The good group of blokes at Codemasters is working on a gorgeous, revamped edition of their popular racing series with F1 2010.
The game features 24 cars (they’re still waiting for some licensing permission) and focuses mainly on a ‘career’ mode, as your quest is to live the life of an F1 driver (don’t worry, there will be a kickass multiplayer mode — we just didn’t see it).
What’s unique about Codemasters’ creation is that it is going to do its best to bring real life experiences into the game. For example, the weather is completely dynamic. Meaning, you can see clouds roll in during a race and a rainstorm kick up, forcing you to do things differently. You have to change up your strategies and have to change up your driving methods, and you even have to change up your tires on your car to help you function properly on the track.
We saw a rainstorm roll into the race and the effects were probably one of the best we’ve seen in any game of this type. Cars were kicking up rain, rain was spraying off the tires and the view you get is obstructed a bit by the raindrops falling. What’s even a little bit cooler is that the raindrops react to the speed you’re maintaining. It looks accurate and pretty awesome.
Pretty effects, but there is more to this game.
You can tweak things like engines, tires and other wonderful F1 car attributes in the game. You also get realistic damage that affects your racing abilities. The developers told us that the damage can be light to ‘you’re out of the race’. The light damage can be fixed by a pit crew of motion-captured actors. They were particularly proud of having pit crew animation that actually conformed to your pitting needs. For example, if you’ve lost your front fin after a nasty bump with another player then the pit crew will react to the front fin.
Pretty nifty.
Finally, the AI was another feather in their cap, as it will actually ‘fight’ for position during the game. It will not allow you to go easily around you. Heck, the way they were talking it was if you’ll get more competition from the computer then your friends.
Anyway, more info on this game to come!
