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Emulation (Games) Classic Games (Games) Announcements Entertainment Games

Codemasters Receives Exclusive Formula One Rights 48

Posted by timothy from the formulas-nine-through-twelve-still-available dept.
bigmouth_strikes writes "A few weeks ago it was announced that British game developers Codemasters have received the exclusive right to develop and publish video games using the "Formula One" brand name. This was after Sony and Formula One Management didn't renew their contract that have made the Playstation platform the only choice for gamers wanting "official" games since 2003. The earlier Sony exclusive right and decision to only release for the Playstation platform has led to active fan-created content for various racing simulation engines, such as rFactor for the PC. The official Formula One website has a brief interview/promo piece with Codemasters CEO Rod Cousens about their hopes and intentions for the game and platforms — which will include Xbox 360 and Wii. The company is targeting an initial release in 2009."
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Codemasters Receives Exclusive Formula One Rights More

Codemasters Receives Exclusive Formula One Rights

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  • Always got "Phormula 1". Wonder if you could get away with that?
  • For God's sake make a decent GP sim for PC. Grand Prix 5, to be precise.

    Formula One lends itself to precisely the type of things that PCs are great at - high resolution graphics, precise control, and accurate physical modelling.

    I am yet to play an F1 game on console that didn't feel like an arcade game.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HomerJ ( 11142 )
      If you want a good F1 sim, you can get the MMG F1 mod for rFactor. For online racing, it's as good as it gets, and maybe better than what Codemasters will put out.

      But like most things rFactor, offline racing is so-so. Offline racing isn't something modders usually concentrate on for mods, although rFactor itself CAN work well offline. That's one thing I don't think anything outside GP4 has brought to the table in recent years--good offline racing.
      • I tried rFactor - I don't have a full wheel/pedals set up, and I found it virtually unplayable with keyboard. One of the excellent things about the Geoff Crammond games is that they always did a great job of making the game playable with the keyboard.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by CastrTroy ( 595695 )
          First you tell us you want a driving sim with precise control, and then you tell us you want to use a keyboard? Make up your mind. Couldn't you just get a Wiimote, and use that for a steering wheel. Works great for MarioKart.
          • You've clearly never played any of the previous Crammond GP games on a PC. The level of control is far, far better than you would get with anything other than a wheel (or a Wiimote, I guess, I haven't played Mario Kart).

            PS - Anthropic principle = misstatement of cause and effect

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
              Anthropic principle: P(A|!B)=0 => P(B|A)=1

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              by Goldberg's Pants ( 139800 )
              Crammond's controls were always sublime. I loved F1GP and GP2. GP3 was okay... GP4 was horrid. Looked awesome but everyone I know had some sort of issue with the game, from it not working at all, to not playing nice with their wheel, crashing for no apparent reason etc... rFactor and GTR2 are my drug of choice right now. Still play GPL and NR2003 from time to time. Not a fan of NASCAR, but racing Daytona in NR2003 is an awesome experience.

              Codemasters getting the F1 license is a disaster if you're a sim junk

              • Re: (Score:1)

                by iainl ( 136759 )
                1) How many driving aids did he turn off? My run through the GRID demo didn't seem too bad once I removed all that stuff. But that was in the Mustang, and I was somewhat too excited by the instinctively violent reaction of the internal view to bullying tactics to notice too much.

                2) Have you actually played Sony's F1 games? They weren't any better. The PS3 one was very pretty, but the handling was just diabolical.
                • To answer your question:

                  1) The mere suggestion that my friend was using driving aids would get you punched rather hard by him. Even back when we were using keyboards to control Crammond's games, he turned them all OFF! He never uses driving aids.

                  2) No, I've never played Sony's F1 games, because they never released them in the US market when they had exclusivity. I've heard they were fairly dire though. Not sure how this is relevant to a discussion on PC F1 games though.

                  • Re: (Score:1)

                    by iainl ( 136759 )
                    Ahh, that's ok then.

