Formula 1 Championship Edition Reader Review

So at launch there wasn't much in the way of racing games...RR7 was said to be too easy and Motorstorm is clearly an arcade game disguised as a racing game....much kudos to it, i like it, but it's not racing. And let's not talk about NFS version 18 or whatever it's at.

The question on the lips of most will be just how much of a simulation is it? Well to be short and sweet, I feel it gets the balance right for this type of racer. Talking purely in terms of the handling model it's pitched to be a bit more simmy than Turismo and about say the Live for Speed/GTR2 area, not as simmy as perhaps Rfactor or the first GTR.

It's forgiving where you need it to be...if you're on a straight and tip-toe onto the grass, then you can recover easily enough. If however you try the same with a loaded outside wheel...you're going to lose a wheel in the barrier and you're out.

Whilst you're learning, wheels and wings pop off with gay abandon....which in replay it looks stunning. But this is indicative of it's difficulty level...it's hard. Which is a result of the fact that you're trying to drive an F1 car in a pack of 22 cars around tight circuits...IT IS HARD! I can see me still playing this in a year's time because it's such a challenge to even finish a race when starting at P22 (in quick-race mode).

So yes the handling is really good and you have facility to play with traction control from the cockpit. With manual gears and the steering/braking assists off it's a tough but fair game and i for one recommend it from the handling model perspective.

You know how the game works..career/ championship/ qualify...it's all good. However don't get too excited about MP online...it's a fairly rubbish lobby and no voice-chat. Plus the collision detection seems to make it easy to bump others off the track..meaning you're basically stuck with private games with pals if you want to make it work...but without voice-chat i don't think this has legs. A shame because Sony possibly don't hold the F1 licence anymore, so unless they 'update' this game, I think it's the end of 'nearly uptodate' F1 sims from Sony.