Surprisingly, this is the first game in the series with anything resembling a tutorial. It doesn't do a great job of actually teaching the player how to control the car, which seems kind of important since these cars are so hard to drive, especially since the game also defaults to having all assists turned off, but at least it tells you what DRS and KERS are and how they work, unlike the last game, and gives you a couple little challenges to practice with before you start your career. It also introduces flashbacks, something that wasn't present in the previous two entries that I was very happy to see since being able to undo race-ending mistakes a couple times could save me a lot of time.
The time savings of having working flashbacks was kind of undone by the career mode being lengthened, though. The shortest race length is now 25% rather than 20%, which may not be a big change but would definitely add up, and the only way to have a practice session before the race is to do the full long weekend, meaning up to three qualifying rounds, and since the difficulty seems lower at times in this game than in 2011, making it past the first round and having to do more laps wasn't impossible for me with Williams... but I'd much rather have one-shot qualifying with a practice session, like before. No idea why that isn't an option. It's even more frustrating since the game locks out nearly all of the setup options after you hit the track the first time in qualifying, so the only way to test setups on a short weekend is to restart the session after every adjustment. Heck, it's even worse when going with the one-shot qualifying option, because you only have access to the quick setup slider, not the actual tuning menu. I did end up qualifying 18th most of the time anyway though, just like the last game, sometimes because the cars ahead of me were just plain faster, other times because I just didn't want to do another qualifying session and knew I'd do far better in the race anyway, like the time I qualified 18th and then spent the entire race in 2nd without even resorting to any dirty tricks... aside from the usual "brake later than everybody and divebomb the whole pack in the first corner" strategy.
The controls are a bit weird, coming from 2011. The cars feel heavy, but still responsive, and despite also feeling tighter and less floaty, it's easier to slide. I also really don't like that this game cuts your engine if you go off track, because while I understand the desire to keep players from driving wildly and taking shortcuts, I also don't like being further punished for making mistakes that are already punishing... and there are already penalties for corner cutting anyway, so why is this here? I preferred 2011's handling over 2010, but I prefer 2010's handling over 2012 for sure. Another weird mixed bag of a change is the sound, because while some of the sound design is definitely better, the mixing is definitely worse. The engineer gets drowned out not by engine noise, but by the wind, because wind noise is the loudest thing in the mix for some unholy reason. The wind noise almost completely disappears when you activate DRS, which is an interesting idea, but it would have been just as interesting if the normal wind noise was like 25% of the volume it is. The engines of other cars are also louder, to the point that it's quite difficult to shift gears correctly during race starts because all I can hear is other cars.
Aside from all that, graphics are another small step forward, loading times are significantly improved to the point that I could boot this game up and click all the way through into a race and be on track in less time than 2011 takes just to load the garage, the UI is even less cool but admittedly much more clear and fast, fuel management is much more forgiving now so if you were to only use the standard fuel map you would never have to worry about running out of fuel by the end like what happened to me twice in 2011, and... that's about it. It's just another iteration. Though I must say, the overall presentation in this game is probably the best so far. The cool menus may not be there, but the original music is much better, more fitting, and more plentiful, and there's more interesting information about different races and such sprinkled in there, including a turn-by-turn talk through video for each track. 2011 was a full step backwards in the presentation department, so this felt very good. Also, pit stops actually work now, so going in for my tire change no longer felt like gambling my race away, which was wonderful. Something else that actually works now is the game itself, which was also wonderful. No more constant crashing... only one crash. And some odd stuttering here and there. Close enough.
Also I'd like to quickly nitpick Yas Marina and Circuit of the Americas in this game. Yas Marina seems to be absolutely covered in tire marbles, to the point that I had to turn on the full racing line so I could stick precisely to it, because deviating from the racing line by millimeters meant driving in the marbles at times. Hated that. Circuit of the Americas, meanwhile, has the worst track limits I've ever seen. There are plenty of times on any track where I would clearly cut a corner and not be warned for it, but never could I get away with something so severe as literally skipping an entire corner until this track... and then at the same time, on one of the last corners, I did get warned for corner cutting multiple times... on the outside. And I wasn't even off track, I just had two wheels on the curb, and that was enough for a warning. Baffling.
