F1 2015 is ostensibly a racing title first and foremost, but because it represents a specific racing league, it also finds itself within the parameters of sports series like Madden and FIFA, which means it faces the daunting task of reinventing itself each year to justify a purchase unlike Forza or Gran Turismo, which can bide their time until technology or game design changes enough to warrant a sequel. So it’s not surprising that this first real gen version of F1 had to make a few compromises to get out of the door. The question is, were they the right ones?

Right off the bat from the main menu you can see the options are pared down. First off you can decide to play either the 2014 or 2015 season’s races, but after that the only single player options are to play through the campaign with various length and difficulty tweaks (including how much you want to practice and qualify, as well as how many laps the final race takes and any AI difficulty adjustments or assists you might want to use or forgo), or go all hardcore pro mode and play through the races just like real life with the highest difficulty AI. Gone is the career mode where you could make your own racer and ascend through the ranks, starting with the small teams before working your way up to the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes AMG. Honestly this was my favorite mode so I’m sad to see it gone by the wayside. At least the normal campaign puts together a nice enough presentation with commentary and such that it’s worth a run through. If you want to skip all that however you can also just do quick races and time trials.

Multiplayer is of course is still an option, fortunately. Earlier reviews seemed to imply it was broken, but I was able to jump in without much issue, so I assume the servers and/or the game have been patched to deal with connectivity issues. Either that or the game’s population has dropped considerably thus making things run more smoothly. It works similar to other racing games in that there are preset playlists (or “hoppers” as this game calls it) with different difficulty settings and race tracks. You can also create your own custom seasons to play with friends. The only thing I didn’t like about this approach is the matchmaking will sometimes plunk you into a hopper with people already racing and thus you will have to wait for the current race to finish before you can participate, which can be quite a while. You can spectate, but the warping and such make watching an odd experience. It’s less noticeable when you are playing, thankfully.

Once you’re on the track, things are pretty solid and nothing really feels missing. The addition of grip and tire degradation as well as fuel economy mechanics make the longer races a lot more interesting as you have to adjust for the changing weather and gamble on how far you want to push things to make it up the field, while timing your pits right so you won’t need to pull in at the critical moment. I’ve heard some gripe about aggressive AI banging into you but I did not have that issue. The AI is fairly intelligent while not being unbeatable at the mid range settings, just how I like it. It’s pretty satisfying not only to win races but to turn in the fastest lap in practice and qualifying, and it all controls quite nicely with the DualShock 4 now that it has proper triggers unlike past Playstations.

The visuals are definitely stepped up a notch with more detailed cars and tracks, as well as lighting that adjusts to the weather. More importantly, the framerate stays at a smooth and fast clip with not much noticeable pop in and no screen tearing. You definitely get the right sensation of speed from this game unlike previous versions of this that I have played on PC. Audio wise the commentary is nicely done, with specific lines about each track and references to the past season and changes in the rules for this season, though I’m sure it will get repetitive with enough plays. The only thing I didn’t like was the crew audio being played through the controller speaker. It was really hard to make out even on the highest volume. You’ll have to go into the settings and tell it to output to the TV or at least turn on subtitles in order to make out their advice, IMO. Some of it is handy, but sometimes they’ll chime in with something completely irrelevant, especially if you’re well in the lead.

Could F1 2015 be more fleshed out? Certainly. After completing a season I was a bit at odds to find a reason to continue playing it, besides multiplayer, which as we all know is always a bit of a gamble as far as finding enjoyable people to play with. But the base of the game here is well established and with a new career mode next year I think Codemasters will have a gem on their hands. For now though, I’d only suggest this for the biggest racing or F1 fans.

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