F1 Race Stars review
Cheap cash-in or sweet fan service? Certainly, Codemasters’ decision to paste its prized motorsport licence somewhat roughly over the Mario Kart template might look a little calculating – especially when the sport in question is the ruthlessly commercial Formula One. F1 Race Stars is an uncomfortable fit, epitomised by the strangely sinister spectacle of a bobble-headed Michael Schumacher mugging blankly at his rivals on the starting grid – to say nothing of the transformation of Abu Dhabi from a luxury hotel complex in an oil-rich city state into a lush, Arabian Nights fantasy land. (Thank God they didn’t do Bahrain.)Look at F1 Race Stars another way, though, and it’s a welcome burst of imagination in the hidebound world of licensed sports games, where implementing bug fixes and reshuffling last year’s feature list is what usually counts for innovation. Furthermore, the sensibilities of the sport and the developer have knocked a few interesting kinks into the well-worn mould of the family-friendly cartoon racer. Not with unqualified success, it must be said – but F1 Race Stars still amounts to more than the perfunctory rebranding exercise of last week’s LittleBigPlanet Karting.That won’t be your initial impression, because at first, F1 Race Stars comes across like an anodyne clone with a limb lopped off. Tracks borrow a corner or two from their real-life inspirations, but mostly take the form of smooth, broad, colourful rollercoasters punctuated with short cuts, hazards and spectacular jumps. Replace platform-game paradigms like lava land and ice world with inoffensive national stereotypes (beer breweries for Belgium, carnival for Brazil, sumo wrestlers for Japan) and it’s all very Mario Kart Wii.Read more…
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