Codemasters Get Gaming Licence

My second double post on the same topic of the week!

It’s been announced this morning that the F1 gaming franchise has a developer – and it isn’t Sony! Codemasters have signed a deal to bring us Formula One games the future. This is excellent news. Codemasters has a long history of bringing top class racing games.

The firm is behind the long running TOCA Touring Car series, which over the years has morphed from simulating the British Series in a wider platform of racing under the ‘Race Driver’ tag. It is also behind the Colin McRae series of rally games. The next venture into the racing world will be Grid, the next instalment of the TOCA/Race Driver series.

Codemasters involvement should ensure that this will be a cross-platform game so that all F1 fans can rejoice!

Give Us a Real Game!

I read a few week ago that there is to be no F1 game this year.

More reports have since surfaced that a deal between Sony and Ecclestone is no closer to being accomplished. Why are people throwing hissy fits over it?

Okay, yes it’s great to have an F1 game out but any true racer will tell you that EA Sports and then Sony have done piss-poor since they have taking the exclusive licence. Poor graphics and clunky controls marred early versions whilst PC users were left in the cold as Sony released their games purely on it’s Playstation format.

I for one am glad to see Sony lose the licence. I’ve yet to try out an F1 game from them that offers anything in the way of a good racing game. Amongst the sim-racing community the game is largely ignored, with the ageing Grand Prix 4 from Micropose the sim of choice up until a couple of years. Now gamers with a thirst for a real racing experience have moved on. Rfactor, Live for Speed or the GTR series from SimBin now offer a greater racing experience than that offered by Sony’s paltry offering. Maybe the firm were afraid to develop a real racing game for fear it would eclipse the Gran Turismo series.

Granted most of the issues seems to be about money, but it would be great to see Bernie go to the likes of SimBin and say ‘bring us an F1 game to be proud of’, because there hasn’t been one since Grand Prix 4.

Wishful thinking me thinks unfortunately.