I agree that F124 has been incredibly poor and quite simply nowhere near worth £90. I also played and enjoyed Geoff Crammonds GP2, GP3 and GP4. For the time they were unequaled in terms of handling and provided a real insight into the world of F1.
I've said this until I'm blue in the face and at times my frustration with the current game led to some strong criticism. I'll try to keep this more constructive if I can.
I am intrigued to see if all of the negative feedback from F124 will be taken into consideration when they start to programme and develop F125. The post that EA themselves created here to obtain feedback has given me some hope of improvements for the future.
There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever if they decide to continue down the same path as normal for F125 and as a direct result it flops big time.
EA need to change their approach and ideas for the game in order for it to be much more successful. There are so many good things they have done which I applaud. Although the engine sounds have come in for some heavy criticism this year, I do stand by the fact that to my ears the Mercedes and Renault engines sound excellent. The Honda, average. The Ferrari engine sound is actually beyond diabolical. At the games release is was poor, but made so much worse with a patch.
I think the game has never looked better from a graphics perspective. It does look excellent in my opinion on my PS5.
I also absolutely applaud the fact that they have tried to change the sounds from the TV camera replay. And to be fair, I think this is a massive improvement and adds a huge amount of realism compared to what we had previously. However from a visual perspective the sounds sometimes do not match what the car is doing, mainly when watching back a hot lap in TT. In races when multiple cars are on track, I think it sounds really good.
Although I do not like the handling using a controller you do tend to just get used to it. Although I am expecting a sciesmic improvement for F125.
The AI DRS trains although improved with some small adjustments, still happen, this also has to significantly be improved for F125.
Also the quality of the patches in F124 has been atrocious. Never tested at all. The amount of additional bugs through patch fixes have not gone down well whatsoever. This absolutely has to be improved going forward.
Now on to my biggest gripe of them all. The gimmicks!
This to me is a major fail for any racing game, especially F1. All F1 fans and players want is realism and immersion. That is still possible without making the game a full on sim. They have to of course cater for all types of players.
I just think if EA dropped the silly gimmicks and concentrated more on the actual game it would benefit them just as much as the customers/players.
By gimmicks I mean things like Fanzone, stickers, lampshades, endless supplies of shoes and F1 World.
Can you just imagine how good and successful the game would be without all that being added in. The amount of extra time and resources could then be used to make massive changes and improvements. The addition of a helmet editor is just one small example. But there is no way we would ever get that because of this live season stuff they keep pushing. Hiding two cartoon like helmets behind a pay and grind system is in no way productive and completely sends out the wrong message to the customer.
In order for F125 to be successful and for me to preorder it, they need to drop the gimmicks and actually implement a few of the great ideas that this community has come up with.
I think F125 will be a defining moment for the game franchise given the criticism of F124. Next year's game focus should without doubt be "attention to detail"
Let's see what happens.
