We're looking for new writers to join us!

Formula One Championship Edition First Impressions

Formula One Championship Edition First Impressions

Written by Dave Gamble on 3/1/2007 for PS3  
More On: Formula One Championship Edition
Although I appreciate the karmic irony of EA Sports losing its burgeoning Formula 1 series when Sony acquired an exclusive license on the marque in 2003, a tactic EA has often used itself, it's been a difficult dry spell for me. The final PC-based F1 sim modelled the 2002 season, and many things in F1 have changed since then. As you can imagine, then, it was a real treat for me to score a few minutes driving Sony's latest iteration of their series: Formula One Championship Edition. This was also to be my first exposure to the PLAYSTATION 3.
 
I was not disappointed! I expected to be dazzled by the high-end graphics of the state-of-the-art console, and I was. Between the visual effects of the shimmering view through a competitors exhaust to the rooster tails of spray trailing the cars in a rainy race, the eye candy truly delivered. The three tracks that I drove a few laps on were very well detailed, and to my surprise, not even the polygon-laden Monaco track caused a stutter in the butter smooth framerate.
 
Controls, always an issue on console racers, worked as expected in joystick mode (read 'twitchy'), but the SIXAXIS mode was a significant and innovative improvement. I had a few of the default drivers aids on, but the physics seemed well suited to offer a good balance between the limitations of console steering devices and a realistic level of challenge. I was able to get a few laps in with only minor slides and spins. I also managed to get an intriguing first look at the complex damage model, and came away impressed.

* The product in this article was sent to us by the developer/company.

Formula One Championship Edition First Impressions Formula One Championship Edition First Impressions Formula One Championship Edition First Impressions

About Author

I've been fascinated with video games and computers for as long as I can remember. It was always a treat to get dragged to the mall with my parents because I'd get to play for a few minutes on the Atari 2600. I partially blame Asteroids, the crack cocaine of arcade games, for my low GPA in college which eventually led me to temporarily ditch academics and join the USAF to "see the world." The rest of the blame goes to my passion for all things aviation, and the opportunity to work on work on the truly awesome SR-71 Blackbird sealed the deal.

My first computer was a TRS-80 Model 1 that I bought in 1977 when they first came out. At that time you had to order them through a Radio Shack store - Tandy didn't think they'd sell enough to justify stocking them in the retail stores. My favorite game then was the SubLogic Flight Simulator, which was the great Grandaddy of the Microsoft flight sims.

While I was in the military, I bought a Commodore 64. From there I moved on up through the PC line, always buying just enough machine to support the latest version of the flight sims. I never really paid much attention to consoles until the Dreamcast came out. I now have an Xbox for my console games, and a 1ghz Celeron with a GeForce4 for graphics. Being married and having a very expensive toy (my airplane) means I don't get to spend a lot of money on the lastest/greatest PC and console hardware.

My interests these days are primarily auto racing and flying sims on the PC. I'm too old and slow to do well at the FPS twitchers or fighting games, but I do enjoy online Rainbow 6 or the like now and then, although I had to give up Americas Army due to my complete inability to discern friend from foe. I have the Xbox mostly to play games with my daughter and for the sports games.
View Profile