, driving F1 cars must be your life. That isn't the case for us. If the game were 100% realistic, we'd suck and virtually always lose without full time practice schedules. Maybe there's a couple exceptions among us, but not enough of them to support the production of a video game. It's a difficult spot for the developers to get to a point where you can drive seriously as youd try to in real life rather than boot it around like in Burnout, because whether we want to acknowledge it or not there is a point where they have gone too far.

If it were a simulator to the extent that some of you are expecting it to be, then nobody would ever play it because if they got good enough to compete at the video game they could just go get paid well and travel the globe doing the real thing on the F1 circuit!
 
Last edited:
I dont believe its underrated. I believe its old and forgotten. Its a sports(Motorsport) game. It's a game that represents real life drivers and teams, all based off a single year of the sport. Like most sports games, the year after it comes out, it starts to slowly dissappear, mainly due to most games then come out with the next years title('07). Sadly this was the last year for Sony's stretch of the yearly F1 sports games. :( (Hell for us NTSC's it was a big gap and then F1CE)

It all makes sense really. Underrated? No, it got great ratings, back when it was worth rating, in 2007 👍

If you have your copy, keep your copy fore its one for the books :)
 
Ardius
3. F1:CE is sold at quite a price at the moment, even pre-owned, which shows how valued it is. Clearly it is highly rated.
Click to expand...

Well, that depends where you look, here in Mexico is definately not highly rated, mainly because racing is not huge here and there's very few people who follow F1, you can easilly find a used copy for about US $10 mainly because Sony of Mexico thought it was a great idea to sell the PS3 with this game bundled in, and the only SKU you could find was that one.

That worked out great for me because I got my copy very cheap, but I don't doubt that finding a PAL copy is both hard and expensive considering most of the F1 audience is from Europe.
 
I agree, with Apollo, I think some areas value it more than others as in the UK I found a new F1 CE copy and it was £34.99 so quite alot but I have heard it is quite cheap over in America probably because F1 in general is not as popular.
 
Apollo87
Well, that depends where you look, here in Mexico is definately not highly rated, mainly because racing is not huge here and there's very few people who follow F1, you can easilly find a used copy for about US $10 mainly because Sony of Mexico thought it was a great idea to sell the PS3 with this game bundled in, and the only SKU you could find was that one.

That worked out great for me because I got my copy very cheap, but I don't doubt that finding a PAL copy is both hard and expensive considering most of the F1 audience is from Europe.
Click to expand...

Thats why I said:
Ardius
1. Not everyone enjoys driving games.
2. Not everyone enjoys F1 or F1 games.
Click to expand...

Just because people don't enjoy F1, doesn't mean the game is under-rated.
 
When i said underrated, i meant that it didnt get any good magazine reviews, because frankly the majority of magazines favour soulless arcade blasts(like Burnout or the upcoming Split Second and Blur games) to quality racing games. I dont remember seeing a single good review in any of the major PS magz when it came out. But as far as the people who matter - the general game buying public - go, it is a much loved game. Alas, we will never see what Studio Liverpool could have done with their next F1 game. Im guessing it would have been sensational. Codemasters have a lot to live up to.
 
Its average Review score was 7.5, which in my opinion is fair and not underrated. Its a good game, even great in some opionions. But it was nothing epic but rather rushed.
Also would like to mention its $19.99USD(used) in N.A. GameStops. Again pretty fair. 👍
 
Its average Review score was 7.5, which in my opinion is fair and not underrated. Its a good game, even great in some opionions. But it was nothing epic but rather rushed.
Click to expand...

That's the point: for a casual gamer 7.5 is a very accurate review score, but for a dedicated PS3 racing sim fan it's worthy of a much higher rating.

I'm not sure if a racing game should even aspire to be "epic". IMO, that's the problem with GT5 - I would have settled for a good racing game from PD 2 to 3 years ago. Instead we're still waiting on the "epic"! :indiff:
 
It suffers from the same problem as many other games dedicated to a particular area of a particular sport, there just isn't enough variation.

But what I find silly is how football and other sports titles can fly off the shelves every year, get 90%+ review scores every time and when a brilliant racing game, dedicated to what is considered to be the top level of motorsport (Well, at least for circuit racing open wheelers), and many people just dismiss it, saying it's boring driving race after race.

Well, I think it is underrated. But that is because those who rate it, are not interested in the sport. If you're a fan of driving games or racing sims, or a fan of Formula One, then it's a must buy because it is so good.

One interesting thing I noticed whilst playing this the other day, It's quite impressive how your pit crew is intelligent. Aside from the fact you can not pick your tires, the pit system is impressive. I was racing at Hockenheim, and was running in 5th place, being completely outpaced by the Ferraris and the Renaults in my Super Aguri (Well not completely outpaced, I qualified 18th due to qualifying in rain + traffic. Got to 5th to them but could barely cut the gap to 4th by more than 2 tenths a lap, and they were 10+ seconds ahead). When they pitted I decided to stay out longer to get a few light fuel load laps, I was scheduled for a 2 stop. When I pit with 0 laps left of fuel, the pit crew filled me up for the rest of the race, putting me over 10 seconds clear after the AIs second pitstop :lol: That is good intelligence right there, I was more than happy to take 5th, but I ended up with an easy win. Was only on medium like, but I've raced on hard, Medium in a Super Aguri = Harder than Hard mode with one of the top 2 teams.
 
what do you mean if it was anyharder it wouldnt be playable


gran turismo 5 has much more realistic physics and is highly rated

and rfactor, iracing liveforspeed

MUCH MUCH harder than this game

i mean come on i can set a 1:15 in bahrain thats a full 15 seconds faster than schumi's fastest at 1:30

and i'm considered VERY slow.


and no aids on this game with this game with or without traction control. its not that hard to drive with a pad .
 
