Developed by Codemasters Birmingham

Published by Codemasters

*Please Note: This Review is of the PlayStation 4 Version*

This years Formula 1 game entry by codemasters is a very refreshing experience and is probably codemasters best Formula 1 game to date.

F1 2016 is a racing game which is based on the 2016 Formula One season and was developed by Codemasters Birmingham, published by Codemasters, distributed by Square Enix in North America and Ubisoft in Japan. The game is the eighth installment in the F1 franchise developed by Codemasters. The game was released on 19 August 2016 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

Story (Career):

The career mode in any Formula 1 game is the thing that makes me look forward the most to a Formula 1 game. This years Career mode is a big step up from previous years. This year they brought back the motorhome, you can choose your own avatar (first time since F1 Championship edition, on the PS3, released in 2007) , you can customize the color on your helmet and the career mode is now 10 seasons long.

If you are an entry level beginner or a hardcore racing game fan, this is well worth a purchase.

Everything is customizable; everything is just as it should be. There’s a great tutorial section in the career featuring short videos that explain aspects of the game like DRS, safety car info etc. I went through each one and by the end of it, had a much better understanding how everything works.

The career mode begins with you choosing a team. The faster teams have higher expectations. You must win a championship within 2 seasons. The slower teams are more relaxed and have a lower expectation.

In the practice sessions, you can complete R&D tests for your team, giving you extra points along the way. These points can be used to upgrade your car, with the upgrades being applied to the car the next weekend, so plan ahead.

Another thing that made me love career mode a lot this year is the fact that you can now do 5 lap races, this is great to me as I feel this makes the game a much more pick up and play for 10 minutes. This allows people who go to school, college or have a job to be able to enjoy this great game without the need to spend at least 25-30 minutes per race. It’ll be nice to see if codemasters make this option available in future entries. You also compete in a total of 21 races each season, which is a lot for an F1 season but that means you can still have a good chance of winning the championship if you have a few hiccups along the way!.

Gameplay:

F1 2016 has the smoothest gameplay for an F1 game ever. The AI in the game are challenging (depending on the difficulty of course) and entertaining, at times I felt like I was racing against their real life counterparts. The race day presentation is a nice touch with voices from David Croft and Anthony Davidson talking about the race weekend, current session and the track. The penalty has been a bit of a problem in some previous F1 games, however in F1 2016, the penalty system is the best it’s been yet, with the AI getting actual penalties for their own actions.

Improvements for future F1 titles

• Your name being announced at the end of the race (or before in the build up) as of right now, it doesn’t do that. Instead they say, for example: “the renault driver”.
• Tracks shuffle around at the beginning of a new season, this will keep career mode feel a bit more fresh and gives it extra replayability.
• Earning trophies for breaking real life records (for example: beating schumacher’s record of 7 titles in career mode, beating Ascari/Vettel’s record for 9 wins in a row)
• Your career mode driver actually getting injured. This will encourage drivers to actually complete the races and also give them a sense of real-life danger that is present in all of motorsport.
• Awards at the end of season, for example: driver of the year, overtake of the year, pole lap of the year etc.

Sound:

In terms of soundtracks, F1 2016 doesn’t have a top notch soundtrack, however the music is not really important for an F1 game as your main focus is on the racing. However when you’re actually racing, the sound is very nice and well done, the nice roaring sound of your engine and the nicely well done race engineer makes this game feel more vibrant, and makes you feel like you’re an actual F1 driver in an F1 car.

Graphics:

The visuals for F1 2016 are the best yet for an F1 game! Codemasters have done a really great job in making the graphics look realistic and the level of detail on each car is phenomenal, and the level of detail to each circuit is amazing, even the motorhomes look really great. However the only improvement  codemasters has to make for future entries is to improve the character models, they’re pretty good but I believe that codemasters can make much better improvements to the character models.

Final Thoughts:

F1 2016 is my favourite F1 game, and Codemasters has hit it out of the park with this game. I can not wait to see where Codemasters takes this franchise as I know it can only get better!

Score = 9.5/10

The Good:

• Great AI
• Great and vibrant visuals
• Very smooth gameplay
• Fantastic career mode
• Good penalty system
• Very easy for beginners
• Very challenging for elites
• Great circuits

The Bad:

• Career mode can be repetitive
• Not the best character models
• Vettel and his blue flags

F1 2016 is available now from all good retailers for PlayStation 4, Xbox One & PC. Thanks go out to Koch Media and Codemasters for supplying the game and assets used in this review. Be sure to let me know what you thought of the review in the comments section below and be sure to stay tuned to UGNN for all your gaming news and reviews and remember to follow us on  Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Review by Luke Harrison