Latest news with #Codemasters'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
F1 25 Review: Play as Brad Pitt's Sonny Hayes in Video Game
Codemasters' F1 series is one of video gaming's most consistent franchises as its delivered thrilling simulation racing for well over a decade at this point. This year's release features some great under the hood upgrades graphically, additional options to the career mode, and a great crossover with the F1 movie. It all gels to create a great racing game that is filled with modes and features to keep Formula One fans busy. The core racing has always been the series' strong suit and it remains as such this year. There's a particular buzz that comes with overtaking an opponent around a turn, carefully navigating the space between success and a crash. The sense of speed is as good as ever, with some visual upgrades making the cars look better than ever as you .(hopefully) speed past them. With plenty of difficulty settings and sliders, you can make sure you're having fulfilling action on the track across the game's many modes. One of the coolest additions to F1 25 is the game's implementation of the upcoming F1 movie starring Brad Pitt. First off, both the APXGP and its drivers (Pitt and Damson Idris' characters) are available in both Driver Career and My Team modes. Additionally, there are scenarios from the film that players can relive. Currently, only one is available (more will be coming on June 30 once the film is out), where you play as Pitt's Sonny Hayes and try to match the time of Idris' Joshua Pearce, but it's presented really well as it blends movie footage to set it up before transitioning into the racing gameplay. I always love challenge modes in sports games, and I can't wait to do the rest of the challenges next month. If you enjoy the taste of off-track drama in the F1 movie mode, then you'll be glad to know that the story-based Braking Point mode returns for a third time. It picks up from last year's story — although it introduces itself well, so you won't be totally lost if you're new — and you'll have the option to race as either Callie Mayer or Aiden Jackson. I've always gotten a kick out of the mode (and wish more sports games would have narrative modes), and what's nice about this year's addition is that after you've finished the story, you can take the team into Career Mode to continue it if you wish. As a yearly release, the game is naturally iterative (as it should be with such a strong base), but there are a number of other additions. New advancements in F1 25 include five rebuilt tracks (Bahrain, Miami, Melbourne, Suzuka, and Imola) that look fantastic. You can also race around three tracks in reverse layouts, as well, so there's more variety than ever before. A lot of other nice touches, such as better facial animations and a much better decal editor, make it a better visual spectacle both on the track and during cutscenes as well. Codemasters has done it yet again as F1 25 is a fantastic offering with plenty of modes and gripping racing. I can't wait to see more of the F1 movie implementation as I love what's already in the game, and Braking Point is yet again a solid story mode. You can never go wrong with the F1 games, and F1 25 builds on the series' strong past to provide the best one yet. As ComingSoon's review policy explains, a score of 8.5 equates to 'Great.' While there are a few minor issues, this score means that the art succeeds at its goal and leaves a memorable impact. Disclosure: The publisher provided a PlayStation 5 copy for our F1 25 review. The post F1 25 Review: Play as Brad Pitt's Sonny Hayes in Video Game appeared first on - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More.
Metro
6 days ago
- Automotive
- Metro
F1 25 review
Codemasters' latest Formula One sim includes the return of Braking Point mode, a movie tie-in, and the introduction of reverse tracks. This year's instalment of EA's officially licenced Formula One game arrives just as the real-life F1 season is starting to get into its stride. As is customary, the game, like last year's F1 24, was crafted in the exotic climes of Birmingham by veteran racing game specialist Codemasters. And while it remains as startlingly realistic as ever, F1 25 goes much further in adding elements of fantasy, that fit in surprisingly well. Perhaps the headline inclusion in F1 25 is the return of Braking Point, the story mode which returns for a third time, after a two year hiatus. Braking Point 3 is surely the best instalment yet, of the Konnersport story, with a twisty storyline that feels like a big budget TV soap opera. Its action is cleverly varied, too. At times, for example, you might have to hold up the cars behind you without being passed, while your teammate catches up on new tyres after a pit stop, or you have to set a sequence of fastest laps to reel in and pass the rampant Red Bull cars. With 15 – albeit sometimes short – chapters, it's quite meaty, too. Like the other recent F1 games, F1 25 is pretty complex in structural terms, offering a bewildering variety of play modes. This year, these modes have been arranged in a more logical manner and Codemasters has turned most of its attention to the key My Team Career mode, giving it such a major revamp that it decided to call it My Team 2.0. You still take on the role of the owner of a new team, but this time around you don't drive the car yourself, but can jump into each race as either of the two drivers you have hired. Which makes much more sense – and in general, My Team 2.0 feels much more logical and authentic than it used to. You can opt to start from scratch or with a more established factory, and as you improve your factory facilities (a key mechanic in the game) you actually see them grow more sprawling. Separating research and development, so that you often have to choose which driver gets upgrades, also aligns more with the real world. The Driver Career mode is more or less unchanged, although the addition of specialists – in subjects like manufacturing or strategy – gives you additional goals, bringing further perks as you seek to get one over your teammate. This time round, you can also play as a number of iconic drivers, including Button, Senna, and Schumacher, as well as fictional ones from Braking Point and the upcoming F1: The Movie. There's also a whole new Career mode entitled Challenge Career, which lets you work through scenarios which are available for a limited time and post your best effort to compete on a global leaderboard. Pre-launch, the only such scenario involved steering Lewis Hamilton in a Ferrari through three race weekends, so the