F1 CE is this game lol........

F1 CE is F1 Championship Edition.


It has been around since 2007 or so.. 2006 season.

F1 2010 is the next F1 game
 
UN_OC
F1 CE is this game lol........

F1 CE is F1 Championship Edition.


It has been around since 2007 or so.. 2006 season.

F1 2010 is the next F1 game
Click to expand...

UN_OC is right. I tought the demo was good aswell, I just can't find this game anywhere to buy so I will wait for f1 2010
 
tavtavtav
i mean come on i can set a 1:15 in bahrain thats a full 15 seconds faster than schumi's fastest at 1:30

and i'm considered VERY slow.
Click to expand...

I think you're a bit confused, as the (legitimate) lap record for Bahrain is about 1:27.xxx online. There's no way you did a 1:15 without switching penalties off and skipping half of the track.
 
tavtavtav
i mean come on i can set a 1:15 in bahrain thats a full 15 seconds faster than schumi's fastest at 1:30

and i'm considered VERY slow.


and no aids on this game with this game with or without traction control. its not that hard to drive with a pad .
Click to expand...

I will agree with Shaggy on this one, unless you've cut all the corners you can off, and had the penalty option off, that is the only way possible to achieve such a time. However, whats the point in 'cheating' because the lap time won't be seen by anyone else as being valid.
 
Seismica
It suffers from the same problem as many other games dedicated to a particular area of a particular sport, there just isn't enough variation.
Click to expand...
Variation is a good thing if you're moderatly interested in the sport in mind. But if you like F1 (for example), then you'll be happy driving around and around because that's the fun. Variation is not something you wish for then. As a simracing-fan if I get new tracks/stages/events all the time with new cars and have 100 cars in the garage, I get frustrated because it is difficult to keep up and properly learn a track well enough to do good laptimes.

But what I find silly is how football and other sports titles can fly off the shelves every year, get 90%+ review scores every time and when a brilliant racing game, dedicated to what is considered to be the top level of motorsport (Well, at least for circuit racing open wheelers), and many people just dismiss it, saying it's boring driving race after race.

Well, I think it is underrated. But that is because those who rate it, are not interested in the sport. If you're a fan of driving games or racing sims, or a fan of Formula One, then it's a must buy because it is so good.
Click to expand...
Agreed.

One interesting thing I noticed whilst playing this the other day, It's quite impressive how your pit crew is intelligent. Aside from the fact you can not pick your tires, the pit system is impressive. I was racing at Hockenheim, and was running in 5th place, being completely outpaced by the Ferraris and the Renaults in my Super Aguri (Well not completely outpaced, I qualified 18th due to qualifying in rain + traffic. Got to 5th to them but could barely cut the gap to 4th by more than 2 tenths a lap, and they were 10+ seconds ahead). When they pitted I decided to stay out longer to get a few light fuel load laps, I was scheduled for a 2 stop. When I pit with 0 laps left of fuel, the pit crew filled me up for the rest of the race, putting me over 10 seconds clear after the AIs second pitstop :lol: That is good intelligence right there, I was more than happy to take 5th, but I ended up with an easy win. Was only on medium like, but I've raced on hard, Medium in a Super Aguri = Harder than Hard mode with one of the top 2 teams.
Click to expand...
Glad you think of it that way but the truth is that if you don't follow pre-determined pitstrategy then the crew will ALWAYS fill you up as much as they can for an intended one-stopper. And usually that will break your race. Say you go for a two stopper with soft tires. You loose your front wing at an T1 incident and go for the pits. Voilá, your team has filled your car to the brim, still with soft tires that will wear out before it's time to refuel and that necessary refuel might occur when you have 5 laps to go of the race. Not great stuff. 👎
 
I have to say I had no real interest in F1 racing before getting F1CE. The reason I think it is a great game is because it has very good graphics, good (not perfect) AI, good (not perfect) physics, a good level of difficulty requiring serious commitment to master, good wheel support/FFB (especially the "bumpy surface" effect), & a great variety of challenging tracks.

Offline, F1CE is still my go-to racing game, while GT5P has been gathering dust for many, many months. Regardless of anything else, I find F1CE a first-rate gaming experience - the actual racing offers the "variety". I suspect it was just "too hard" to get into for the average (non-race enthusiast) gamer. The fact that the GT is so generally popular is largely due to its established reputation & its cutting edge graphics IMO. Of course, when you spend the amount of time & resources on a game that GT5 has received, you should expect it to be a superior title.
 

Latest Posts

Back