**NOTE: VR (on a fast enough rig) DOES "work" - but only for a while. Then SteamVR crashes.*sigh*

Well.. damn. This is the definition of a missed opportunity.

First the good. Handling seems fine, cars feel somewhat 'lighter' to drive - I am hoping this is reflective of real life F1 cars in 2022 - of course being a mere mortal I'll never know - but the handling is definitely different to last year. Audio is, on the whole, great - the individual car engines sound about right. (the music however is tragic).

Graphically, easily the best looking F1 game to date, raytracing looks excellent and (as least in 2D), performance so far feels fine. For reference, I'm running a 3080ti in 1440p, on an AMD 3070x with 32Gb RAM.

Pit stops FINALLY REMOVE THE WHEELS! F*** me, how many years has this taken?? Now you actually SEE the wheels being removed. Good job.

Regrettably.. that's pretty much it for the good. Now.. the bad.

Aside from the Champions Edition launch fiasco, where EA clearly forgot there is a world outside of the US (game launching 7 hours later than planned - but right on time if you were to use US time....).....

* VR. Probably one of the biggest changes to the game and should have been an epic experience almost made me throw up. I am a seasoned VR vet, I have experienced the worst VR has to throw at you and yet.. somehow F1 22 managed to almost defeat me.

CLEARLY VR was shoved in as a final decision - I firmly believe EA wanted to cash in on the PSVR2 launch - but apparently this is not going to happen - and I imagine it's because Sony told them to 'go away'.

VR is just not right. There are obvious frame pacing issues, when your head movement in the cockpit is a couple of frames behind what you actually see. It is horrific and simply not fit for purpose. The ironic thing, is once you're actually racing, it isn't quite as bad - but forget about making quick checks to your left and right - it is just awful.

Keep looking ahead however and you will experience 2 things. Firstly, especially on tracks such as Baku, Monaco and Canada, the sense of speed is pretty exhilarating. It works, and it works well. THAT corner in Baku just looks terrifying if you're approaching too fast.

Secondly... you'll know what it probably looks like if you were travelling close to the speed of light. Einstein says that the closer you are to light speed, the more thing will look blurry. And you can experience that here - at only 100mph. It is very clear that DLSS or FSR just doesn't work in VR. At least, not at first. Now, I am completely unable to explain HOW, but after some fiddling, I actually got the game to look playable (except for the head movement. That's still there...). And I will say this.

Essentially the game engine simply hasn't been designed with VR in mind, which is probably why it's never been implemented before. The EGO engine has been used since 2017 and it shows. Guys, it's 5 years old at this point. We have new engines... UE5, would make F1 SING - but ... noo, license money.... VR would be so much EASIER to sort out if you used an engine that had native support.

VR in F1 22 - when it works - is EXCELLENT. Yes, there is a little blurriness in the distance, but it's totally playable. As I said, I don't know precisely HOW I got this working, and if I ever find out, I'll make a note here. Side note: In the config file for the game, there is an option to enable FSR2.0. Now this makes the game look... incorrect, but interestingly enough, it had the effect of decreasing the blurriness. Possible later option... who knows.

Music. EA, in their infinite wisdom, believe we WANT to hear crap licensed music. EA. We don't. We don't need it. It isn't part of the F1 experience, it never has been. The music in 2021 was absolutely fine.

F1 Life. So now we see what EA are actually trying to do here. The obvious attempt to draw in younger players is blatantly corporate and stands out like a Massi-style decision. The idea that every F1 driver is basically Lewis Hamilton is an absolute joke. In fact, it feels like they're trying to draw a comparison between F1 and FIFA - and as they no longer HAVE FIFA, they're trying to bring that crap over into this game.

EA, we don't NEED this. F1 is a RACING game, not a capitalist's dream 'own all the things' collectathon. Leave that crap back in your other titles, it isn't necessary here.

It's the same with the 'supercars' section. Apart from they feel RIDICULOUS to drive, WE DON'T CARE. I feel absolute confidence that I speak for the majority of players, that we didn't buy Gran Turismo. I mean COME ON - instead of crappy supercars, why couldn't we have the MP4/4? Ferrari 500? Lotus 72? RB9? You know - CLASSIC F1 cars we WANT to drive. It was HELLA fun to drive these classics in the older F1 games? Seriously... STOP trying to be cool and appeal to the kids - F1 games should be a showcase of F1 - past and present. Not 'shove in loads of crap and see what sticks'.

I get it EA. I get you just see game franchises as moneymakers. Micro-transactions are the only currency you really believe in. I feel absolute sadness for the game developers in Codemasters - not the suits, they can go suck a large corporate, but those who graft and design, only to be told 'Oh, can you please dedicate resources to insert F1: Cribs?' - Yeah it must absolutely suck :(

Even F1 eSports are not touching this game - the recent qualifying sessions still use 2021. That to me says everything I need to know.

Oh the AI is good but still WAY too aggressive, as far as the AI is concerned, if there is a gap, then they will take it, regardless if you close it before they are alongside. Their version of alongside is if their front wheel is just about next to your back wheel. Then somehow they ALWAYS win any sort of contact - that's ridiculous and makes defensively driving almost pointless unless they're like at least 2 car lengths away.

STILL no red flags. Nothing says Red Flag while parking up behind Vettel and Stroll as they block the Monaco tunnel. And yet... nope. Just gotta somehow barge your way through.

New features such as grid line up and pit lane turn in are great in principle, but I have yet to turn into the pits correctly. a little tutorial/practice for these would be nice. Why are these not in practice sessions? We see this in real life, practice starts and practice pit stops... cmon, it's not difficult.

HDR is still broken in the menus. Racer portraits are still way too high in brightness, looks like they're standing in front of a million lumen spotlight. EASY fix but has been in the game for at least 2 years.

Almost all ambient audio is identical to last year - the noise at podiums has still got the REALLY annoyingly short loop that just sounds terrible.

STILL no mouse support. I mean COME ON CODIES - We use PC's. We have mouses. It's just lazy, lazy coding.

But... I love the game.

Look, there is NO other F1 game on the PC. And thankfully, the actual racing is, for all purposes, good enough. There are so many flaws, but there are GOOD races to be had. Patches could easily fix a lot of the issues (although I'm afraid the only way to fix F1 Life is to patch it out...)

VR can be fixed. Please, fix it. It's probably an oversight. (I hope so...). Give us some more options in VR to improve performance - not everyone has a 3080ti, and I've seen people with 3090's having performance issues. Optimise. We know this is basically Early Access at this point. And I also know that, as every year, patch after patch will come out, addressing some of these issues.

I'm not sure how to score this. I'm going to thumb it down - and if they fix things.. I'll change the vote.

Finally, Electronic Arts. Back the F*** off. Stop trying to destroy every franchise you get your corporate mitts on - if there was ever a game that didn't need extra crap, it's F1. Just let us enjoy the spectacle of F1 as it was supposed to be.

Racing ridiculously fast cars.