                    Re: the second point, it's relevant because even an F1 game with current Codies handling will be a massive improvement on what we've had recently. No, I don't expect it to satisfy the rFactor addicts, but Sony Liverpool really should have stuck to the excellent job they do on the wipEout series.
            • The level of control is much better with games like Crammond's GP games than with "sims" because it is not a simulation, or precise control. If you tried to control an actual high-speed car with digital controls that meant you were either full lock or straight ahead, or full throttle or no throttle you would spin the car every time you tried to change direction, and most of the time you tried to accelerate or brake.

              Crammond's games (and pretty much every single racing game I've played) use poetic licence, t
              • So true. I had a go in GT5: Prologue recently and think it does have pretty realistic handling when you set it to simulation, it's noticably less grippy at least. I set all the driving aids off (well I had traction control on something like setting 2/10) and my driving physics to 'simulation', then raced against a girl who hardly ever plays computer games (she was using arcade handling, ESP, traction control automatic gears, the lot..), then we both raced a couple of NSXs for a couple of laps, I only just m
            • But being able to use buttons to control a game is much more likely to mean that it has 'arcadey' physics, since any sudden braking, steering or accelerating is a poor idea in a race car if you want to keep good traction, and prolong the life of your tyres. If you were serious about your racing then you would have a wheel (I've got a G25 but I haven't got anywhere decent to mount it yet :/ ). To suggest that you'd get more control from a keyboard than from a PS3 controller is just a joke. You get full analo
    • Well, console devs have managed to get Le Mans-style racing games to feel realistic instead of arcadey (namely, Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo), so I'm not too worried about the choice of platform in particular.

  • Rights (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Fifth Earth ( 1172333 )
    Interestingly, this seems to only apply to the "Formula 1" brand itself, so other games can certainly include F1 cars, so long as they don't use the F1 organization's name. I guess F1 doesn't actually hold any rights to the cars themselves--which makes sense, but then recent years have shown very little usually makes sense when it comes to copyrights/trademarks/patents.

    Certainly nice for those independent game developers anyway, especially Live for Speed, which has an officially sanctioned version of BMW Sa

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HomerJ ( 11142 )
      There are other games with current F1 cars.

      Three examples I can think of are GT5 having Ferrari's 07 car, and both rFactor and Live For Speed both having BMW's.

      EA signed Lewis Hamilton to a deal a while back, so I assume an F1 game with at least McLaren would be in the works--nothing has been announced as of yet however.

      As far as tracks go, I think the F1 license covers all use of tracks used by the F1 Championship. However, the tracks are also free to be in other games. Various games over the years have ha
  • I'd just like to say that F1 World Grand Prix for the N64 was and remains my favourite racing game of all-time. The graphics overlays as well as the announcer's voice mimicked the real TV broadcast almost perfectly, and the tracks were - to my untrained eye - accurate. The physics were realistic, or at least not arcade-like.

    Great game. Still looking for a used copy of it to play on my old machine, as it happens :\

  • I hate "the official" games (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nog_lorp ( 896553 ) on Tuesday June 03, 2008 @10:48PM (#23647361)
    Fuck "the official F1 games". Make me a GOOD game, I don't give a shit what it is "the official game" of. Those three words are almost always an indication of a terrible game.
  • Many Codemasters racing sims pivot the cars on a central axis, especially their off-road driving ones. It's atrociously bad in this day and age. From 3rd person it looks ridiculous, and in first person the lack of proper weight transfer and 4 corner independent suspension makes feeling the motion of the car impossible. Its less noticeable (maybe even absent) in their track racing games, but still inexcusable. I'll pass.
  • Couldn't FIA have found a better developer than Codemasters? Did nobody else want the Formula One brand? After playing the demo for Overlord and forcing myself to finish Clive Barker's Jericho, you couldn't pay me enough to rent a Codemasters game, let alone buy one.

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