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Formula 1 is a sport that has a massive fan base: in other words, it’s worldwide. There is something about Formula 1 that, however boring some races may be, keeps the fans happy. Maybe it’s the controversy, the cars, the locations or the drivers. Or the spectacular crashes you see once in a while. Whatever appeals to you, though, there’s one game that will have everything that Formula 1 is.

F1 2010 is the game, in Codemasters’ hands after Sony’s exclusive F1 Championship Edition (based on the 2006 season) was released before the developer, Studio Liverpool, lost the license. Being Codemasters’ first Formula 1 game, the Birmingham studio has been hard at work since acquiring the license in May 2008. Last year Sumo Digital (published by Codemasters) released F1 2009 on the PSP, and was a decent success after the disappointment that the Birmingham studio weren’t releasing a 2009 game: instead focusing all of their attention to 2010.

And it looks like that has really paid off. F1 2010 is, without a doubt, looking like a brilliant game, and almost everything we have seen is pre-alpha! Ahead of its 24th September 2010 release worldwide on the PlayStation 3 (and Xbox & PC), a lot of information has been revealed about the game, some here you won’t find in many other places.

Firstly, let’s get this out of the way: obviously this game is based on the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship season. This means we have a cheating Spaniard at Ferrari in Fernando Alonso, and last year’s World Champion at McLaren in Jenson Button, teamed with fellow Brit and 2008 champion Lewis Hamilton. Both Brits and both World Champions. Now, before I go on any further, it’s worth mentioning some things that may not please some people, but you must remember this is Codemasters’ first Formula 1 game and these features can be expected in future F1 titles by the studio. There is no Safety Car, no formation and cool-down lap, and no mechanical failures, although AI can suffer it. The race will never be red flagged (in other words: stopped) although all the other flags are present in the game and have the according meaning.

But to be honest, with what F1 2010 is offering, who cares? There’s so much here you can’t cope!

You’ll have tyre deformation to put up with, engine wear, changing track surface, making vital pit-stop decisions (do you go for full wets when there are black clouds and be prepared, or do you think nothing of it and stay on drys?) and much more. The first is pretty simple: don’t ruin your tyres otherwise you’ll suffer the consequences. Try to avoid marbles and other little things that can ruin your tyres. If you are in a full length race (race distance is optional), by the end you’ll have to start thinking about conserving your tyres. Likewise with the engine, which is the next feature: engine wear can have catastrophic affects on the car. You’ll have to change the engine power on your steering wheel to avoid wear. So, go for full power but remember too much and you’ll have to back off a little bit. The next one is changing track surface; if you are racing a full weekend, in first practice you’ll find no grip and a clean track, and as you progress a racing line will appear where cars have gone over and laid down rubber, meaning by the time you reach a race you’ll have the perfect amount of grip on the track. This all depends on the weather, however, so rain can change all of this. (More on the weather system later.) Then there’s the pit-stop decision. As you enter you’ll have to turn on the limiter (although you can’t control your car, but have to brake when entering your pit box because you can potentially run over your front jack man!) and then when you get into pit box you’ll have to make the decision. A option box appears and from there you choose what tyre you want, which depends on many things. What’s the weather like? How much wear is on my tyre? All of these features just add to the experience that F1 2010 offers. And that’s only the start.

Because, whatever difficulty and assists you choose (or turn off), F1 2010 promises to be as authentic as possible. The grandstands are, for example, obviously not as busy in practice as they are in the race, and you’ll hear the crowd cheer along with the great noise of the engine. But the main authenticity comes with the Career mode, which has the tagline: ‘Be the Driver, Live the Life.’

