Codemasters F1 2010 Game review Xbox 360

After a much  awaited wait, Codemasters finally released their latest version of the Official Formula 1 2010 racing game. This was the perfect time for a launch keeping in mind, most are experiencing the most interesting title fight in reality as the Formula One 2010 season moves towards the final few races of the  racing calender.  I had anyways begun my countdown for this sometime ago and was thrilled the day it was announced  that Formula 1 2010 was available to all

I finally got hold of F1 2010 game 2 weeks ago and boy oh boy it’s simply amazing and definitely worth the wait. The last F1 game that I played was by EA Sports way back in 2002 and the wait was simply killing me because I am a hardcore Formula One fan  

Anyways, lets dig more into the F1 2010 game and see what it has to offer. Firstly, the graphics are simply stunning. Right from car models, to actual driver faces, it’s highly realistic. Even the pit crew, their movements, comments, advice is highly realistic. The driver, that is you has control of almost each and every setting real time. He can ask for technical tweaks, alterations to the ride height, change of tyres, plan pit stop strategies and much more;- your race engineer will get it done for you.

Damage is something that I really look forward to in a racing game. There’s no point in driving an invincible car around the circuit. We need to drive a car that can break if hurt, and F1 2010 has just that. You can witness front wings come off, tyre punctures, chipped nose and much more. All this affects the balance and grip of the car completely. You can have your race engineer on radio asking you to switch the Front Wing in the “Up – Direction” to battle loss of front end grip which really sounds cool. Furthermore, any sort of damage to your suspension or the rear wing and it’s race over for you.

Racing rules apply all through the race weekend, be it practice or qualifying. Cutting of corners, ignoring flags, causing a collision, and so on and you’re issued a warning and even penalized.

Although the game is 90% complete there were certain things I would have liked to see. Firstly there’s no safety car; – well it really would have changed the entire context of the game had this been introduced, secondly the pit crew, race engineer, etc remains the same irrespective of the team you drive for. Be it Lotus, Force India, the pit crew faces are the same!!

Apart from these minor absentees, I don’t see too much wrong in the game. The interviews, post race press conference gives it a realistic feeling. All in all, Codemasters have done a wonderful job with F1 2010 and it’s certainly a game worth having for all F1 fans out there. I’d rate this game as 8/10

Although, I’ve reviewed the F1 2010 Xbox 360 version of the game, I’m sure the PC version also rocks and PC users can get hold of their copy here