Another year another season of F1 another F1 game. F1 games offer a great way to enjoy the sport without so many rules and regulations. Although they’re still there it’s not the same as watching races that are so often decided by those rules. F1 games can concentrate on the racing. And that’s got to be a good thing.

But, before jumping in and racing in your career you will first have to take part in the young driver tests just like in F1 2012. You will try things like driving in the wet, setting lap times and hitting apexes within a time constraint. Essentially they serve as a tutorial gradually introducing you to the basics of the game but your performance also dictates which teams will offer to sign you up during your first season.

They’re not too difficult and it would be quite easy to improve your times and unlock the “top” team to race for if you wish. I did a little just to get up to the Williams team and then carried on. It’s nice to have the freedom just to pass and get stuck in or improve your chances of a great first season by unlocking better teams. It’s a nice way to present a tutorial and is certainly less dull than it could have been even though it’s a little longer than necessary.

As expected there will be nothing surprising during a Grand Prix. You can select your race strategy, tune your car then get stuck into the practice, qualifying and race days. The objectives given to you are refreshingly realistic without taking away the challenge. I struggled quite a bit during my qualifying and didn’t do so well so even my race objective of finishing 12th became quite a challenge. But it’s nice that my objective wasn’t to unrealistically get on the podium in my first race.

There are a huge amount of options that allow you to more or less customize the difficulty to your choosing. It’s not possible to completely remove the challenge and turn F1 2013 into any other racing game where the only position that counts is first and eventually I managed to find settings that worked for me. I still had to push hard and even on 50% race length the pit strategy was important.

Your car can either handle as you would expect an F1 car to or be relatively simple and leave you to concentrate on cornering and braking more like a conventional racer. Although there are options for the competition’s skill there is no option that will let you cruise around and enjoy your career without much effort. The options I settled on where great for me (and certainly favoured fun over a challenge) and most people should be able to find settings that suit them, but F1 will never be really easy. Also, there should be enough challenge even for die hard F1 veterans if you set the options right.

The only thing that really lets me down is how smooth I can be with the accelerator. Rightly so the whole focus of lap times and victories is on getting your car round the track smoothly and consistently. But sometimes I found it tricky to properly feather the accelerator when exiting corners because the first half of the trigger just doesn’t seem to respond at all. This sometimes leads to wheel spin even when I’m trying to do everything correctly and essentially promotes a cautious driving style. With more control over the throttle I could certainly achieve better, more consistent, lap times and take a more aggressive approach.

It’s quite disappointing when you have the need to put in some really good laps but you’re too scared about the back end slipping out. I’m sure that’s a constant concern for F1 drivers too but I reckon their accelerator pedals are pretty responsive. I even turned on all the assists and it still happened. I like that you have to be conscious of the amount of throttle when exiting corners but only if I have the tools to make use of it.

A new feature to F1 2013 is “classic mode” which allows players to experience racing in either 80’s or 90’s F1 cars. The standard game comes with the 80’s pack and the collectors edition with the 90’s as well. There isn’t a massive amount of content surrounding the classics but it’s a nice feature for F1 fans. Unfortunately for me I have fond memories of the V10 era but the 80’s classic content was largely lost on me.

Although not much has really changed since F1 2012 one great new feature is mid-session saves. You can be in the middle of a full length GP and save, quit and then come back when you’re ready. So now if you want the challenge and strategy of a full length GP but maybe don’t have several hours to sit down and play or maybe just want to split up the race into a few sittings now you can. It really helps and gives a good incentive to attempt the longer races.

Unfortunately the game’s autosaves are not so convenient. Saving seems to drag on forever at times and as the game really likes to save it quickly becomes a real drag. Take the young driver tests for example; after each and every challenge the game will save for a good 30 seconds to a minute. It’s not a massive amount of time but when you have a series of challenges that are only about 2 or 3 minutes long it becomes a burden.

Visually there’s not much to get all that excited about but F1’s certainly not ugly. The effects during wet weather are impressive but you don’t get enough time to really appreciate them. Which is probably not such a bad thing as F1 cars and wet tarmac are not a good combination. F1’s certainly a competent looking game and looks good enough to accompany the impressive physics and car handling models.

Sound effects are impressively diverse and while all F1 cars look almost exactly the same these days apparently they sound quite different from one another. I was quite surprised with the difference in engine noises between different team’s cars – they’re subtle, but noticeable.

Although there haven’t been a huge amount of changes from 2012 to 2013 what small alterations have been made have certainly been for the better. Mid-session saves are a stroke of genius that can really take the pain out of playing a longer, more realistic, Grand Prix. Visually speaking there is little to shout about but F1 carries its weight and certainly doesn’t look bad. Anyone going from 2012 to 2013 may be disappointed by the distinct lack of changes so this might be a good one to skip.

Reviewed on PS3.