"EA SPORTS™ F1® 24" review: The bottle is very new for the New Year

"Old wine in a new bottle" is a very good word, it can easily express a thing that seems to be new, but in fact, it is not very different from the previous kernel. As a result, it is particularly loved by game editors - especially when reviewing New Year's games led by gun cart ball, the word is literally a lifesaver.

As the pinnacle of motorsport in the real world, the Formula 1 World Championship's New Year's game "EA SPORTS™ F1" series is naturally also a frequent occurrence of the adjective "new bottle of old wine".

Unless you're a longtime series fan, an F1 enthusiast, or a rich guy with a steering wheel simulator, it's really hard to find much difference in the annual F1 game - just as it's hard for a casual viewer to find much difference in the annual F1 championship.

F1, full name "World Class Verstappen wins Grand Prix again", I was lying

EA SPORTS™ F1® 23 is a good example - it has vastly improved racing physics compared to its predecessor, making the 2022 ground effect car more agile and less like a bloated ship; It has improved tournament rules, with a new 35% race duration option and red flag simulation; Not to mention track renovations, big and small, and the Las Vegas Grand Prix one step ahead of real F1.

It can be said that last year's "F1 New Year goods", there are still some new things in the bottle.

New technology added to EA SPORTS™ F1® 23 that you don't understand but don't understand

However, as I said, for non-deep players, including me, these so-called "new drinks" are actually a little difficult to reach - for most players who can't eat the heart without turning off the TC assist, and open the game just to pinch a custom character to run a career season or two of entertainment players. EA SPORTS™ F1® 23 isn't really that different from last year's game, except for the lame story mode.

For this reason, when a new player asks how to get into the F1 game series, the answer is often the same - have you seen that new F1 game? Wait for him to release, then buy the original on sale, the two games are no different.

Perhaps EA has realized this and decided to do something different and innovative for all to see in their latest Formula 1 New Year product - hence the beautiful bottle EA SPORTS™ F1® 24.

Since we are mainly talking about "bottle", let's talk about the "wine" a little bit later and talk about the tangible updates - the biggest difference between EA SPORTS™ F1® 24 and its predecessor is that it has been "completely revamped" career mode.

In this game, the scope of the player's role is finally not limited to F2 drivers or custom drivers, but can directly "ghost" to the 2024 F1 drivers, inheriting their contracts, race data, historical achievements and driver ratings.

Yes, this time you can directly play as Zhou Guanyu, Hamilton or Verstappen in the Career mode - unlike the previous "play driver" in the Grand Prix mode, this time players can step into the real driver from a closer perspective, and experience a completely different fun.

If you're not interested in contemporary drivers, then you can still choose legends, including Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher, to bring them back to life in the F1 paddock in 2024 - and wonder what it will be like to see a familiar old rival reappear in the side of the "big brother" Alonso.

As a senior black fan of the Sobo team, I chose to play Zhou Guanyu

Not only is the "scope of play" expanded, this time the career mode, in the driver development, team simulation and the field of the part, has also been extensively redesigned. The most talked about setting in sports games - "driver rating" has become the core attribute of this game's career mode.

In the first time you enter the career mode, the "driver rating" will be deeply tied to your driver, you need to set scoring goals for yourself in your contract with the team - the higher the goal, the higher the team's expectations of you, the internal resources will be tilted towards you accordingly, helping to direct the development of the car to your driving habits. Accordingly, if you end the season with a driver rating below the team's acceptable threshold, you will be shown the door.

Everything a driver does during a Grand Prix weekend is reflected in the driver rating, experience is gained by finishing the race, overtaking improves skill, avoiding crashes and penalties helps to develop awareness, and speed is achieved by running the fastest qualifying and race laps possible - in short, running every weekend as well as possible is the most basic way to improve ratings.

In the middle of a Grand Prix weekend, your track engineer will also come up with some temporary "mission objectives" for you based on your vehicle condition, track conditions and driving habits - when you have serious tire damage, he will ask you to increase the fuel taxi and avoid heavy braking; When you are in clean air, he also makes you push as hard as you can and improve your lap time.

Real F1 track engineers also communicate this to the drivers, but in EA SPORTS™ F1® 24, if you meet these conditions, you will not only gain an advantage on the track, but you will also be able to convert the completed goal directly to the corresponding driver rating.

This design satisfies the entertainment at the same time, but also takes into account some of the authenticity of the property, which is true to my heart - it would be better if he did not remind me to cool down the accelerator when I was about to be overtaken by the car and was pushing hard.

In addition, the "duel" mechanism of the previous career mode has also been renovated to a certain extent, and it is also closely related to the "driver rating" mechanism.

At the beginning of the season, you will trigger a duel with your teammates, if you can outperform your teammates in the race, you can win the lead in the duel, and thus earn a small or small driver score every weekend.

When the season is on the road, the system will also assign you several "equal opponents" and provoke "conflict" between you, if you can beat them in championship points or driver ratings, you can also get a one-time reward - of course, the reward is also driver ratings.

