Even with the driver aids off there is too much of a hint of being railroaded round its tracks, arcade style, and there's certainly none of the tweakable, twitchy handling you expect from a full-on sim. Aggressive AI hides this for a while, but the truth gradually sinks in. Something we were actually outraged by was the fact that that in two-player mode there are no AI cars at all. Our Sony chief Andy Ashwin almost went into convulsions when he discovered this. We don't know, but they surely could have got it sorted.
Crashes can be spectacular, mind - but ridiculously so, sometimes.
Very silly, of course, and a sad indictment of the physics engine. Another bit of good news is that even the silly nature of some of the crashes can't detract from the marvellous replays, which are quite stunning, almost photo-realstic, and a joy to watch. The cut scenes too are marvellous, especially the pit stop action, where you're treated to a fully animated and motion captured view of tire changing, wing replacements, the lot. But of course it's the driving and the in-race graphics that count rather than in the crash, replay and cut scene departments, thus this game is found wanting. It has surely been rushed out for Christmas to beat Ubi Soft and Sony, both of whom have PS2 F1 titles in the pipeline.