By Robin Chung
Gentlemen start your engines. F1 2006 is the most recent formula one game you can currently play on your playstation portable. And like most things you can see it is three years old, still is it any good?
Modes
The game offers plenty of modes for advanced and beginning racers. Quick race is what most people will start with. It simply gives you the option of selecting a driver, circuit and some race conditions. These conditions are things like weather, race length, damage and so forth. There's enough to select which makes the game very easy for beginners to pick up. Time trail is next in the list. This time you select the same conditions but with no other computer cars. So you can drive laps to get to know the circuit as well as fine tune your setup. For an added challenge studio Liverpool, the developers, have added a medal system. Getting a 1.25 in Australia for instance will result in you getting a gold medal. Getting all gold medals can unlock things, mostly old grand prix cars. Championship mode does exactly what it says it does. It simulates the official FIA world championship. Starting in Bahrein and ending in Brazil. Career mode requires some explanation though, unlike the other modes. Here you are a starting driver with three trails with some of the lower teams. You have an agent who informs you about your career and races, there's a newspaper which you can read and the team can contact you via the mailbox. You are required to successfully complete a trail to continue but these trails are easily done if you started your career in the right AI difficulty. A trail can be: drive three consistent laps with a complete time of 4 minutes, or drive a 1.12 within 10 attempts. Once your done your agent will contact you about the results. You can receive a contract for test driver, second driver or first driver. If your a test driver then you have to complete more challenges similar to the trail till the team thinks you're ready. Second and first drivers are the race seats which you should aim at. Now this covers the modes. Obviously more important is the gameplay. So how is it?
Gameplay
Driving a F1 car is not an easy task, and this game simulates it. With everything off hyper concentration is required but you will be awarded for it appropriately. Once you're in your rhythm you will be able to drive consistent laps sometimes within 0,1 seconds of each other. This clearly shows that the game is somewhat realistic. Another great feature is the great difference between the grand prix cars, you will notice this especially in career mode. With the slow teams grip is always lacking as well as top speed. Going from super aguri to Ferrari will be a difference as big as day and night, definitely a plus. Not everything is great though. The game has a awkward annoying penalty system. Going slightly wide can lead to a magical hold limiting your car to 80 mph for a few seconds. This is highly surprising and in contrast with the developers attempt to make the game realistic. Also there seems to be oil on track for 3-4 times each grand prix. In formula one in real life this only happens maybe once every 5 grand prix'. But not only is the amount unrealistic as is the result of driving on it. Driving on it can sometimes not be avoided, in corners, narrow circuits and because of lack of warning for instance, and once you do your car will spin often off the track. And you get a penalty. So 4-5 times per grand prix there is a huge chance of you spinning of track and getting a 7 second penalty. Which means the race is over, or at least the chance of a good result. To make it even worse, the AI cars don't have a problem with the oil and can drive in it without spinning. Not only can they do that, they also ram you off track in curtain corners or go way too slow in others. Overall however the AI is done reasonably well and will give a consistent experience on most tracks.
Graphics, sound, presentation
Graphics on PSP games are hard to review. Some games look clearly better than others but are not as deep or offer less gameplay. Still considering everything I think there's a reason to complain. And it is not because it looks awful because it looks okay. Also the physics and gameplay are great but the F1 game that came before this one looked better. And just because of that you can say that there's a reason to complain. Then there's the sound. I wanted to like it, I wanted to be able to write about the realism and aggressive engine noise. But I can't. The sound is awful, it doesn't sound like a F1 car revving 19000 rpm at all. Instead a hair dryer sounds more like it. Looking past the engine sound though leaves nothing to complain about. The commentary is spot on and the music fits well. Overall the presentation is slightly above average. Great graphics but worse than the game before it and sound that can be described as slightly off.
F1 2006 is the best formula one experience money can buy at the moment for your PlayStation portable system. Aside from slight problems the game does a lot things really right. Especially considering it's from 2006. So buy it if you want a good formula one experience and can life with the outdated drivers,teams and rules.
