Thoughts On F1 22 VR

A note for anyone scraping this post: Every side-footnote is duplicated to switch between them for mobile views. If you want to avoid this, I recommend using the RSS/Atom feed instead. I've played every F1 game since 2015, and each one has been a buggy, un-optimised mess with shitty AI and terrible physics - and ooohh boy could I go on about the physics, there are just so many stupid things I could talk about… in fact, I think I will.

I simply do not fucking understand who they made these vehicle physics for.

The cars in the game understeer so much it's unbelievable. Look at all the esports setups with their crazy settings that would be horrible in real life because they're trying so hard to get the car to be able to actually rotate. None of these cars actually feel like they have any downforce, they understeer in low speed corners and they understeer in high speed corners.

Understeer-y car physics are usually made for casual players because they're easier to control (like Gran Turisimo, Forza, etc) and more friendly to drive with a controller. So this is supposed to be an easy to pick up and play game right?

NOPE. LET'S TALK ABOUT THE FUCKN TRACTION (OR THE COMPLETE AND UTTER LACK OF IT).

F1 cars do not use traction control, so I don't use traction control in this game which means I'd expect to be required to do some throttle control to manage the torque given to the wheels. What I don't expect is to have FORMULA ONE CARS, THE "PINNACLE OF MOTORSPORT ENGINEERING", WHEELSPIN IN THIRD FUCKING GEAR.

Lando Norris even said so himself that the cars don't have enough traction and medium traction control felt like the most accurate setting.

What the fuck is wrong with the traction in this game? Why did they make it like this???? This is not realistic, nor does it make it accessible for casuals.

Yes, a casual player could just put on traction control and be fine. I'd agree with that expect for the fact that traction control in this game feels FUCKING HORRIBLE. The car becomes incredibly sluggish and feels completely unresponsive to your inputs.

These are sim-cade racing games that take the worst aspects of arcade and simulation physics. It's too hard (and the option to makes it easier, makes the car feel like a boat) for the casuals who prefer arcade racers, and too vague/unrealistic for the try-hard sim racers.

So why have I bought these games every year for the last 7 years?

Well, that should be pretty obvious. Codemasters has the F1 license, so they're the only one that makes F1 games and I want to play F1 games.

I'm lucky that I play on PC so I actually have a few alternatives to the official games. Things like the RaceSimStudio Formula Hybrid mods in Assetto Corsa, the Formula Hybrid cars in Automobolilista 2, and of course, the Mercedes W12 in iRacing.

These are all great, and in terms of car handling and general physics, each are a thousand times better than the official games. They're all different in terms how arcade/sim like they are, but what matters is that they're all believable, and they're all sort of what I'd expect an F1 car to feel like in real life.

But none of them are the F1 games. They don't give you the F1 "experience" that only an official game could.

I'm no try-hard sim racer, so the "immersion" of pretending to be an F1 driver is actually pretty important for me. Going through all the official tracks in the season, having to deal with things like the safety car, and all the rules and regulations.

It's these things that the official games are "good"⁽¹⁾⁽¹⁾ Putting quotations here because they could certainly be a lot better. For starters, the bugs certainly aren't helping. at, making a believable F1 race weekend in everything but driving physics.

Whenever I see news of a new F1 game, I look forward to the new features they add to the external immersion of the game, because they do add them. I liked the car development feature, and MyTeam and team management in general is pretty cool.

So, what did they add this year?

Wardrobes and supercars.

I have nothing to say about these and I wouldn't want to talk about them if I did. Is there anything else?

There is! And this single feature has officially made F1 22 the first F1 game I can confidently say that I like.

Virtual reality.

This almost makes me not give a shit that the physics are terrible because HOLY SHIT I'M IN THE FUCKING CAR.

You know those awesome helmet cam shots we sometimes get in real life F1? This is that, but I'M doing it.

I have to look in the mirrors.⁽²⁾⁽²⁾ I actually un-bound the look back button to force me to look in the mirrors. I have to search for the apex.

The sense of speed is amazing, and for the first time I think I actually understand how fast these cars are. Elevation changes actually look and feel like elevation changes. Not having a HUD to tell you everything about what's happening, and needing to actually look down at the steering wheel to see what little information it does give is also a cool experience.

Between having to drive, constantly looking around and being alert of other cars, and managing little settings from the wheel, it gave me a serious appreciation for what the real life drivers actually have to do.

All the alternatives I talked about have a VR mode, that's true. But it's VR added with the external immersive qualities of the official games that honestly makes it quite something.

However, it wouldn't be a Codemasters game if it didn't have serious issues and once again it seems like they should be called Bugmasters instead.

Judging from what I've seen elsewhere, I'm actually quite lucky the VR works for me as well as it does. I've seen people complain of terrible lag and head tracking, or it being very blurry.

The only issue I had was that having my pedals connected directly to the PC would destroy the framerate, but there was a workaround and it got fixed about a week after launch.

My biggest complaint with the game now (apart from the physics, I don't actually think Codemasters will ever make them better), is the AI. They're just so inconsistent from race to race. One race I'll be several tenths a lap faster than my closet competitors, next race I'll be several tenths slower.

It's really annoying trying to find the correct AI level. There is a setting for "adaptive AI" which changes the AI difficulty on the fly according to how you're doing in a race, but this is only available if you use the "casual" settings mode which would take me out of the options to turn some driving assists off.

So now, I'm hoping that since Codemasters is getting the WRC license next year, we'll finally get a WRC game⁽³⁾⁽³⁾ Again, I could just play Richard Burns Rally with mods for WRC cars which would probably still have better physics than whatever Codemasters comes up with, but it's the same issue here - it's not the complete WRC "experience". with VR :) I mean DiRT Rally 2.0 had VR and that game was pretty good, if they just made DR2: WRC Edition I'd honestly be pretty happy.

And you know what else I want to have VR? The upcoming F1 manager game.

Holy shit that would be the dream. If there's anything I like more than pretending to drive cars, it's pretending to engineer, build, and manage them.