F1 2013 (PlayStation 3)

F1 2013 is a racing game which simulates the Formula 1 season 2013 and has the official license for courses, drivers and cars. It does not strive for 100% realism, but is still clearly more simulation than action. The game is largely identical to the predecessor F1 2012. As expected, the main meat of the game is the career mode in which the player character tries to become the best driver over a course of five seasons. Besides participating in full racing weekends, the player also receives specific challenges, reads emails and even can switch to another team. The other already known modes are the season challenge (shortened races; another driver is set as rival and the player can take his seat by beating him often enough), Grand Prix (back from F1 2011; allows for custom Grand Prix calenders), scenario mode (solving specific challenges; largely identical to the champions mode of F1 2012), time trial/time attack and the mandatory tutorial. Depending on the difficulty mode, time can be set back a few times to undo mistakes.

The big addition to this instalment is the F1 Classics mode with five cars and ten drivers from the 1980s, e.g. the 1980 Williams FW07B (Jones, Prost) or the 1988 Ferrari F1-87/88C (Schumacher, Berger). Also available are the courses Jerez and Brands Hatch which are not on the 2013 calender. Besides a few challenges in the scenario and time attack modes, there is no additional custom content and the rule sets are not adjusted; as compensation they can be also used on the normal courses and in Grand Prix mode.

Of course there are also various multiplayer modes available: full races for up to 16 players (bots can be used to fill up the racing lineup), split-screen multiplayer for two players and quick matches where all cars are tuned to be of equal performance. Players can also create custom races or participate in a co-op championship where both players are in the same team.