F1 2018 Review
Xbox Reviews

F1 2018 Review

F1 2018

Publisher: Codemasters
Developer: Codemasters
I personally don’t enjoy watching Formule 1 on television but I do love to play the games! It is a total different racing experience than for example both the Forza IP’s or Codemasters latest fantastic ONRUSH. So I might not know a lot about who is in the lead right now (Okay I do know that .. Hamilton right?!) but I do know a lot about how the games (should) work. So put on your helmet, strap yourself to your seat and enjoy this review for F1 2018!

What do you do?

F1 2018 is the official FIA Formula One World Championship game so all your teams, drivers and circuits of this season are included. You drive around with your fancy car at high speeds and try to conquer the career mode.

What is good?

  • Codemasters completely nailed the AI part, this might even be the most human like single payer racing experience that I ever played. Drivers defend the perfect racing line and will counter defence you when you try to pass them.
  • What I especially liked about the online play was the fairplay ranking, we all know how annoying it is when someone online hits your ride,  not always on purpose but you have those guys who just like to cause some havoc. The fairplay ranking helps with playing against decent drivers. Again, I still had moments that crashes happened (happens in real too) but far less than for example a Forza game.
  •  Controlling your car and the sense of speed while doing straight lines and tight corners is simply perfect. Formule cars totally have a different way how they stay on the ground, I could give you a boring and technical explanation but I’ll spare you that. What you do have to know is that the physics work how you would expect.

Mixed feelings

  • I’m not the guy that read other reviews but I’m pretty sure that most other review sources will praise the visuals from the game. And I definitely won’t disagree with that, on Xbox One X the game looks sharp and detailed but my gripe with it is how lifeless everything looks.  The game seems to have some kind of plastic-filter, that said playing the game through the eyes of the driver is a real marvel to witness. F1 2018 is without a doubt one of the better looking racing games on Xbox but I wish I could unsee that plastic-filter.
  • After the race you be interviewed by some press lady, the idea behind this is great but the execution is a little weak. You always have choices but I don’t see why anyone should ever pick some of the answers. Another issue I had is the time you have to pick a dialogue time, I’m a fast reader but even I had trouble reading everything and choosing my response. Could you maybe give players a little bit more time Codemasters?
  • I’m placing this at mixed feelings because I know that Formule 1 means playing many laps at the same track. This isn’t really my thing though, I dislike racing 20 laps and F1 2018 kinda forces you to do that. First you have the practise sessions where you have to do some mini game like racing, this was introduced two years ago. It is an option to skip this but driving these will get you more points for improving your ride, I do have to add that it is less punishing than previous years. Qualifying laps and the actual race has quite a few laps too. In other words you’ll spend around half an hour or more on the same track and that’s simply way too much for me to keep my interest. Again, I do want to point out that this is typical for Formule 1 racing so that’s why I placed it in the mixed feelings section!

What is bad?

  • While the game ran smooth nine times out of ten I did have some serious frame rate issues at random occasions. This only happened rarely in a handful of hours but annoying nonetheless. This is likely something that the developer will solve in the future, so please don’t let this awesome racing game aside because of it.

F1 2018 [Score: 89%]

F1 2018 is simply the best released racing game so far in 2018, the physics are on spot, the gameplay is fast and fun and the licensing is awesome for Formule fans. Codemasters made a fantastic racing experience that other developers can use as a benchmark.

Related Posts