Gentlemen start your engines. F1 2006 is the most recent formula one game you can currently play on your playstation portable. And like most things you can see it is three years old, still is it any good?
Modes
The game offers plenty of modes for advanced and beginning racers. Quick race is what most people will start with. It simply gives you the option of selecting a driver, circuit and some race conditions. These conditions are things like weather, race length, damage and so forth. There's enough to select which makes the game very easy for beginners to pick up. Time trail is next in the list. This time you select the same conditions but with no other computer cars. So you can drive laps to get to know the circuit as well as fine tune your setup. For an added challenge studio Liverpool, the developers, have added a medal system. Getting a 1.25 in Australia for instance will result in you getting a gold medal. Getting all gold medals can unlock things, mostly old grand prix cars. Championship mode does exactly what it says it does. It simulates the official FIA world championship. Starting in Bahrein and ending in Brazil. Career mode requires some explanation though, unlike the other modes. Here you are a starting driver with three trails with some of the lower teams. You have an agent who informs you about your career and races, there's a newspaper which you can read and the team can contact you via the mailbox. You are required to successfully complete a trail to continue but these trails are easily done if you started your career in the right AI difficulty. A trail can be: drive three consistent laps with a complete time of 4 minutes, or drive a 1.12 within 10 attempts. Once your done your agent will contact you about the results. You can receive a contract for test driver, second driver or first driver. If your a test driver then you have to complete more challenges similar to the trail till the team thinks you're ready. Second and first drivers are the race seats which you should aim at. Now this covers the modes. Obviously more important is the gameplay. So how is it?
Gameplay
Driving a F1 car is not an easy task, and this game simulates it. With everything off hyper concentration is required but you will be awarded for it appropriately. Once you're in your rhythm you will be able to drive consistent laps sometimes within 0,1 seconds of each other. This clearly shows that the game is somewhat realistic. Another great feature is the great difference between the grand prix cars, you will notice this especially in career mode. With the slow teams grip is always lacking as well as top speed. Going from super aguri to Ferrari will be a difference as big as day and night, definitely a plus. Not everything is great though. The game has a awkward annoying penalty system. Going slightly wide can lead to a magical hold limiting your car to 80 mph for a few seconds. This is highly surprising and in contrast with the developers attempt to make the game realistic. Also there seems to be oil on track for 3-4 times each grand prix. In formula one in real life this only happens maybe once every 5 grand prix'. But not only is the amount unrealistic as is the result of driving on it. Driving on it can sometimes not be avoided, in corners, narrow circuits and because of lack of warning for instance, and once you do your car will spin often off the track. And you get a penalty. So 4-5 times per grand prix there is a huge chance of you spinning of track and getting a 7 second penalty. Which means the race is over, or at least the chance of a good result. To make it even worse, the AI cars don't have a problem with the oil and can drive in it without spinning. Not only can they do that, they also ram you off track in curtain corners or go way too slow in others. Overall however the AI is done reasonably well and will give a consistent experience on most tracks.
Graphics, sound, presentation
Graphics on PSP games are hard to review. Some games look clearly better than others but are not as deep or offer less gameplay. Still considering everything I think there's a reason to complain. And it is not because it looks awful because it looks okay. Also the physics and gameplay are great but the F1 game that came before this one looked better. And just because of that you can say that there's a reason to complain. Then there's the sound. I wanted to like it, I wanted to be able to write about the realism and aggressive engine noise. But I can't. The sound is awful, it doesn't sound like a F1 car revving 19000 rpm at all. Instead a hair dryer sounds more like it. Looking past the engine sound though leaves nothing to complain about. The commentary is spot on and the music fits well. Overall the presentation is slightly above average. Great graphics but worse than the game before it and sound that can be described as slightly off.
F1 2006 is the best formula one experience money can buy at the moment for your PlayStation portable system. Aside from slight problems the game does a lot things really right. Especially considering it's from 2006. So buy it if you want a good formula one experience and can life with the outdated drivers,teams and rules.
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