Who still plays this?

Apologies for dredging up a long dead thread but I thought this was a really interesting discussion. I've recently gone back over the older F1 games and this one certainly stands out - it still looks amazing in 2023, with a fantastic sense of speed, and everything just feels so well tuned with the AI and everything. I don't even mind the handling, I feel like I can still feel the F1'97 DNA in there somehow, it's understeer sure, but it replicates that 'one wrong move here and I'm out of the race' feeling so few F1 games do. Add in the classic cars, the level of challenge and the fact all the cars feel different and I think it's a bit of a classic.

Thing is, I can also see why people criticise the driving model. Compare it to F1 2010, for example, and that feels so much slower and more considered, like you have freedom over the way you attack the track and the positioning of your car, whereas in F1:CE, the tracks feel narrower, the kerbs much more punishing, the walls (and retirement with a wheel missing) much closer. I've enjoyed playing this game, but it can get annoying when you hit a kerb slightly wrong and snap into the barrier and out of the race, or (especially) when an AI car just clips you from nowhere into a DNF.

Personally I really rate both the latter Sony titles (03-06/CE) and the earlier Codemasters games (10-13, missing out 11) about the same, both were good at the time and stand up well now, I doubt we'll be posting about F1 22 in 15 years time...

My favourite of all time though remains F1'97.
 
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