Whereas your goal in the normal career mode is to simply keep ahead of your teammate, in Season Challenge you must choose a rival and finish ahead of him more than he does you. There are 10 5-lap races total, one-shot qualifiers and no practice. Realizing that some might like to complete an entire circuit in an afternoon, Codemasters has availed us the option – and this is very much abbreviated. The last new mode is my favorite, “Season Challenge”.

You’ll have a limited number of laps to succeed at any of these challenges, and all of them start you off near the end of a race. You start off having to overtake the Iceman at Spa, and ultimately go head-to-head with Schumacher. “Champions” allows you to tackle six different scenarios, always involving beating out a racing legend. The game does add two other modes that are pretty awesome. Most of what you’re told is common-sense, and what improves you in this game is practice, not tests that last 15 seconds. To me, this mode is largely unneeded and doesn’t help out too much. Split into two “days”, a player can complete this mode in about 15 – 20 minutes. To help F1 2012 become more accessible, Codemasters has added a “Young Drivers Test” mode that explains in good detail about some things you need to know – at the very least, how to handle a hairpin. The F1 series is without a doubt one of the most challenging around, and as such, newbies might become overwhelmed with the difficulty and shelve the game before long.

Career-wise, F1 2012 follows the current season to a T, which means it has 20 races, kicks off with the beautiful Albert Park in Australia, with Bahrain International, Hockenheimring and the brand-new Circuit of the Americas replacing Istanbul Park and Nürburgring. Last year’s biggest introductions included KERS, DRS and R&D each of those has made a return here with no modification. Will we be able to claim the same about F1 2012 by the end of this review? There’s only one way to find out – let’s get on with it. Let’s face it – sports titles cost just as much as other games that feature 100% fresh content, so developers like Codemasters must work hard to coax you into an upgrade.įortunately, the company did succeed at this challenge with F1 2011.

What can be done when much of the game remains the same? Improving the game mechanics is a given, adding game modes can help and of course, updated graphics and audio is rarely considered a bad thing. Developers of annually-released sports titles inherit rather unique challenges when it comes to following-up to the previous game.

F1 2012 setups