Here in North America, driving sports are virtually unheard of. Aside from the wildly popular NASCAR, driving sports like Formula 1 and Rally go way under the radar. Drivers for those sports get to be as famous as super stars but as soon as they set foot in America, they are unknown strangers. Most people don’t even know this but F1 drivers are super fit athletes. They have to be: they drive mini-rockets without upwards thrust. Just for the fact they have to sustain 3.5G’s around corners is enough to give them loads of respect. Make no mistake, F1 racing isn’t for your average Sunday drive. The developers at Sony Liverpool took the monumental task of trying to make F1 accessible to hardcore fans and casual gamers.

Because of the aggressive driving and blinding speed, the F1 sport makes a perfect racing game, right? Racing games are easy concepts to grasp – go fast and take the checker flag. However, super tuned racing machines are a little more complex than that. That is one of the challenges facing F1: Championship Edition, try to make the game authentic while have it be user friendly. While I wish I could say the results were perfect, there is a lot of room for improvement.

As you start up the game, you’ll notice there is a high production quality right from the menu screen. There are clean menu options and a nice, upbeat soundtrack that makes you feel like you are in a high class racing team. When you start your racing career, you create your own racer. There are a bunch of different options so you can customize what you want your diver to look like, tall, short, beard, male, and female, whatever you want.

Features

The 2006 Season – Featuring all the official cars, circuits, drivers and teams of the 2006 FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP™, including SCUDERIA TORRO ROSSO, SUPER AGURI F1 TEAM and MIDLAND F1 RACING.

Next Generation Experience – Greater processing power on the PS3 system and Blu-ray technology enables high definition visuals, full surround sound, extensive circuit details and lighting effects, progressive dirt and car damage make for the most realistic racing experience to date.

Wireless Motion Sensing Technology - The PlayStation 3’s SIXAXIS controller utilizes Bluetooth technology to detect natural and intuitive movements for real-time and high precision interactive play. Gamers can opt to drive the vehicles in Formula One Championship Edition by simply moving the SIXAXIS controller.

Race Online – bring your racing skills online and race your friends at speeds over 200 mph. Complete online feature set includes stat tracking and leaderboards.

True Realism – Feel the buzz of the paddock and the excitement of race day with authentic pre-race car preparations. Warm up your tires and get ready for the race with the parade lap.

Live Action Racing – Experience the real pressure of a GRAND PRIX race thanks to unexpected collisions and race incidents.

Introduction of the Safety Car – Choose the correct race strategy when the safety car is out: will you make an early pit stop to avoid being stuck in the traffic?