F1 Race Stars Review

Platforms: PS3|Xbox 360|PC

Developers: Codemasters Birmingham

Publisher: Codemasters








When I first heard about this game I must admit I was quite excited, firstly because I am huge F1 fan so I was interested to see how Codemasters would recreate one of the worlds popular sports, into a Mario Kart style game. When I looked at the trailer I think I had huge expectations for the game and couldn't wait to get my hands on the controller and start playing.

I must say my first impressions I was quite pleased the way the graphics with it's bright colours and seeing the F1 drivers in cartoon, even though they do look as camp as a row of pink tents. But seeing the use of power ups and seeing the camp F1 drivers racing around battering each other and giving each other banter kinda brings a smile to your face. So after watching the introduction it was time to pick my driver and get on the track.

When I load up the game, F1 Race Stars kind of sets it self out like other karting games, you have your variety of tracks, gold silver and bronze trophies which are awarded when you finish on the podium, something that a lot of the drivers cannot manage. Which brings me to the best part; you can pick to be your favourite F1 driver so if you feel the need to be Timo Glock and show Vetel and Alonso how it's done. Codemasters also felt the need to add two fictional  teams one mixed gender and one female team. I kinda understand why this is done but personally I don't understand why they bothered, It's kinda like at Christmas when you get everything you wanted and then someone gives you something that you have no interest in so you just throw them it into the cupboard never to see daylight again so you don't hurt that persons feelings.

Now lets start on Career mode it's made up of around 30 trophy races where you have a number of tracks to race on much like Mario Kart. Although they are normal races first one to cross the finish line wins, but you do have an elimination race which is basically if you're last at the start of the next lap you're screwed and eliminated from the race so it's best to screw the other drivers over and stay first. If you get bored of making the computer your bitch, then you can use the online multiplayer to attempt to make people across the world your bitch and make them eat your rubber.

The tracks within Race Stars are of course linked with the race calendar of F1 but feature a twist, because when you're racing on a country's track, let's say Japan, you will come across sumo  wrestlers and in Abu Dhabi you race next to the Ferrari World theme park.  Although the tracks are from the real F1 they do not follow the real tracks 100% but I suppose thats the fun of the game right? I must say the cartoon graphics of the track really do make it fascinating but they best be for the amount of time you are left looking at the scenery. Yeah, that's right, I'm saying that you do not feel you're racing in an F1 car, but instead a rust box that as soon as you accelerate you just happen to notice an old man on his mobility scooter waving the finger. The tracks seem far to long for this style of game, I mean a whole 2 minutes a lap on most circuits seems far too long, which means you will easily find your self getting bored and thinking what you could possibly do to make it more difficult for yourself like trying to juggle whilst racing and unfortunately there's more more issues to come.

Now when I was on the starting grid waiting to finish the drivers all pointing at each other like they were suggesting something to happen after the race which I will not go into detail about, I got to the first corner to find out there is no drifting so my driver went straight of the track and into the nearest strip club because wait for it yes you do have to break and hit the corner perfect to get a good leader on your opponents. Now you may be thinking this is what F1 is about; braking and getting as much traction as possible, but in my opinion thats what you buy F1 2012 for. With this game I thought it was something you could just play with your mates whilst your incredibly drunk waving the finger at them as you drift round a corner whilst necking your pint but unfortunately you can't.

Another annoying factor is every time you are hit by an item your car gets damaged and eventually you need to pit stop because if you don't you are forced to watch sparks come of your car and watch the rear wheels shake around like your dad after he's had one too many. Although they have spit lanes dotted out across the map and you can still drive through them at full pace, you will find your self from having a good car to a car that acts like a 3 legged dog I mean it still goes but you just know it's not going to be able to run at full pace and bring home the ball that you kindly threw for it. Also seeing as though it could be a good 30 seconds before you see a pit lane, you will notice just how boring the game can be because your just watching people drive right past you and your just forced to stare at the oddly shaped trees. I can understand what Codemasters tried doing but I just feel like they didn't really think it through and tried making it a serious game rather than just a sit down and have a laugh.

The game is not all that bad, to help you get out that state of boredom at times they did have the option of adding KERs (basically nitrous oxide) which is what real F1 drivers have the use of each lap, well apart from the back runners like HRT. KERs is used in this game when you get a blue section of the track you pump the accelerator to charge the KERs battery but don't worry it only requires 3 pumps which is probably more than we require right? Depending on the charge you have determines the amount of added pace you get after the blue section although it seems to be a good feature the AI seems to always get a good KERs boost and they just drive by whilst giving you the finger (metaphorically speaking, that is) but the worst thing about it is that most of the blue sections appear near corners so as soon as you use the KERs you find your self slamming on the brakes so that your driver doesn't go off the track and into the strip club (yet again metaphorically).

Now towards the end of this review I will go into more detail about the Items (something Codemasters didn't do) that are used to make other drivers your bitch. The items are colour coded for example red ones are homing missiles that shoot out from your car for the driver infront to receive a nice missile in a place we all dread, then we have blue bubble things that if your opponent drives into because they are blind or to busy trying to juggle then they stop in their tracks, then we have the yellow ones which just shoot out infront of you and seem to do nothing at all in my opinion. Although they add fun to the game but you just feel that Codemasters just didn't really go into much planning and just did something to make a real F1 experience  rather than just thinking what could be fun although the safety car item which slows everyone down is a good idea but the others just seem to have copied other karting games and not made it's own unique feature.

Overall I put my hands together for what Codemasters have attempted here but I do feel that this game had more potential and that they really tried to hard to make it more like an F1 experience rather than just being spontaneous and making the game fun. Even though the graphics are good and the designs are very enjoyable you just feel that without the drifting and the long tracks that you will just be sat wishing there was something else to do and personally I feel the £40 is not worth it and that it should maybe have been put as DLC on F1 2012 game. So in the end I feel that F1 Race Stars has been made too serious and that it could've been more enjoyable so I rate it 6/10.

6/10

Thanks for reading Guys :)
Liam3k