Recreating the thrills, spills and epic realism is what developer Codemasters, have championed over the past decade which is why the F1 games have gone from strength to strength. Spoiler alert, F1 2020 is phenomenal, but what fine tuning have Codemasters done to turn this into a must own F1 game?
Prefacing the rest of this review, an understanding of real-world 2020 must be taken into account when applying realism to the season itself, which has undergone a number of changes to the circuits that are being featured this season. This is something that Codemasters could not have foreseen and therefore they have carried on to develop F1 2020 based on the season that it should have been. Luckily, F1 2020 thrusts the player into the new career mode “My Team” to get things kicked off. My team is a fresh take on building a brand-new team from scratch to rise up the ranks all while managing the development of partner drivers and the cars themselves. Creating the team felt easy to do and there are many design options off the bat, including those for the driver or the liveries for the cars. Moving forward, setting options for what team members do during the off-weeks is vital to progressing, with options of sending engineers into team building exercises or by attending courses on media training. Each decision made and answer given to the press has its permutations on the game, almost implementing RPG-esque elements into decision making. Furthermore, to expand the roster of drivers, F1 2020 has continued from F1 2019’s decision to bring in drivers from F2, with more to come as the season continues, allowing them to be signed to the created team which allows for the option of going with developing a rookie driver or taking on the more experienced drivers, each has their own downsides and benefits. Sign an established driver and their morale may go down if they aren’t the number 1 driver in your team, or sign a rookie who makes an utter hash of the race and there will be a price to pay with the sponsors when the team doesn’t deliver.
The addictive gameplay loop of My Team would not be worth much if the actual gameplay of F1 2020 2020 was poor. Once again, Codemasters, have done a stellar job of taking the ongoing refinements from previous iterations and adding on a gloss of new paint. The controls feel incredibly responsive as cars handle more realistically than ever, including when the tyres degrade leaving cars much more noticeably harder to get through the track, which sharpens that difficulty curve for those who aren’t used to such a fluctuation. Luckily, an easier handling option is available for newcomers, or those who don’t face such an arduous challenge, making this realistic simulation racer much more accessible than ever before. This could be particularly great for those who are huge Formula 1 fans but aren’t necessarily gamers, especially given that F1 2020 looks so much like the real product that anyone would be fooled into thinking that this is the real thing. Cars, landscapes, sounds, customisable HUDs, camera angles and pre-game cinematics all look like the genuine product. It is a real testament to say that Codemasters have absolutely nailed the look and feel of F1 but have also added compelling tweaks to driving and modes, which now includes multiplayer split screen for the first time in yonks!
