RealHondaF1.com vs Anthony Davidson

Ant calling for help
By Phil Huff
March 2 2007

At a secret venue in London late last night, RealHondaF1.com had the opportunity to go head to head with Honda Racing F1's ex-reserve driver, and current Honda-powered Super Aguri F1 race driver, Anthony Davidson, on Sony's new Formula One Championship Edition on the PlayStation 3.

Held at the very swish 3Rooms in East London, an exclusive bespoke designer venue for PlayStation 3, Davidson was joined by ITV's Martin Brundle and BBC Radio 5 Live's Holly Samos for the unveiling of the only official game of the 2006 FIA Formula One World Championship for 'next-gen' consoles, and RealHondaF1.com were there thanks to our good friends at ThreeSpeech.com.

Phil Huff, the publisher of RealHondaF1.com, spent some time with Anthony, and challenged him to a race round the Hungaroring, the scene of Jenson Button's first win last year. A three lap sprint, with us both in a Ferrari 248 F1, the racing was fast, frenetic and surprisingly evenly matched. Who won? Read on to find out...

Davidson, a self-confessed gamer, was positive about the game, commenting that "the advancements made to PlayStation 3 have blown me away! The level of detail and advanced graphics are obvious improvements, but the way the cars handle compared to the track-going equivalent have exceeded all my expectations. I do use PlayStation games to get familiar with the circuits, so the advances made on the PS3 make it even more useful."

Having spent some time with the game, I can say that it looks stunning. The rain effects are unlike those on any previous F1 console game, giving a degree of realism that's as close to the real thing as anybody has managed thus far. Likewise, the lighting effects are beautiful, with warm dawn rays glinting off the bodywork of the car as you pound round in a morning session. The cars and circuits from the 2006 season are accurately rendered to the highest level, and the visual cues are augmented by a full Dolby Digital soundtrack.

That said, speaking to Graham Ankers, SCEE's F1 Game Director, the advances made in developments on PS3 already show that future games will be even better. While the game now is incredibly detailed, the rendering engine in development can already provide four times as much detail with the same level of performance.

Whilst it's pretty, it's the game play that's all important. For those that turn on all the driving aids and simply hit 'X' as hard as possible, there's perhaps not as much on offer as you may like. However, dig deeper into the game, turn off the aids, and there's a full and credible racing game. The cars handle accurately (so says Anthony) and the racing is fast and furious. Competitor AI has been significantly improved, as has the physics calculations on your rivals. A new feature is a race engineer who, with your input, will set up the car to your liking, so Kubica fans can hurl the car round, bouncing off the kerbs, while Button fans can lay back, relax, and waft around in comfort, with setups suited to each.

Alright, to get the best out of it I admit you need to spend a lot of cash. The PlayStation 3 itself isn't cheap at £425, but that's comparable to an Xbox 360 with the HD-DVD add-on, and you really will need an HD-TV to take advantage of the gloriously smooth graphics, but the £39.99 that most places will want for the game could, almost, be considered a bargain.

But, you're not interested in that. You just want to know who won between RealHondaF1.com and Anthony Davidson. Well, Davidson's younger, drives an F1 car for a living, and had spent a number of hours on the game, while RealHondaF1.com is sporting a shoulder injury, gave up racing a few years ago, and had managed just a handful of laps practice - and some of those were in the wet! So, that's the excuses out of the way.

One circuit, two drivers, three laps, and just under four seconds separating us. It was a good effort, but there can only be one winner.

Davidson.

Bugger.