It’s the metagame that makes Formula One such a compelling motorsport: the tactical tension of fuel management, the timing of that pivotal pit-stop, and the never-ending research and development going on behind-the-scenes. F1 2017 offers a taste of these additional activities, and it all helps to raise the stakes when you’re behind the wheel.
Building upon last year’s edition, the Career mode sees you partaking in practice session minigames in order to collect Research Points, which can be used to contribute to the construction of your ride. The game has a skill tree that would make even a 90s role-playing title blush, and while you can ask for recommendations from your wax-faced engineer, merely browsing your options gives the impression that you’re part of a high-tech operation.
Even more realistically is that sometimes things will go wrong: it’s crazy to think that you may invest hard-earned in-game currency into a project that will ultimately fail, but thems the (broken) brakes. Of course, all of your extra-curricular activities are in service of the race, and the game’s no slouch there either.
As always with Codemasters’ F1 titles, you can truncate each race if you see fit, but the title really shines when you’ve got to drive long enough to pay attention to the wear of your tyres or the remaining fuel in your tank. There’s a lot to think about, but deeper communication options with your team provide plenty of feedback – and help add needed authenticity to the race day experience. You’re going to need those weather reports, because a sudden change can alter your entire strategy.
While this is a simulation, there are enough options to open up the experience to almost everyone. The title’s more than playable with a DualShock 4 – even with all assists off, it’s manageable on the pad – but obviously hardcore players will want to opt for a wheel. Whichever peripheral you play with, a hearty selection of support toggles allow you to tailor the experience to taste.
Another nice touch is the addition of an artificial intelligence slider, which replaces the pre-set difficulties of old. This means that you can tweak and tune until the level of competition feels just right, although an oversight that we noticed prevents you from changing the difficulty mid-Career, which can potentially lead to lost progression if you feel you need to re-balance things during your campaign.
It’s a shame because the Career is really good this year, aided by the variety augmented by Invitational events. These are Codemasters’ way of integrating the various classic cars that it’s added from yesteryear, and the short sprint or time-based activities peppered throughout drawn-out race weekends help imbue some needed variety and breathing room.
And if you still want to break that cycle of practice, qualify, compete, then the Championships running parallel to the campaign keep things moving at a brisker pace. Adopting different rules and themes – such as weather or track type – these have you competing in mini-contests for racing superiority. Sometimes these mix up sprints with longer races – or even reverse the grids. There’s an interesting array of challenges that eke even more mileage out of the game that’s been made.
The only real downside is that the presentation falls short. The game runs at an eye-melting 60 frames-per-second, and effortlessly captures the sport’s wild sense of speed – but screen tearing is a constant problem (even on the more powerful PS4 Pro) and it's extremely off-putting. Moreover, while each track from the real-world Formula One season has been meticulously rendered here, the visuals do look a bit flat.
The same can’t be said of the engine sounds, which are thunderous – particularly in some of those aforementioned classic cars. But the wooden pre-race commentary from the likes of Anthony Davidson fails to capture the broadcast-like presentation that the developer’s shooting for – and the cut-scenes in the Career mode fare worse. It’s not what you come to a game like this for, of course, but a bit more polish in these areas would have gone a long way.
Still, you’re going to spend most of your time on the track, and that’s what counts. Time Trials are a staple for the genre, but here the online ghosts are well integrated, serving up a rotating roster of lap times for you to target across both wet and dry surfaces. Meanwhile, the online grid once again allows for 20 participants, with the addition of two spectator spots which the developer probably hopes will help cultivate an e-sports scene.
Conclusion
F1 2017 flies across the finishing line in great form. Codemasters’ latest has captured the off-track trappings of the world’s most popular motorsport with a hearty R&D component that forms the backbone of its campaign. But behind the wheel the title fares just as well, with the Career mode implementing Invitational events to break up the routine – many of which are designed around a robust selection of historical rides. Factor in the rule altering Championships and a handling model that’s able to accommodate a wide range of skillsets, and you have a racer deserving of its podium place.
Comments 10
VR mode please Codemasters!!!!
Alonso sad face sums up his last seasons... Smile, it's a game!
Also a nice review. High scores for F1 2017
Agree with the others: (PS)VR support please!!
...quick question - is the resolution on PS4Pro higher than 1080p? or is it 1080/60FPS?
(again this could be one reason why XB1X might start to fare better on cross-platform games - they've announced this to be 4K on their system...I do fear PS4 could get left behind...)
