As stated once the visuals here grab you, you are going to want to get into this game whether you want to be right in the driver’s seat camera or sitting a little farther back watching over your car.  The game is set up so that just about all difficulty settings can be adjusted to an extent.  You will be able to turn on quite a few aids in the game to help you with your driving if you are not seasoned enough to take on the course with full simulation rules in effect.  This means that you have the opportunity to do things such as turn off crashes, turn on driving aids, turn on markers to help you steer, drive, brake, etc.  All of these options are present and accounted for and allow the gamer to customize the experience to fit their needs.

The veterans of Formula One are just going to want to jump right into the good stuff, which is also here in full force.  Once you get above the easy difficulty setting and jump into medium you are immediately faced with some stiff A.I. which is sure to test any racer’s skills.  The medium difficulty setting and upward is extremely unforgiving meaning if you do not break at the right time and take the turn the right way you may quickly find yourself spun out or with some serious damage to your vehicle.  A great deal of strategy has also been put into place in this game when such things as crashes occur providing you with options as to when to pit, and when to take a chance and keep on firing along.  Formula One Championship Edition from a gameplay standpoint is something that can appeal to the masses, but is truly a simulation fan’s dream as the cars handle very realistically, true to life, and just as unforgiving.

Formula One Championship Edition is a very deep single-player experience with two main game modes.  One game mode is the Career mode which allows you to create a racer of your own and take them through a career.  In this mode you will start out without a team, sponsor, nothing.  You will right off the start have to qualify with a certain time to either be invited on a team if you are good enough, or take on the role of a driver’s assistant for awhile until you are worthy to drive on your own.  This mode is actually quite difficult as it requires a great deal of skill to actually get into a race.  Once you do though and are able to join a team with your very own racer it can be an extremely rewarding experience as the work does pay off once you put in the time, learn your car, tune it to get better lap times, and learn how to truly race and tear it up out on the track.

The other mode in the game simply allows you to take on the role of one of the professional driver and play through a full Formula One season as you try to capture the championship.  This mode is far more accessible for novice players than the Career mode since you do not have to quality to join a team.  You are allowed to select a professional racer here and take him onto the track and take on his role as you try to capture the win.  This doesn’t mean that you will win automatically and that it is easy though as you will still need to know what you are doing or the only thing you will be seeing is the bottom of the standings.