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As the name suggests, F1 2021 is this year’s official Formula 1 racing simulation.
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A great novelty at F1 2021 is Braking Point, a narrative story in which you play rookie Aiden Jackson and veteran Casper Akkerman.
Electronic arts
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You can choose from five different teams in Braking Point, but no matter what colors you wear, your team leader is always Brian Doyle.
Electronic arts
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If you just want to drive F1 cars as your favorite driver, you can do that as well.
Electronic arts
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2021 will be a championship year for Frankspeed, a new F1 team. His boss, Frank Franks, is also one of the drivers. (This is from My Team mode.)
Electronic arts
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But Frankspeed needs a good car, and that means managing the team effectively.
Electronic arts
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You have four departments that develop distinct areas of the car. Remember to congratulate them in interviews, it makes them happier.
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F1 2021 slightly modified the R&D tree.
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You earn points to spend on upgrades by completing practice programs during free practice sessions at each Grand Prix. But if you are feeling lazy, now you can ask the computer to simulate the result of these test programs.
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An example of one of the test programs.
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A qualifying practice spot.
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Frankspeed’s green livery really pops in front of the camera.
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The race is tight, but you will be penalized for any avoidable contact. Which means there is no other driver in the back.
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Talking to the press is part of an F1 driver’s job.
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I don’t think Valteri is going to send Frank a Christmas card at the end of this season.
Electronic arts
If you’re old enough that you started playing video games around the turn of the century, the words “EA is releasing a new Formula 1 game” might scare you. After all, the gaming giant released some really bad F1 brand racing games between 2000 and 2003. But even though this year’s box bears the EA logo, F1 2021 still looks like an end-to-end Codemasters game (EA bought the UK studio earlier this year).
This is good news, as Codemasters have been responsible for several very good F1 games over the past few years. As always, the studio’s challenge is to make this year’s episode different enough from last year’s version to get people to open their wallets. For F1 2021, the changes are largely due to a new single-player story mode and a two-player career mode, which are in addition to the various single-player, multiplayer, and esports modes you may remember. F1 2020.
These feature-packed new modes are exciting experiences from a development team best known for their good physique, but in an era of an engaging new F1 documentary series, it’s a smart move to capture some of the new ones. sports fans. And it’s well executed too.
F1 2021 [PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox]
Braking point
The new story mode is called Braking Point. Sometimes you play as F1 rookie Aiden Jackson, and other times you control his teammate Casper Akkerman, a former paddock man who is nearing the end of his time in the sport. Braking Point takes you through the seasons of F1 2020 and then 2021, each chapter offering a different challenge: having to recover from a tire puncture at the end of the race or having to finish in front of your teammate, for example.
Codemasters dipped their toe into this sort of thing with F1 2019 and the inclusion of Formula 2 (the power supply series for F1, again included in this year’s episode), which first featured the fictional AI opponent everyone loves to hate , Devon Butler. The good news is, Butler is back and as unsympathetic as ever as he tries to pit Casper and Aiden against each other.
“We knew that what we were doing in F1 2019 was really popular, really successful, “said Lee Mather, franchise game director at Codemasters, in an interview with Ars Technica.” We were pretty nervous about it because, as a team that makes racing games , there’s a big difference when you’re suddenly trying to inject real character into a story or into a person. And I think the fact that we made Devon Butler hate as much as he is showed that we actually have the ability to create these characters. “
You can very well detect the influence of a popular Netflix documentary in Braking Point. “There are a few things that are inspired by things that have happened in Drive to survive“Says Mather.” You will see what happens in the driver’s room and what happens at the team dinners. You’ll see what happens with Aiden’s mom calling him to find out how he’s doing – it builds the story and the relationships. ”
All the other modes you would expect
There’s probably a limit to how many times a player will pass through Braking Point, even with the game’s three difficulty presets: Casual, Standard, and Expert. But there should be decent longevity in the game’s other single player modes.
In My Team mode, you lead your own team (like a Jack Brabham or today’s Dan Gurney). Again, you can run a shortened or full season, but this time, in addition to doing well in every race, you have to manage the team in between: hire a second rider, field sponsors, keep the different departments happy. and develop a constant stream of updates for the car.
Like previous Codemasters F1 games, you earn Resource Points to pay for these upgrades by completing workouts every race weekend. These can seem a bit tricky after each Grand Prix, and there is now an option to simulate testing instead. (F1 2020 allows you to simulate races but not workouts.) However, some test programs will only have a 50 or 25 percent success rate when simulated.
As we detailed earlier, Codemasters will regularly update the Driver Rankings for real-world drivers in the game. And if you’ve splurged with the Digital Deluxe Edition, you can hire Legends of the Sport from yesteryear, notably Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.
Perhaps the most important thing about F1 2021 is that Codemasters haven’t changed the actual mechanics of driving the cars, beyond the adjustments needed for the 2021 spec cars. With a good feedback wheel from force, the cars are engaging to drive and you can sense subtleties in the cars of different teams – a McLaren behaves differently from an Alpine, a Red Bull or a Mercedes. If you are a sports fan you will probably enjoy F1 2021.
Good:
- Always brilliant physics and F1 cars are fun to drive
- Braking Point offers you an interesting set of challenges wrapped in a story
- Even more flexibility with game settings and aids
- There is no chance that any of your digital races will be canceled due to the pandemic
The bad:
- Like last year, the real world schedule is going to be a bit different from the game due to the pandemic canceling races.
- Sometimes reviewers don’t properly recognize how impressive your run was
The ugly one:
- The Dutch accent of Casper Akkerman, because it looks very Danish to me
Verdict: Buy it if you are an F1 fan.
Listing image by Electronic Arts
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