F1 2009

Well, this is going to be interesting! I posted a little while ago about the Preview event for F1 2009 and was, well let’s be honest, less that rabid about the game that I saw. Having a full copy of the game in my hand, along with the wheel accessory for my Wii-mote, made me feel initially slightly guilty about the things I said. After all, I said I wouldn’t buy it for the Wii, but probably would take a look for the Xbox or PS3.

So here’s the deal, I’m going to be as objective as possible about the game and, having played all of its modes, I think I’ve got a good handle on what it does and how it does it.

The game has  a few modes you can run in, some of which match up to the “see it on the telly, race it in your living room” positioning of the product and others which demand longer-term and more sustained play.

Time-Trial: Is basically what it says on the tin. You pick a driver and a track and thrash round (hopefully) getting faster and faster. The reward being an award in your trophy cabinet. This is actually not a bad way to kill a few minutes and certainly shows you where you may be making or losing time on any particular circuit as your fast-lap ghost wiggles along in front or, if things are working out, a little bit behind you. The audio clips from your race engineer also give you clues that you were “A little faster through there” or have driven a “Good section”. If you want to perfect your line before racing and don’t want the pressure of the practice and qualifying sessions on your shoulders (more later) then this would be the way to do it.

Challenge: Drops you in a car at a track with a specific goal to achieve. This may be to get the fastest lap, win a race, pass as many checkpoints as possible in a limited time or pass as many other cars as possible in a lap. Challenge is the one mode, apart from Career, where you can’t just choose a fast driver/car combination to give you an advantage – well it is Challenge mode!

Grand Prix Weekend: Gives you the GP experience. 2 practice sessions on Friday allow you time to learn the track and make some tuning changes to get yourself towards the pointy end of the grid. Saturday’s practice session gives you the final opportunity to tweak and then you’re into the 3-stage qualifying process. For those who aren’t au fait with the qualification procedure in F1, all of the cars take part in the first qualifying session and the top fifteen then go through to the second session, with the remainder making up their finishing positions on the grid. Q2 works in the same way but the previous times are deleted and everyone starts from scratch, and at the end of this session the top ten proceed to Q3 and the process is repeated to define the final ten grid positions.
After qualifying is finished it’s race time and you sit – in pole position of course (!) – waiting for the start. Laps are raced and you finish. Simples.

Grand Prix Season: A full season of GP Weekend races with your finishing positions and points accumulated to give a final championship finishing position. You get to choose who you race the season as, so if aren’t happy with this years real result – go Jenson – then you can revise history and give Lewis his second World Championship win or Felipe a full season.

Career: So, here is where you get to race as yourself. Having created your driver’s characteristics – name, nationality, helmet design etc – you start off as an untested rookie waiting for ‘that call’. The call comes as emails into your Inbox inviting you to go to testing sessions. Now, you aren’t going to get a drive for McLaren, Ferrari or Williams as a rookie so don’t be disappointed when it’s BMW, Torro Rosso or Force India asking you to drop by and give their car a blast. You may also get more than one invitation and there’s nothing to say that you shouldn’t do all of the tests and then pick from the offers you get, as long as you’ve made the grade of course.
Once you’ve joined a team you’ll be given a target for your first season – mine was 20 points – which will secure you a further contract or even additional offers. You race through the season moving onwards and upwards with the ultimate goal that, at the end of your 3-year career, you are World Champion.

That’s the mechanics done, now for the actual gameplay. The wheel add-on for the Wii-mote is a tricky little bugger to get to grips with but, when you get in the mode, it’s actually not bad to use. The major negative for me though, is that the throttle is the ‘2’ button on the front of the control and the brake is the ‘B’ button on the back. Digital controls on a racing game are a pain and detract from the immersion which should come from the motion controls. As I mentioned in my preview posting, there are other control options, the classic controller provides analogue throttle and brake but there’s no proportion on the steering and the Logitech wheel gives feedback but you lose again on the throttle and braking.

For a quick game the supplied add-on is fine, but for longer stints it becomes a little tedious and actually becomes a chore to use, or at least I found it so.

The graphics are as good as they can be. This is the Wii, not the 360, not the PS3 and as a result anyone who’s used to racing on these platforms will look are F1 2009 with raised eyebrows and a curl of the lip. It’s difficult not to draw comparisons and they’ll always be invidious, but if a Wii is your gaming platform of choice then you’re not going to be disappointed with the look of F1 2009. If, like me however, you’re a multi-platform owner then it’s difficult not to dismiss this as average and  not much beyond. For us the 2010 version for the 3rd Gen. platforms will find a home, but not this one.

There is a multi-player mode which allows the screen to be split horizontally or vertically and if you’re after a few laps around Monza with your mates after a beer or three it’ll do the job. I would hesitate to suggest that any serious time could be spent in this mode though as the compromise in viewing area is significant and when tied in with the resolution issues I mentioned above you’ll simply end up with a headache!