F1 2020 Review: Another Sterling Entry That Also Makes a Play For Racing Casuals

[ChaseB]

Codemasters is set to deliver the newest edition of one of the most popular series in...

Written By: Robert Kollars

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[nolesfan69]

Good review. I have been playing F1 games for years and it's nice to see a casual mode. I play with a pad and I'm not very fast at all. I usually am off the pace like 3 seconds on 80 difficulty. So I play at 40 on F1 2019.* I need some help maybe it's just pad users* are much slower than wheel users.*

[TCrouch]

I can imagine with both NH5 and F1 2020 releasing the same week that time has been scarce in the Kollars household.

Nicely done, good reviews on both.

[itsmb8]

Thinking I might just pay the extra $10 and get the game now instead of Friday. Ive been playing the F1 games since 2010 and I always loved them.

I'm on a controller and race with full TC and the corners braking line on, but I race in cockpit cam exclusively and was on 90-100 AI difficulty in 2019. The biggest thing im looking forward to is the realistic AI mistakes. I was watching an Aarava MyTeam video at Bahrain where Hamilton got too much right side curb at Turn 12 and lost control, tried to save it but overcorrected and spun back to the right onto the track, and Verstappen nailed him square in the sidepod. Something ive never seen before in an F1 game.

Although im hoping to be able to build a PC and buy a wheel setup soon so I can play this on PC with mods and an UW screen.

[King of Kings]

This review is spot on. I got the Schumacher edition (on sale for $63) and played a fair amount yesterday. My Team is fantastic and where I spent most of my time. I do wish we were given the option to automate some aspects because there are a lot of responsibilities. Also, your car sticks out like a sore thumb with generic liveries, sponsor logos, and team badges. I created a Chevrolet team to focus on being better than Haas to start, but there's no way to make it look like a Chevrolet branded car. Very unfortunate.

Everything else about the game is as expected, which is great. It's a very familiar experience outside of My Team. Technically, the series hit its capability ceiling a few years ago on this gen of consoles. It looks and performs exactly the same as the last few editions. That makes it not much more than a roster and livery update over past versions, aside from My Team. They could have compensated by adding commentary, more customization options, etc. But they didn't, which feels like they're resting on their laurels instead of pushing the series forward. But since it's already such a solid game, it gets somewhat of a pass like The Show series.

Great game, great new mode with My Team, but VERY familiar experience. Also, here's to hoping they patch in the new black Mercedes livery ASAP since the old silver arrows are currently in the game.

[brandon27]

Got to hand it to Codies... they've done it again. Fantastic game. It's got a few issues to work out with the initial release. XB right now is stuck on version 1.01 while PS/PC are at 1.03. So, I assume for me that's whats caused a few of the odd quirks I've seen. Once the patch clears MS certification I'm sure it'll work itself out.

The driving model is much smoother it feels like. Feels like the cars have alot more stability now. I haven't bothered to try the casual mode that provides steering assistance and other assists, but racing on my same settings as F12019 feels alot more stable and... easier in a way. So I assume Casual mode will really help the new players get into the series.

I like the changes so far with Career & My Team mode. There seems to be quite a bit involved with My Team, but most of it feels pretty simple really. Just a matter of a different approach to R&D and driver development really. You'll use your R&D points to improve the same parts of the car as always, but in a different way. You'll use money as well to improve drivers as well as using a combination of money & R&D to upgrade your facilities to allow the usual R&D method to expand as well. As much as it's a new mode it really feels more like a complete revamp to the normal R&D upgrading from Career mode previously. Seems some of these changes translated over to Career mode now as well.

I agree with the above the the car creator in My Team leaves a bit to be desired. Be nice to have real sponsors, but the fake sponsors they provide do allow you to create cars that can fill themselves out. There is a real lack of base liveries right now with only about 4 to choose from, but once they iron out the issue with the "pit pass" you'll be able to "buy" others with in game currencies by playing and unlocking them. More options will follow. You do have 5 sponsor spots to put decals on the car. Each spot places a sponsor in two spots on the car. Initially with only one sponsor you've only got one decal to place at each of the 5(10) slots. As you unlock more sponsors as your team progresses though, you can change the sponsor slots. So I think you just need to be patient as your team progresses to really fill out the sponsors. Each sponsor of course brings money weekly to help build the team. Doesn't appear that there will be much challenge in keeping the team afloat; but it does look like it will take alot of grinding to build that team up from a facility & R&D standpoint, as well as developing or hiring your second driver too.

Zandvoort.. wow, what a quick tricky little track too. damn that's a fun drive. Not sure it'll be a fun race, but to run it in timetrial mode as a test session... it's fun.

All in all, another great entry.

[sydrogerdavid]

Can't wait to play this game.

Got a wheel during quarantine for ATS, but I've been doing a whole lot more racing as my computer stinks.

I hope the NASCAR games can reach this level of detail soon.

[Jeffrey99]

Already have the game downloaded and preloaded in Steam. Trying PC for the first time in the series but figured that made more sense since I already have it setup for iRacing. Really hoping there are mods to allow My Team to have realistic sponsor and custom liveries.