Hi all,
I have been playing the actual game, not the demo, for the past hour or so. Before you ask, I'm the motorsports editor for Autoweek in the USA and each year we receive some review copies a few days early. That's how I have it.
Each year, I read all the arguments here, and I too downloaded the demo the other night and was not thrilled. I only played it for about 20 minutes, and I wasn't anywhere near as hysterical about it as some have been. But it did feel . . . odd and numb.
Good news, boys. The game comes alive once you have the open car setup options available--and especially the advanced wheel options. In fact, I've barely got into the car setup because I've been screwing with wheel options over and over. Starting to dial it in, and it is a HUGE improvement over the demo. None of the weird weaving on the straights, and I honestly feel so far that the force feedback--completely lacking in the demo--is the best yet. By far. The first two games had nowhere near enough wheel weight on the straights, and barely in the corners. Put it to 100 and it is a major difference.
Understeer? I've slowly started to dial it out just by using the advanced wheel setup. After an hour or so, I am very confident that the right settings combined with a good car setup--again, I just took a guess and bolted one on, too much downforce just to make the car stable--will eliminate a huge percentage of those complaints.
No wheelspin or oversteer? Hmmm, not in my opinion at this point. It seems to vary by corner and chassis load, just as in real life. I HAVE spun the car on the throttle in medium speed corners with all assists off.
I'm not in a postition to say the thing is perfect, but my initial reaction after playing the demo is that it has loads of potential from the pure driving standpoint. Haven't done anything but a bunch of practice laps at Spa, my favorite track, but I feel confident when I say the demo has people freaking out for no good reason. I think this is going to turn out to be the best Codemasters F1 offering by a longshot once we all get dialed in. Relax, dudes.
Last thing: I'm on PS3. The graphics are a huge step up from 2011 on my 50-inch plasma. I liked playing that game, but good lord did it hurt my eyes. No more. For the first time in the series, I can use cockpit view and not get disoriented. Bottom line: if you ask me right now, without official review notes and any idea of actually racing the AI or possible bugs, this will go down easily as the best pure driver Codemasters has done yet. All I need is a good car setup and tweaked wheel settings. No doubt plenty of people will find them--me, I don't necessarily have the patience LOL. But with just an hour of screwing around with it, I'm extremely pleased. To the point that I think the reactions to the demo will go down as a "remember when we all freaked out?" moment.