F1 2021 Review

There's something to be said for being able to find something new and fresh for each iteration of an annual sports title. In the world of racing, there are usually some under the hood improvements to things like tyre physics. But in the F1 series of games, Codemasters have that nailed down quite well already. So how do you add something fresh and new to get players back in the driving seat?

Mazepin up the front of the grid..?

Last year, they did it by adding the "My Team" mode to the series, allowing you to take part as an owner/driver, managing all aspects of the entire team from research and development to the hiring and firing of your teammate on track. Thankfully, that's still there in 2021, but it's the addition of the new career mode that has the pit wall looking on in anticipation of what's in store.

It's a gripping tale of young upstart Aiden Jackson joining a team alongside the well established older driver Casper Akkerman, and the relationship between those two - both on and off track. There's also your antagonist, Devon Butler, who is keen to sit on the side lines of your in-team rivalry and stick his wheel in where it's not wanted. Think along the lines of Netflix's "Drive to Survive" series, and you'll be on the lines of the kind of story delivery you can expect, just without the foul language. Initially, I didn't think it would pull me in the way that it did, but ramping up the in-game difficulty helped cement the real "underdog" attitude to it all. The only real gripe on show here is the uncanny valley effect from the mouths of the characters as they converse with one another. The models themselves are expressive and look fantastic, but something about how they move their lips just doesn't sit right, but it's an absolute minor nit-pick that can be easily overlooked. After all, this is a racing game primarily and not a competitor to other full narrative-driven games.

But that's not really what we're here for, is it? This year's title really encapsulates the handling of the current season cars much more. There's an understeer prevalent in this year's cars that means you need to be tighter on your braking lines and requires more practice with trail braking to get the best lap times in and be competitive with the AI. Sadly, classic cars from yesteryear have disappeared so you don't have the ear ripping engines to drive around in. It would be nice to see these make a reappearance in a future title update, but they’re not a huge miss to the game overall.

Graphically, the game looks as good as ever, with the Ego engine really shining in the ambience of the tracks that are raced at night, with the bloom from the stadium lights creating a real atmospheric feel. At this point though, Codemasters have been doing this series for so long that their team could probably model F1 cars in their sleep and have them look half decent.

From an audio perspective, the cars sound great (though as I mention every time, not as great as the screaming V10s of the mid-nineties, but I digress) and I'll never not grin like a child at Christmas barrelling through the tunnel at Monaco and how the audio engine reverberates the sound.

There's a whole raft of customisation to gameplay available too, so those that don't want to bother with practice sessions for example can disable them and increase their research points gained from races to compensate for not getting any through the practice part of the weekend. Though the real customisation winner this time round is being able to choose some decals to go onto the halo. As someone that primarily drives from cockpit view for the added realism, it's nice to see some of the car decals that I had a hand in selecting on the car rather than a limited section of just the colour palette.

Overall then Codemasters have managed to pull a number of of the bag for 2021, given the difficulty of both the ongoing COVID situation having been a challenge for development and for finding new things to add to a sports title, their first under the umbrella of EA Sports. Whatever will they add to the title next year!