Previews// F1 2010

Such debris works in tandem with the weather system, a feature Jeal is perhaps pleased with the most, with Codemasters dedicating a second team specifically to get the effects of such a system right.

The result is a track “that evolves and knows itself.” A dry track will start off dusty and slippery until a few laps in, when the cars have laid down enough rubber to offer some grip to the racing line. How much tyre rubber is burned onto the tarmac and the benefits to lapping cars is all calculated on the fly.

“We use the same system for the wet weather, which sort of does the reverse – it washes away all of the marbles so the track is kind of 'green' again,” Jeal notes. “Of course, you're going to need different tyres to compensate.”

That's where the computations come in; things like how much water each type of tyre disperses and the speed difference that provides. And the status of the tracks are checked every 30 seconds or so to determine how wet or dry it is, and adjust calculations accordingly.

It's not all the work of boffins dedicated solely to this one game, though. F1 2010 is the latest Codies title to use its EGO Engine, a backbone that has lent itself to other racing games like Race Driver: Grid and shooters like Operation Flashpoint. It's a very versatile engine, Jeal says, and one that develops like a collaborative workshop between internal studios.

“Each new game that uses EGO adds something to the code base, such as Operation Flashpoint's grenade or smoke effects,” the producer continues. “After a project it's all de-assembled back into the core engine so those new additions are available for future titles. It works really well.” As the biggest game using the engine, it was a challenge for the team to allocate memory for the data storage, Jeal adds.

Memory is certainly the key to success on these tracks, as my race around Monza continued in a shameless fashion. Everyone has been happily overtaking me on the dry track as I battle with my car to stop it from oversteering. At this point I've learned that hitting anything – even as much as another car's marble – will damage my car or otherwise affect it just enough to make me notice. It's the same with racing lines too – veer away from the expected line and your tyres will hate you for it.

After learning how to approach some of the snaking twists and remembering at which point I have to brake (to an apparent crawl if you've just been bolting it down the line at 100mph) to gingerly corner sharp bends, I fare a lot better. Instead of a miserable 8th, I'm looking at 4th. Nice. If nothing else, this is proof that the concept of gameplay is certainly solid – I've been at this course for about 12 laps now and I still just want to sit here and better myself.

With the game heading for a September release, there's still a fair way to go yet. The most obvious thing is that I'm playing with placeholder 2009 cars in a pre-alpha state. So it's not entirely fair I start picking holes at it.

But regardless, it's nice to know that Codemasters is still working on the AI – I changed Monza's weather to 'Heavy Rain' (hehe) and found that my rivals were skidding around onto the grass more often than I was! And that's saying something. Maybe they were just doing their mechanical Gene Kelly thing.