In this review process, I started the 'ratings duel' with Ocon at the end of the sixth Grand Prix of the season, when I was second in the championship, behind Verstappen of Red Bull Racing, and Ocon was at the bottom of the whole team - yes, the 'ratings duel' does not depend on your relative performance, as long as the drivers' ratings are similar, You are "equal rivals".

Although it is understandable that the designers want to increase the "duel dimension", but when I play the "championship duel" with the world's best drivers, while playing the "rating duel" with the drivers at the end of the crane, it is still some sense of contradiction - you and Lu Bu have a back and forth, but people are talking about you and Xing Daorong who is better or worse.

It is not difficult to see that the "driver rating" system of EA SPORTS™ F1® 24 is no longer a simple quantitative value, but has permeated all aspects of the game, and the various systems of the game have ushered in a wave of renovations linked to the score, which makes the game's career mode look cooler and more modern.

But it seems that one very important thing has been overlooked - the driver rating itself, other than "good looking", what in the end is useful?

In other sports games where "rating" is a core attribute, the benefits of increasing ratings are immediate. Improving your shot in "FIFA" will make you shoot faster and more accurate, and lighting up your badge in "NBA 2K" will allow you to unlock key skills, and the scores in these games can directly translate into your advantage in the game.

Player rating system in FIFA 23

But EA SPORTS™ F1® 24 does not do this, whether you play as a custom rookie with a rating of over 65, or Max Verstappen with a rating to the ceiling, in the same car, using the same running method, running at the same speed.

This is understandable, after all, racing games and traditional sports games are different, it has its own "true" attributes - whether it is the handle or the steering wheel, the player's operation can be fine-grained and intuitive feedback to the game, rather than doing a "shooting game" and "shooting game" as other sports games. Because of this, players don't need a cumbersome system on top of the physical system that adds to the control burden -- if the score really affected the player's turning, everyone would be mad.

But this also leads to another question, without the "character growth" score, how do you really function?

EA SPORTS™ F1® 24 gives a disappointing answer on this question - driver ratings affect the team's resource tilt weight, and the performance of this "weight" returns to the most traditional career mode of "obtaining development points", "pointing out development upgrades" and "improving the performance of the car".

The only difference is that driver ratings affect the rate at which you get your weekly resource base and upgrade your development - which, to put it mildly, is hardly a big difference.

As a result, when you spend half a season in EA SPORTS™ F1® 24's Career mode, you will find that although the Career mode looks like it has made a lot of radical innovations, the actual play is still the same familiar taste - it is really just a new bottle.

By the way, the so-called "Career Mode as an F1 Driver" does not bring you additional exclusive events, playing Zhou Guanyu and playing a custom nobody, except for the initial value, there is almost no difference.

Of course, playing Zhou Guanyu to win the Chinese Grand Prix was a great experience

Finally, let's talk a little bit about the "wine" thing, which is the deeper control experience of the game and the simulation of the car.

In this game, the game's physics system has been upgraded again, the suspension kinematics has been updated, and the degree of aerodynamics has been improved - now, dirty air in front of the car will have a more obvious impact on the rear car, compared to the previous game, now you will obviously feel the understeer caused by dirty air into the corner, and it is more likely to skid out of the corner.

Yes, compared to the "feel solid" previous game, the handling experience of this game is clearly "progress" in the direction of more difficult to control, "F1® 22" the familiar "sailing" feel seems to be back - in many cases, the player will be deeply troubled by understeering, have to brake early at the expense of corner speed, in exchange for stable corner.

I'm not sure what professional drivers or esports players will say about this change, but as an average player, the most intuitive feeling is that the EA SPORTS™ F1® 24 car has become harder to drive.

In the simulation of tire management, this game also brings something new - now, the management of tire temperature has become extremely important. Especially in the rain war, the player needs to intentionally drive the car off the racing line and physically cool the tires by stepping on puddles, otherwise it will accelerate the wear of the tires due to high temperature, lose grip in the back of the race, and even burst the tire.

However, the AI in the game does not seem to follow this point, their full rain tire even if the full push, will not overheat, and the player must sacrifice the line and speed in order to cool down, it has to be said that this is not fair.

Forgot to mention, players can now adjust ERS mode during matches

In addition, the AI aggression of this work is still strong, they will not hesitate to wheel to wheel with you when there is a chance to overtake, and even a head on your tail, compared to me this stinking fish rotten shrimp, obviously they are more worthy of the title of "mudhead car".

Overall, EA SPORTS™ F1® 24 is, as my title suggests, a standard "old wine in a new bottle" game, with a core that remains unchanged from last year's EA SPORTS™ F1® 23, or even the year before that, F1®22. But in the "bottle" aspect, this game does make a small change.

At the very least, this revamped career mode should be worth giving series fans a try - after all, the experience of training your favorite driver into a hexagonal warrior step by step in the game is really cool.