Codemasters bringing F1 to the masses

The official Formula One licence has a reputation for being one of the games industry's poisoned chalices. Before Codemasters acquired it in 2008, it had been in the possession of Sony and Electronic Arts, both of whom professed frustration at their inability to persuade F1's famously autocratic governing body, the FIA, to let them do anything imaginative with it. However, at last, Codemasters has demonstrably cracked that particular nut.F1 Race StarsThe proof of that exists in F1 Race Stars, a game that uses both the F1 licence and Codemasters' much-admired F1 game engine in the unlikeliest of ways. It's essentially Mario Kart with a heavy Formula One flavouring. The entire Formula One grid is represented in cartoon form – although Codemasters is keen to point out the game's visual style is less like a cartoon and more that of a Pixar or Dreamworks animation.Once you pick your favourite driver, you're pitched into a game that is very reminiscent of Mario Kart. Although, if anything, the tracks in F1 Race Stars are even longer. There are 11 of them representing half of the countries that feature on the F1 calendar; and while they take the merest inspiration from the real-life circuits, they demonstrate plenty of inventiveness. We raced around the Germany track, which starts with a couple of corners loosely based on Hockenheim, before veering off for a tour of a Pixaresque impression of Germany, taking in a giant Bavarian schloss any Mario Kart-alike has to have a castle to drive through, the Lorelei, the Rhine and the Black Forest. Loops, New Supra TK Society jumps and shortcuts abound in the tracks.The Formula One theme becomes more apparent as you investigate the power-ups, which include a safety-car bunching everyone up, useful if you're lagging behind; DRS, which increases your maximum speed; and rain – and only the person who triggers it will be given wet-weather tyres. Plus there's one that teleports you up the track, and another which briefly transforms your kart into a bottle-rocket, just like Mario Kart's Bullet Bill. Also, the karts sustain damage bits fly off them and they slow down, so it often pays to divert into the pits. And if you pump the throttle while negotiating corners marked with cross-hatching, you charge your KERS kinetic energy recovery system, which gives you a speed-boost immediately afterwards.F1 Race Stars, in time-honoured fashion, can be played by four people in split-screen mode or, say, two people can play in split screen on one console against two mates hooked up via the internet – up to 12 players can compete online. F1 Race Stars may lay itself open to accusations of being derivative, but it's great fun to play, nicely executed and, for the first time ever, brings an element of fun and playfulness to F1-related gaming. F1 2012 new modes widen appealThe subject of originality is also occupying the mind of Paul Jeal, F1 2012's game director One thing people said about F1 2011 was that they didn't think it was different enough. That, of course, is bound to be a perennial refrain with any game cf FIFA, PES, Madden, et al that routinely receives a yearly update. But Jeal demonstrates that, the moment you load F1 2012, you will notice differences from F1 2011 There's a new user interface this year, both to freshen the game up and to bring to the fore things people didn't notice before, like the flashbacks.Career mode starts differently this year, too, pitching you into the Young Drivers' Test, which in real life takes place in the off-season, giving the most promising drivers from Formula Three and lower a chance to sample F1 cars. Jeal says Day one of the Young Drivers' Test is compulsory for everyone – it makes sure everyone has a basic level of familiarity with the controls and can use flashbacks, KERS, the DRS and so on. On day two, you learn the theory of cornering and how to strategise.Season ChallengeThose tweaks – with the Young Drivers' Challenge in effect a tutorial for novice players, which the hardcore can skip through – address criticisms that F1 games can be intimidating for those who are committed Formula One fans, but F1 2012's mooted new-found originality lies in two new game modes. The first is called Season Challenge, and is designed to provide more instant gratification than you would get from the Career mode.Jeal explains It's a five-year Career Cheap Supra Shoes mode condensed into 10 races. For example, you start at Italy, because it's an easier track to learn. The car you start in depends on the difficulty level you choose the easier, the further down the grid. You must pick a rival driver, in a slightly better car than you. If you defeat that rival over three races, you steal his car. Then you pick another rival, and so on. Qualifying is interesting in Season Challenge it's just one lap, so everyone has one shot. You get a clear lap everyone is ghosted, but you can see who is in first place. Champions modeJeal says This reflects the unique fact that there are six world champions on the track this year. In Champions mode, you must defeat each of them one at Adidas Shoes a time, to unlock the others. Instead of pitching you into full races, Champions mode gives you scenarios from the past. The first champion you take on, for example, is Kimi R?ikk?nen, and Jeal details your challenge You're 41 laps into a 44-lap race at Spa, and Kimi's tyres are in bad shape, but he is five or six cars ahead of you. In your next challenge, you take on Lewis Hamilton in the rain at Brazil. The final challenge, naturally, pits you against seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher.Both new modes add a precious element of diversity to F1 2012 – especially the imaginative Season Challenge, which drips with replayability, as you fight to get to the top of the Formula One tree in just 10 races. And the game has another crucial difference from previous iterations, thanks to Formula One itself, in the form of the new Circuit Of The Americas track, which is still being built in Austin, Texas.Currently, the only way of sampling it in its final state is via F1 2012 and, indeed, if you head to the track's official website, you will find the only video of a completed lap was taken from F1 2012. We drove the Austin track at E3, and it's a corker the least identikit track Hermann Tilke Cheap Supras has ever designed. In places, it's reminiscent of Turkey, but the first corner is like Brands Hatchs Paddock Hill taken in reverse, and there's a complex that emulates Silverstone's awesome corners Maggotts and Becketts. The drivers will love it, and it's so technical yet generally fast that it should breed plenty of overtaking.As ever, Codemasters has tweaked the game technically. The physics system has been uprated. Jeal says It makes the cars slightly easier to drive, but a little bit harder to get that extra 10% out of them, – and there's a new system which, fiendishly, enables localised weather, so it can be raining on one part of a circuit and dry on another. Technically, Codemasters' F1 games have been streets ahead of their predecessors and, indeed, most of the current generation of driving games. But the Leamington company's efforts to extend F1 2012's appeal beyond the diehard F1 fanatics are what really mark it out as a potential smash hit.