This is a solid racer, don't let reviews discourage you
Sound
As with most driving games the star of the sound are the engines as they hurtle down the pit straight at 200kph and needless to say Codemasters have pulled this off extremely well. What is surprisingly absent is commentary. I would have thought that with the amount of effort that had gone into developing the cars and tracks to perfection, commentary would have been a given. Although the commentary on the 2006 edition was quite sparse, it was still appreciated.
Graphics
Codemasters have become, well masters, at perfecting cars and tracks now, its what they do. The scenery and detail that has been included definitely has to be applauded. The rain effects are fantastic. Even though your race can be severely hampered by rain, it makes it more of a challenge and exciting, so you don't mind it. The menu system is also something that is very slick and intuitive, you have access to allot of things quite easily without jumping in and out of several other menus.
What I don't agree with too much though is the lack of official timing displays. This may seem like I'm splitting hairs, but with an official game to a sport, you'd expect everything in the game, including the displays. This also leaves you in the dark as to how much there is in a qualifying session and practice sessions. It does let you know when there's 5 minutes to go in the practice and qualifying sessions, but it'd be nice to have a clock up there constantly.
On the face of it, this looks like an impressive game graphically, but I have noticed that the screen can go abit blurry a few times at high speeds.
Gameplay
As I mentioned in my opening blurb, F1 is about pressure and perfect lines, no room for error and every tenth of a second counts. The inclusion of the flashbacks is, in my opinion, a welcomed addition to this game as I had spent up to an half an hour on the 2006 CE practicing and qualifying for a single race, only to be taken out on the first corner, so the level of the frustration has gone down. However, its hard to lower frustration and still keep the satisfaction of winning a race as high. On medium I have been pretty dominant. Whether this is me surpassing the skills from 2006 CE (which I doubt) or the game being dumbed down, I'm not quite sure. As you increase the difficulty however, the amount of flashbacks diminish, and this will make for a more simmed F1 game.
There are a few modes to keep you occupied including a gruelling 7 year career mode (the one I chose) that'll keep you busy for a while. Plus there's online multiplayer and leaderboards to add a little more addiction into the mix. The racing itself is very good and its certainly a game of skill on a higher level to take the correct corners and take part in wheel to wheel racing with the other drivers.
The media interviews that had been hyped to "shape your season" seems like padding as there are allot of the same questions and quite limited responses at hand. Whether coming across as arrogant could shape your season slightly different is hard to tell at this stage as I'm only in the first year, but this doesn't seem like a worthy inclusion for me.
F1 can also be a tactical sport when it comes to selecting tyres for a race, if its light rain, do you go for intermediates or risk slicks. This is another issue I had in a race. I was a few laps in and it started to rain. Several laps later, when I pulled in for my pit stop, the rain was getting harder, but my pit crew just fitted me with slicks again and sent me on my way. It would have been a nice touch to give me the option of whether to select inters or stay with slicks to make me feel like I was being the master tactician. There is also the notible absence of safety cars. Now I'm not saying that it wouldn't add frustration into the mix, you could select to have them on or off, but I think the choice should be there atleast.
This game can also be quite inconsistant. The penalties that are given out for dangerous driving can vary. For example in one practice session I was side by side with another car around a corner and our tyres just gave abit of a nudge and I was given a 5 place grid penalty for "causing an accident" (even though the car never crashed and was still right behind me). So I restarted the session thinking that was abit harsh, in the very next session, I gave a car a nudge up the rear making him spin out (accident of course) and I got nothing.
The other inconsistancy is the weather. There have been many occasions where I have been in Q1 and it has been in heavy rain, only for the next session to be blue sky and a dry track, even though in real life, there is only a small gap between the 2 sessions.
Final thoughts
I wouldn't say that this is Codemasters most polished game, there do seem to be some graphical glitches, it is also missing some pieces of the puzzle that would make this into a cohesive F1 title, like commentary, official timing, tactical tyre changes and engine failures. But for their first crack at the sport, Codemasters did very well. They've made a very slick and solid racer that is very approachable to new comers and can also keep the dedicated F1 fans satisfied. I think the important thing for any F1 title is that the essense of the sport comes through and it does. If you're interested in F1 or racing games that are slightly less arcadey and can offer you some nail biting wheel to wheel racing, then this should be in your games library.