@1ManAndHisDroid It's 4K on PS4 Pro.
@get2sammyb thanks for the info - would be good to have that kind of info in the review! (especially as you mentioned screen tearing, etc.)
From the Review "although an oversight that we noticed prevents you from changing the difficulty mid-Career,"
I am sorry but this is simply not true. You CAN change difficulty before each race in the career. You push Options during loading of the next race. It the game get loaded you cannot change until the next race.
@1ManAndHisDroid The game is 4k on Ps4 pro.
Its 4k Checkerboard on PS4 Pro. Not that I have an issue with using Checkerboard rendering technique as I think its incredible. CB offers devs/gamers to hit much higher resolutions, boost visual settings etc with very little impact to PQ. 1800p CB (for example) actually renders fewer pixels per frame than 1440p but looks sharper, more detailed etc - especially at normal viewing distances. 4k CB is a little higher pixel render count per frame but its 'almost' as good as native 4k - not bad considering its only rendering 50% of the image per frame.
The reason it works so well is that its pulling 50% of the image from the previous frame to make up a 'full' image instead of redrawing over the previous image. In some ways, its a bit like 'cartoons' where a static background is not redrawn for every frame but reused with only the 'animation' changes being drawn.
Maybe people don't understand how GPU's work. They draw every frame - even if you stand still with 'nothing' moving in the scene, the GPU draws that every single frame. It doesn't keep the same image on screen until you move but draws the same image every single time. What CB does, is draw 50% of the image and keeps the other 50% of the image instead of drawing the 'same' pixel over the previous. In moving images, the PS4 Pro has a built in object tracker to try and ensure the right pixels are pulled forward.
Whilst Checkerboard rendering may sound like some 'upscaling' technique, its not. Its more of a 'workload saving' technique. Its reducing the number of pixels the GPU has to render each frame BUT its still keeping the same Pixel density/picture size etc because the other 50% is kept from the previous frame. Both native and checkerboard 4k are at 3840x2160 in size. There are minor errors in using a CB technique but its still producing a full sized image - therefore no upscaling - of course 1800p CB is then upscaled to fit the 2160p screen size.
Upscaling though is stretching a smaller image up to fit the screen size. It usually does this by spacing all the pixels out evenly over the whole screen and then interpolating to fill in those gaps. The problem with this though is that the 'accuracy' is lost and leads to a 'soft' looking image. The reason it looks soft is because of the interpolation. Where a black pixel (say a outline) meets a white pixel, when stretched out, the 'gaps' are not filled with 'black' or white but 'grey' which softens the image. On a 4k screen, a 1080p image will have 75% interpolated pixels. Each 1080p pixel is equivalent to 4 at 4k. What it doesn't do is make all 4 4k pixels behave like 1 1080p pixel - ie all 4 have the same colour value. The interpolation is what makes upscaled images look blurry because the 'contrast' between each pixel is reduced. Instead of having that sharp black edge against a white background (for example) there is now a 'grey' pixel.
A good example for PS4 Pro owners, is Uncharted vs Horizon:ZD. Uncharted opt to go native at 1440p (the equivalent of 720p to 1080p) and Horizon:ZD is 2160p CB. Horizon is significantly sharper where as Uncharted as a softer edge to it. However if you only have a 1080p TV, both games will look equally as sharp as both are running at native 1080p - a 1:1 pixel map to the screens resolution.
Anyway that's the 'educational lesson' over. What is most interesting to me is that the Pro version of this game is utilising fp16 instructions (in other words - half instructions) to improve the performance. If games could run entirely using fp16 (instead of fp32 or 'full' instructions), this would give the Pro a theoretical 8.4tflops performance.
The Switch is able to use fp16 too but curiously, MS opted not to add that support to the 'X'. For Switch, it could give their 'docked' GPU almost 0.8tflops - a tenth of what the 'theoretical' maximum of the Pro.
It remains to be seen how frequently Devs opt (or can use) fp16 - especially with multi-platform releases. When its just the 'Pro' (the base PS4, all the Xbox consoles and the majority of PC GPU's can't use half instructions), its difficult to imagine that many devs will use it and at most anyway - even with 1st party devs, they will need to ensure that the game works entirely with 'full' instructions as these games have to run on fp32 only devices.
I always feel like the F1 games on PS1 were the peak of virtual F1, if it doesnt gave Murray Walker commentary it just doesnt feel the same 😂
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