Concept:
Official game for F1 racing.
Keep:
Official tracks and racers. You've got a ton of official F1 courses and plenty of real world racers to play with. The game features all the official drivers and teams from this year's Formula One World Championship series.
The Forza 3-like assists. They may not have patterned driving assists on Forza 3, but the inclusion of a braking line and some optional assists make the game far more approachable. Now if only there were a rewind button....
Correct:
Use the shoulder buttons. I've gotten so used to gas and break being assigned to the shoulder buttons that using the face buttons just seems awkward and antiquated. The lack of an option to switch the controls to my preferred style was somewhat disheartening.
Touchy controls. Sometimes what feels like the smallest correction turns into a big spinout or an unintended wide turn.
Cut:
The announcer. He. Talks. Like. He's. From. 2000. With. Lots. Of. Pauses. In. His. Speech.
Conclusion:
F1 2009 seems like a dream to F1 fans. You get a pretty big game in a small package you can take with you wherever.
The game's got one-off races, a championship mode and a season mode for the folks that like to envelop themselves in the sport. There's enough here to keep you busy for a while.
It's got some snags, like grainy looking graphics and a bit too touchy controls, but for someone that's looking to get their racing fix on the go, F1 2009 looks to be a good way to do that.
Stay on the track for a couple more laps with UGO's Racing Arcade and the Racing Games HQ.
