Feeling the need for speed on this toasty Saturday afternoon? It might not be the newest car in the garage, but Codemasters are giving away F1 2018 over on the Humble Store all weekend. It's yours to keep "while stocks last", so feel free to treat yourself to a few high-speed laps.
]]>Proper Formula One races are off for the time being due to Covid-19 coronavirus public health concerns. A couple weeks back, F1 organised the first Virtual Grand Prix race in F1 2019, vowing to continue hosting esports races so long as the live ones were cancelled. The first race featured a few current F1 drivers behind the controller along with a smattering of other celebrities, drivers, and esports race folks. This weekend brings five current vroom vroom racing folks to the grid.
]]>With Formula 1 races off for the time being due to health concerns, the action has gone digital with an official Virtual Grand Prix Series played out in F1 2019. Current and former real Formula 1 drivers including Lando Norris and Johnny Herbert are running in the shadow along with F1 esports folks and a sprinkling of other celebrities like Olympic cycling champion Chris Hoy. The first race was this weekend, a virtual Bahrain Grand Prix substituting for the real deal, and more will follow along the regular season schedule until races resume. Here, come, you can watch the archive of the weekend's race.
]]>Frontier Developments today announced that they've landed a license to make several years of Formula One management games, with the first launching for the 2022 season. They're the studio behind the gentle management of Planet Zoo and Planet Coaster [pictured above -obvs ed.] as well as the spacemurders of Elite: Dangerous, and isn't F1 really just about pleasing crowds with colourful beetles built of space-age technology? The exact shape of these games is a mystery for now, as Frontier were announcing the license not any particular game. But it's a management game so, y'know, managing teams and that.
]]>Because reasons, Codemasters tend to release their Formula One games near the end of the racing season they're simulating, which is weird. Wouldn't it be better if motorheads could themselves play through all the tracks ahead of their Grand Prix? Or maybe even race alongside it, listening to the actual team's racing radio? Wearing a full fireproof racing suit in their house? Shouting for their flatmate to deliver new cups of tea to the desk at every pitstop? Pissing into a big nappy? You'll be able to do all that for a little more of this year's season, as Codies today announced F1 2019 for launch in June, having released the two previous games in Augusts.
]]>Codemasters have returned once again to damn your love and damn your lies with their latest annual adaptation of Formula One racing. F1 2018 is out now, bringing new features for career mode including deciding how to behave in TV interviews, a return to the French Grand Prix at Circuit Paul Ricard, and the usual dose of extra graphical fanciness and tweaks to driving and whatnot. But mostly I'm interested in multiple-choice interviews where I can act like a cocky dickhead claiming all the glory so my support team hate me. WHO'S THE STAR, IAN PETROLMAN? NOT YOU.
]]>Codemasters today announced that F1 2018, the latest annual sequel in their series of competitive pootling games based piss-takingly loosely on the popular Top Gear segment 'Star in a Reasonably Priced Car', will launch on August 24th. This year's game will bring an old feature back to Career mode, add more classic cars, and... other stuff. Codies aren't saying yet. They're not even showing screenshots yet. But I will go out on a limb and guess that it's broadly the same as last year's game, looking a little fancier, updating liveries and tracks, and tweaking some bits. You know, annual sequel stuff.
]]>Formula One fans should take note of this small window of opportunity where, not only can you play F1 2015 for free, but it will remain in your Steam library permanently. I'm not sure what else you need to read about it? You click a button and have a free forever game. It is yours. Like so many other Steam games you own, you never even have to install it. It can remain on a list that haunts you, reminding you of Steam sales gone by where you spent hard earned money for digital experiences you'll never even find the time to touch; entire worlds you've promised to visit but will ignore, casting them into some electronic purgatory from whence they cry out to you in the night.
Anyhow, this is a game about racing cars. They go real fast.
** NOTE: ...and just as fast as the cars, this free game promotion and sale have already ended. Well. There's that. **
]]>Nyyyyyommm. Nyim! Vrooooim. Those onomatopoeias, and others like them, signal the whizzing-past of both cars and announcements of annual sequels. Which can only mean that Codemasters today announced F1 2016 [official site], the next in their Formula 1 drive 'em up series. What's new and exciting this year? Well let me tell you! It's bringing back a car that can drive in front of you for your safety and delight. Not even a Formula 1 car - just some old Mercedes-Benz pootling about on the track when it thinks the race will get too exciting. A 'racedad', I think is the technical term.
]]>Would you like to see a video of cars going really fast? That’s excellent, because I just happen to have here a video of cars going very, very fast for you to look at. Unfortunately the trailer of Formula 1 2015 [official site] below comes alongside a delay. F1 2015 will now launch on July 10th, one month after its previous June 12th release date.
]]>In the way that mood cycles can revolve around Christmas or birthdays, do diehard game fans slip into emotional rhythms around marketing cycles? Do Call of Duty fans start to feel excited around the start of May, fidgeting and laughing more than usual, expecting the announcement of the next annualised sequel? Is E3 why I grow increasingly angry and desperate to flee to a forest over May?
Late July brings announcements from Codemasters of their next Formula 1 race 'em up, which is why you may have been anxiously checking your phone and inbox. But as well as F1 2014, today they announced another game too. One breaking the rhythm. A "next-gen" F1 game is coming earlier than usual next year. What does this mean? And how do you feel?
]]>Combining the internet with driving can often result in crashing into lampposts or squishing humans. But combining driving with the internet seems to prove significantly less dangerous. Thankfully Codemasters intend to pursue the latter, with a new browser-based F1 project. They're recruiting a team for it now, intending to take the obviously popular license in the oh-so modern direction of playing inside an internet window thingie. Or as Codies even less clearly put it, "an original FORMULA ONE service-based online game."
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