F1 All Stars Arcade Karting Game by Codemasters Announced for late 2012 Release

[GRD 4 3L]

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This looks like fun.

Click here to go to IGN link

[GRD 4 3L]

Free demo is available on XBL; less than 400MB.  I downloaded it but have not played it yet.

[1M_N0_H3R0]

Have to check it out tonight when I get home from work. Looks fun indeed.

[Bizan]

Looks pretty fun to me.  12 players online, nice!

[marc9600]

Yes, looks like could be fun, although having watched the trailer it reminds me an awful lot of Mario Kart, which I guess is not a bad thing.

Was wondering how this would be priced and I see here in Canada full retail is $39.99, but the Canadian Amazon and Best Buy sites have already discounted it to $34.99. If I like the demo I was figuring around $30 would be a reasonable price to pay.

[Bizan]

Played the demo and it wasn't bad.  You can actually use your Avatar as a racer instead of the F1 drivers which I thought was neat.  It was a lot like Mario Kart except as your car gets damage it affects your speed.  You can go through pitstops to repair your car which are scattered around the track.  Playing on 1000cc you could pretty much floor it but after trying it on 3000cc, you have to brake for some of the sharper turns or you'll go offroading.  Kept seeing the pace car slow up the leader, not sure if that was a powerup or not.

Of all the Mario Kart clones on xbox, this one appeals to me the most.  I tend to like codemaster games in general tho.

[GRD 4 3L]

Thanks for the overview, Bizan.  I enjoyed Mario Kart very much but I am no longer a Nintendo man.  This, I think, is the closest I have seen to Mario Kart-like play using cool looking cars.

For bonus, Codemasters should include some classic F1cars as well as legendary champions like Jim Clark, Fangio, Fittipaldi, Andretti, etc.

So, what's the replacement for the Turtle Shell?

[VanishedNine]

a little Gilles Villenuve couldn't hurt either

[Bizan]

Looks like they use Balloons or something of that nature.  Reds ones are like red shells, yellow like green shells, blue ones you can drop behind you and there was a bundle of balloons that you could drop behind you sorta like the 3 banana deal in mario kart.  If you get caught in a balloon you float in the air for a second or 2.  Have your boosts and invincibility type power ups as well. 

I haven't figured out how to power slide or if it's even possible.  I tried holding the gas while braking but all that did was leave skid marks.  Not sure if it was helping me or not to be honest lol.

Looked like every car was basically equal to each other, from what I can tell you just pick your favorite car or racer or just play with your avatar.  Once the race starts, the helmets go on and it really doesn't matter after that.

Still dunno what the Pace car was about, dunno if that was a powerup to help out the back of the pack or what.

Kinda neat game.

[GRD 4 3L]

I tried a few laps last night and I found it frustrating because of the dang bubbles.  Vibration function could have been better utilized as I felt almost nothing through the controller.

Choosing different car/driver I think has different power-ups but I could not notice the difference other than the fact that "Alonso is the King!" became pretty annoying after couple of laps.

The track design was very good but could not tell a big difference between 1000cc and 3000cc.  I do not understand the point of having different classes . . .

I am on the border on this one as I see no single player challenges.  Would like to see what the full game has to offer before I jump on board . . .

[GRD 4 3L]

This IGN review sums up my impressions perfectly.

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2012/11/13/f1-race-stars-review

[GRD 4 3L]

Excuse me?  Codemasters, you mean to tell me that you guys left out these legitimate 2012 race tracks so you could sell them as DLC?

http://racesimcentral.com/2013/01/new-f1-race-stars-track-packs-europe-canada-china-india/

Racing game that comes without race tracks . . . come on, CM!

[Beac]

Biz, the pace car is a deploy-able power-up just like the rockets and such.

I really liked the look of the game, I'm a peripheral F1 fan at best but like many of you the lack of car differences and no challenge system left it feeling kind of hollow.

You can really be surprised by the omission can you GRD? This has become the standard publisher move to pull in extended dollars after retail. No one ships a complete game anymore.