(from my web zone: https://kerosyn.link/i-played-every-codemasters-racing-game-to-prove-a-point/#f1-2012)
The time savings of having working flashbacks was kind of undone by the career mode being lengthened, though. The shortest race length is now 25% rather than 20%, which may not be a big change but would definitely add up, and the only way to have a practice session before the race is to do the full long weekend, meaning up to three qualifying rounds, and since the difficulty seems lower at times in this game than in 2011, making it past the first round and having to do more laps wasn't impossible for me with Williams... but I'd much rather have one-shot qualifying with a practice session, like before. No idea why that isn't an option. It's even more frustrating since the game locks out nearly all of the setup options after you hit the track the first time in qualifying, so the only way to test setups on a short weekend is to restart the session after every adjustment. Heck, it's even worse when going with the one-shot qualifying option, because you only have access to the quick setup slider, not the actual tuning menu. I did end up qualifying 18th most of the time anyway though, just like the last game, sometimes because the cars ahead of me were just plain faster, other times because I just didn't want to do another qualifying session and knew I'd do far better in the race anyway, like the time I qualified 18th and then spent the entire race in 2nd without even resorting to any dirty tricks... aside from the usual "brake later than everybody and divebomb the whole pack in the first corner" strategy.
The controls are a bit weird, coming from 2011. The cars feel heavy, but still responsive, and despite also feeling tighter and less floaty, it's easier to slide. I also really don't like that this game cuts your engine if you go off track, because while I understand the desire to keep players from driving wildly and taking shortcuts, I also don't like being further punished for making mistakes that are already punishing... and there are already penalties for corner cutting anyway, so why is this here? I preferred 2011's handling over 2010, but I prefer 2010's handling over 2012 for sure. Another weird mixed bag of a change is the sound, because while some of the sound design is definitely better, the mixing is definitely worse. The engineer gets drowned out not by engine noise, but by the wind, because wind noise is the loudest thing in the mix for some unholy reason. The wind noise almost completely disappears when you activate DRS, which is an interesting idea, but it would have been just as interesting if the normal wind noise was like 25% of the volume it is. The engines of other cars are also louder, to the point that it's quite difficult to shift gears correctly during race starts because all I can hear is other cars.
Aside from all that, graphics are another small step forward, loading times are significantly improved to the point that I could boot this game up and click all the way through into a race and be on track in less time than 2011 takes just to load the garage, the UI is even less cool but admittedly much more clear and fast, fuel management is much more forgiving now so if you were to only use the standard fuel map you would never have to worry about running out of fuel by the end like what happened to me twice in 2011, and... that's about it. It's just another iteration. Though I must say, the overall presentation in this game is probably the best so far. The cool menus may not be there, but the original music is much better, more fitting, and more plentiful, and there's more interesting information about different races and such sprinkled in there, including a turn-by-turn talk through video for each track. 2011 was a full step backwards in the presentation department, so this felt very good. Also, pit stops actually work now, so going in for my tire change no longer felt like gambling my race away, which was wonderful. Something else that actually works now is the game itself, which was also wonderful. No more constant crashing... only one crash. And some odd stuttering here and there. Close enough.
Also I'd like to quickly nitpick Yas Marina and Circuit of the Americas in this game. Yas Marina seems to be absolutely covered in tire marbles, to the point that I had to turn on the full racing line so I could stick precisely to it, because deviating from the racing line by millimeters meant driving in the marbles at times. Hated that. Circuit of the Americas, meanwhile, has the worst track limits I've ever seen. There are plenty of times on any track where I would clearly cut a corner and not be warned for it, but never could I get away with something so severe as literally skipping an entire corner until this track... and then at the same time, on one of the last corners, I did get warned for corner cutting multiple times... on the outside. And I wasn't even off track, I just had two wheels on the curb, and that was enough for a warning. Baffling.
(from my web zone: https://kerosyn.link/i-played-every-codemasters-racing-game-to-prove-a-point/#f1-2012)