This is something that Codemasters relies heavily on to make F1 2010 special from any other racing game and give it that authenticity, and rightly so. So, ‘Live the Life’ lets you do exactly that: live the life of a racing driver. You’ll have to sign contracts for teams, do tests for them, and most excitingly, be able to explore the paddock in first person! You don’t get ultimate freedom but can go around doing interviews, and then after an event you’ll have to go to a press conference. The questions and answers are based around what actually happened, so you will have an idea of what the interviewers are talking about! You can create rivalries with other drivers, and some answers you can choose will have an affect on another driver: if you say something negative about them this can reflect on their on-track performance. Likewise, your team-mate is always your main rival, and you must defeat him to get new upgrades on your car first. Hopefully you’ll be able to create Red Bull style team-mate rival controversy as well! Next up is ‘Be the Driver’. This part is pretty straightforward: drive the car through a full World Championship season (you can choose 3, 5, or 7 seasons). In the full length, 7 season Career, you start off testing for a backmarker team: either Virgin Racing, Hispania Racing or Lotus Racing. When you’ve signed a contract, it’s off to the first event in Bahrain. The driver you replace, due to licensing, can’t go to another team and therefore simply disappears. Of course, starting as a backmarker team means no success: you just have to be patient and get over it. Success might be beating your team-mate or beating a fellow new team at these stages. ‘Be the Driver’ does not mean ‘Be the Driver and also the viewer on TV’, so there’s no fancy commentary, the only commentary you’ll get is from your Race Engineer who informs you of all of the latest news, whether it be to encourage you or inform you of another driver’s current status. The press conference speaker is David Croft and the paddock interviewer is Holly Samos, and the better you have done in an event the more media interest you will get. You can even sit in the car in your garage and watch the screens during a session, and it goes so far that you can sit down with your Race Engineer and create a tuning setup for the session. The Career mode looks to be a revolutionary feature in F1 2010 and for plenty of the right reasons.

So, what’s the on-track stuff like then? Generally, it depends on what assists and difficulty you choose, and what a massive variety there is! Basically, F1 2010 can suit all skill levels: from braking assists to the racing line, to the hardest there can be. The latter will really be a challenge, because F1 2010, apart from currently a few little niggles that will inevitably be fixed, looks very realistic when at its hardest. The car will slide out if you smash the throttle out of a corner, and oversteer and understeer are implemented properly so you’ll feel the affects of both where due.

Graphically, even with the pre-alpha build being basically the only build being shown off, the graphics do look impressive. Obviously not perfect at the moment with the orange tint (which will be removed for the final game) and flat textures but these will be attended to. The damage system is as advanced as the likes of GRID, Dirt and Dirt 2, but has been redesigned for Formula 1 cars. The tyre walls will deform and in some cases break up and fly everywhere, so if some land up scattered all over the track you’ll have to be careful.

Weather, of course, plays a big part in F1 2010. You’ll have to deal with light rain, heavy rain and more, but not only that, you’ll have to make vital tyre decisions and to make everything harder, the weather is dynamic. Which means that the weather can change throughout an event, whether it be from practice to qualifying or sometimes even whilst a session is in progress’ if you’re leading the race in the final few laps and black clouds start to appear, the decision is yours and it can make or break your race.

The normal view options are there, from cockpit to behind the car, and alongside that you’ll be able to celebrate with your arms and fists when you finish a race in a good position for you and your team. So, for example, if you do the impossible and snatch a point in a Lotus, you’ll be able to celebrate in style. All of this adds to the overall authenticity of the game, which is something Codemasters have set out to do and it looks like they’ve nailed it.

Some more little things to mention: the game sticks to the 8 engines a season rule and you can choose an engine each session, sessions are skippable and also you’ll have limited tyres each session, again sticking to the real rules. Something that comes as a disappointment is the fact that there is no saving during a session- but the game autosaves between sessions.

Penalties are present in the game, which will be very hard to get right in the 12-player Multiplayer mode. There is no Split Screen, but there is online and LAN to get in to. You can choose various settings, invite friends, have it a public or private game and many more.

Come 24th September 2010, F1 fans will be all fired up for playing the game as the real season eventually comes to a close. Also especially considering the fact it launches to coincide with the Singapore Grand Prix. At the moment, it looks to be the best F1 game ever created and an absolute essential for any F1 fan who owns a PlayStation 3.

You can read our full review on PlayStation Future shortly after the game launches.