Review: F1 2011 on 3DS
F1 2011 for Nintendo 3DS attempts to bring realistic Formula One racing to a handheld platform, something the series attempted with F1 2009 but took a break from with F1 2010. They’re back for 2011 with a huge game crammed onto a tiny platform, and this time, it works. Or does it? On the PC platform, Codemasters took full advantage of the updated EGO2.0 engine, and they only had to make slight compromises when faced with the PS3 and Xbox 360 ports. When they handed it over to Sumo Digital to create a 3DS version, clearly a few more compromises had to be made.
Actual Game Play Shot
The good news is that all the gameplay modes from the big brother made it to the 3DS: you can play a quick race or a full race weekend, practice with time trials, race online with up to three other people, and then there’s the meat of the game, career and championship modes. Career has you starting at the bottom with Lotus or HRT and working your way up over three seasons, while Championship is one season with whatever team you choose. Challenges mode includes 60 driving missions, some of which (like the arcade-style checkpoint challenges) are so good they could be an entire mode on their own.
Review: F1 2011 on 3DS
Gameplay here is probably as good as it can be given the hardware. As you would expect, it’s nearly impossible to drive an F1 car with a few digital buttons and one analog stick, so the driving aids are a welcome addition. With the exception of predictive braking and the racing line, I actually turned all the aids on and it greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the game. I found it very annoying to drive without ABS and TCS, and very twitchy without the steering assistance turned on because the range of motion in the circle pad is so small. Admittedly, I also used the automatic transmission, because using DRS and KERS while constantly blasting through seven gears is a good recipe for hand cramps.
Inside each mode you’ll find a pretty detailed interface. The race weekend includes two sessions of Friday practice, Saturday practice, three sessions of qualifying, and then finally the race. Before hitting the track you can tune your car; the adjustments are pretty rudimentary but include aerodynamics, gears, suspension (spring and anti-roll bar stiffness, camber, and toe), and tires (compound and pressure). Another cool feature inside the race is the “Watch Session” mode, which allows you watch what any driver is doing in their session.
This is where the problems and compromises start. While the framerate is quite good the vast majority of the time—they claim 60fps in 2D and 30fps in 3D, which seems to be the norm except in extreme conditions—the graphics themselves are pretty awful. Not awful in the sense of “did they even try?” but awful like how 3D Playstation games looked with that hardware’s low resolution and lack of Z-buffer. They definitely tried very hard to bring detailed graphics to F1 2011, but the 3DS hardware let them down. For what it is, the graphics are actually quite good; the cars look good and the environments are impressively detailed, especially given the framerate. However, the low resolution makes some tracks very hard to drive; in particular, judging braking points in cockpit view without the driving line can be tricky at the flatter tracks.
Review: F1 2011 on 3DS
Beyond the graphics, there is one other major problem. It’s the same issue that plagues almost every single racing game ever made, but in F1 2011 it’s more pronounced than usual: the AI is terrible. It’s not that they block the way or are overly aggressive; actually, I have never actually spent any time racing wheel-to-wheel with the AI in this game! Even with the difficulty set to Hard the AI still can’t get around the track. Once I’ve learned a circuit to the point of turning out consistent laps, I’ve been able to take pole up to eight whole seconds in front of the rest of the field. A Lotus or HRT being on pole is a ridiculous enough, but taking pole 8 seconds in front of the likes of Red Bull and McLaren? Preposterous is the word that comes to mind, especially when you realize that the AI is blatantly cheating. When I drive near them or even watch them drive from the garage menu, they brake at weird times, hit the wall often, and take a strange line through every corner; in other words, it seems like the AI is completely broken. There’s no way they are actually turning out the laps they say they are. What a shame.
Fortunately, it’s fun enough for me to play time attack and try to beat my own times. As soon as I pass the CPU’s pace, I wonder how much faster I can go, and the challenge to string together a perfect lap begins. There’s a lot of personal fulfillment from being able to shave tenths off sectors, and the controls in F1 2011 are good enough that you can concentrate on driving, rather than how much the interface is getting in the way. There are a few fun “Awards” to get, like for driving over 230mph or beating a real world lap record, that make you want to try things on your own anyway. But beware; if you thrive off racing with other cars, you probably won’t even make it through a full season in this game if you’re a quick driver. Luckily, online multiplayer is there for you, but you might want to have a friend or two to play with; although you can host your own four-player match online, there’s literally no one there to play with. Nearly a month has passed since the game came out, and it feels like I’ve been waiting that long to find someone to play with. Seriously, my 3DS has just sitting next to me while I write this, waiting for someone to join my two-player race. So far I haven’t met anybody. There are also a few errors or bugs that crop up every now and then. Just to give a few examples, KERS can be used at any speed in the game (in real life it’s only available at 100kph+) and Silverstone in particular seems to act a little wonky: there’s a visual glitch that repeatedly crops up at turn 1 when the weather is cloudy, and the last turn has the wrong ‘racing line’ shown—they want you to go around the outer part of the track, instead of the inside where it should be. There’s also the manner in which the AI patently cheats, as I mentioned before.
Beyond the low resolution graphics and poor AI, there isn’t actually that much to fault about F1 2011. Most importantly, the game is fun to play, and that counts for a lot. I’m very excited about the PS Vita version, as it should be the same game but with better graphics and controls (think of the possibilities with those dual analog sticks and the rear touch pad). Until then, however, I give the 3DS version of F1 2011 a slightly above average 64/100.
Bottom line: Detailed modeling and excellent gameplay are marred by low-resolution hardware and awful AI; multiplayer community nonexistent so far; if you want F1 on your 3DS, just buy it—if you’re definitely getting a Vita, F1 2011 is a launch title, so you might want to hold out for now. -Matt Brown
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