jury is somewhat out on whether Challenge Career might develop into something compelling. Speaking of Jerry Bruckheimer and Brad Pitt's F1: The Movie, F1 25 lets you play through scenes from the film, starting with Pitt testing his fictional car at Silverstone. Like Challenge Career, various playable episodes will be added after launch. The fun of a Formula One game is that it cannot only simulate the reality of the current season but also what-if scenarios of varying degrees of plausibility. F1 25 takes that fantasy element to a new dimension with the ability to drive around three tracks – Silverstone, Zandvoort, and the Red Bull Ring in Austria – in the reverse direction. More Trending That's something that isn't allowed in real life and involved more work than you might imagine, since pit lane entries, exits and so on had to be virtually remodelled. But the effect is stunning; the tracks' characters completely change when you drive the wrong way around them. Silverstone becomes even more high-speed, feeling like a longer version of Thruxton, while Zandvoort, with its banked corners, is bonkers in reverse. All the essential building blocks of a Formula One game feel impressively solid in F1 25. The cars' handling and tyre modelling is fantastically realistic – after a wobble in F1 24, when Codemasters improved the physics but had to make some tweaks when the game was released. And it looks simply magnificent, some tracks scanned in using Lidar technology, bringing a new level of ultra-realism to them. This year's game has the best Braking Point yet, the tweaks to My Team Career work beautifully, the Challenge Career is intriguing (albeit unproven), and the reverse tracks should prove irresistible to Formula One fanatics. It's difficult for any yearly sequel to truly break the mould but F1 25 provides a heady mix of both realism and fantasy, to appeal to every kind of Formula One fan. In Short: Startling realism mixed with clever fantasy elements create one of the most compelling motorsport games of the current gen. Pros: Great new Braking Point mode and astutely tweaked My Team options. Looks and feels fantastic, with more iconic drivers than ever. Reverse tracks work great. Cons: The jury is out on Challenge Career and the overwhelming number of options and complex handling can be intimidating for inexperienced players. Score: 8/10 Formats: Xbox Series X/S (reviewed), PlayStation 5, and PCPrice: £69.99Publisher: EADeveloper: CodemastersRelease Date: 30th March 2025 Age Rating: 3 Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: Star Wars actor says the series has 'gotta give us Battlefront 3 ASAP' MORE: Massive PS5 discount and Call Of Duty bundle coming this week claims leak MORE: Two drivers die within hours of each other at Motorsport UK races
Metro
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Super sexist Leisure Suit Larry franchise is being delisted from Steam
Almost all of the Leisure Suit Larry games are about to be removed from Steam and strangely it may have something to do with Codemasters' troubles. The point 'n' click graphic adventure genre has long since ceased to be a mainstream concern for major publishers. There's still the occasional example from indie developers but the golden age of LucasArts titles like The Secret Of Monkey Island and Day Of The Tentacle is well in the past. 2022's Return To Monkey Island is the only recent example of one of the classic franchises continuing into the modern day but surprisingly the only other one still going is Leisure Suit Larry, which had a new entry as recently as 2020. For those that don't know the series, they're 'sex comedies' where you control a middle age pickup artist called Larry Laffer, as he lusts after various younger women. They're not very sexually explicit but they are inherently sexist and painfully unfunny, although it's not clear if that's why they've been delisted. A post on Steam entitled 'Time for Larry to Retire (Just a Little Bit)' states that 'After decades of questionable pickup lines and unforgettable adventures, it's finally time for Larry to hang up his leisure suit – at least the retro version of it!' That means that Leisure Suit Larry 1 through 7 (as a running joke there was no 4) and Leisure Suit Larry Magna Cum Laude Uncut and Uncensored will 'soon' be leaving Steam, although if you've already bought them, you will be able to still play and redownload them. The newer games Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don't Dry and Wet Dreams Dry Twice, by German studio CrazyBunch, are unaffected though, even though most people probably haven't heard of those. It's very hard to say what's going on here as the original games, or at least compilations of them, are still available at GOG and Fanatical, unless they're going to suddenly disappear as well. Although the games are embarrassing, with their initial success largely dependent on an audience of teenage boys, they're not as outrageously objectionable as they sound, and no game should be erased from existence no matter what it's like – although this is more likely to be a question of IP rights rather than censorship. Unlikely as it seems, it may have something to do with the current problems at Codemasters. They announced this week that they will not be making any more rally games, and it's feared that they will be badly hit by the hundreds of job cuts at owner EA. Although they've done very little with it, Codemasters is believed to be the current owner of the Leisure Suit Larry IP. Or at least the original games. More Trending They published the particularly awful Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust, by Team 17, in 2008 although they were so embarrassed to do so they did it under the Funsta label. Original publisher Sierra On-Line went bust in 2008 and a number of different companies have made and published Leisure Suit Larry games since then, with the most recent titles, which are unaffected by the Steam purge, being published by indie company Assemble Entertainment. Whatever the reason for what's going on, things do not look good for Codemasters, with its main Twitter account having been taken down shortly after its WRC announcement. The publisher generally relied on other game-specific accounts for its announcements but, sadly, it all points to an ignoble end for one of the UK's longest lasting developers. Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: Microsoft is now the top publisher on both PlayStation and Xbox stores MORE: One of the best games of 2024 is free on PS Plus in May MORE: Titanfall 3 was 'almost finished' before 100 staff were laid off insists leaker
