Hello and welcome to Fastest Lap Gaming. Today I've got a game review and it's a free game on Steam, it's called Formula Voir. Now it's just been released a few days ago and it's a top down racing game but what makes it different to most top down racing games is that there's some strategy involved more than you'd expect from a top-down racing game, stuff like what tyre you're on, pit stops, ERS management, it's even got slipstreams, it's quite in-depth, it's a bit like F1 Clash and a lot of people watching this video will have played F1 Clash on their phone or seen adverts for it on YouTube at least, it's like that but you actually drive the car, if you haven't played that it's like F1 Manager but you also drive the car while making those strategy decisions, now you're not managing two drivers, you're managing just one driver, just yourself, while driving as well as doing things like selecting the tyres, using the ERS, engine modes and all that strategy stuff. So it's a bit different to normal top down races and as you'll see when I get into it it is a bit difficult just going through the menus at the moment there's a lot of customization options you can change all of your crew the crew makes it for example you've got the pit stop engineer that upgrade and reduces your pit stop time you can also hire a new pitstop engineer which will even more reduce your pitstop time the same with other things like slipstream you can get a more powerful slipstream now heading into our first session is qualifying and we're on a map called oval I think this might be a bug oval is not an oval. Now, in another game, in another race I was playing towards the end of the video, it was loading into Bahrain, and Bahrain was an oval. So I think the loading screens, or the names for those two tracks might be the wrong way around, I think maybe they've called oval Bahrain, or they've called Bahrain Oval. Now I had an issue with my controller here, the controls inverted, I'm not sure if that was a bug with my PC, my controller or the game but it was quite frustrating I had to quit the game and load into a new one. I haven't had any other issues with the controller since then so I think it's a one-off Now this game puts you against real players online it will also Fill the room with AI bots because there's not there's not enough players most of the time That might change though if the game becomes more popular and more people playing it. So this was the first game I got into that actually worked, it was at Austria supposedly. Now another thing to note, the tracks in this game don't really match up to their real life counterparts. There's some similarities but they're not the same tracks. Now, this is a qualifying session. At this point I didn't really understand how much I could push the car. I was going a bit easy on it, which cost me a bit of time. But quickly I realised this is very arcade style handling. If you're used to playing games such as the F1 game, maybe Assetto Corsa, then it might take you time to get used to the arcade style of handling, because you can be full throttle for the whole lap on some circuits, which is a strange feeling and it takes a bit of time to adjust, but I think for the kind of game that it is, the controls are good, because while you have to focus on driving, you don't have to, driving doesn't take so much of your attention that you can't do strategy, because I think this game isn't really about the driving it's not about the strategy it's about the strategy and the driving together now we qualified fourth in this race which considering it was my first one not too disappointed with so I decided to start on the soft tires and as I discovered later in the race that would be a bad decision because well you'll see what happens but I think the tires do need a bit of work they all seem to be pretty much the same pace and I crashed there I'll talk about that later because I think the camera does need some improving. But the tyres all seem to be about the same pace. The only difference is how long they last. So on most tracks, I think with the exception of the oval, maybe they're not the same pace. Maybe there is a difference, it's just a very small difference. On most tracks with the exception of the oval, the best strategy by far is to do 4 laps on hard tyres, hit, put the hard tyres on again, do another 4 laps on the hard tyres. 8 laps, 2 sets of hard tyres takes you all the way and you can also get, that's at the beginning of the game, you can also purchase upgrades for tyre wear which I think would make it more viable to start on softs or mediums but certainly at the beginning of the game the softs and mediums are a bit useless and I got a bit confused to the pit lane where I was supposed to go and I went to the wrong box Took me a while to realize where my box was maybe That could have been made a bit more obvious since it has some lines around it But I couldn't see that from the start of a pit lane. Now as you can see I made a bad decision here I started on the soft. The wet weather handling doesn't feel very different to the dry weather handling, other than the fact it just crashed into a wall. The wet weather feels almost the same as driving in dry weather, I think maybe they need to make the track feel more slippery. You can't really feel grip in this game, it's just pointing the car around the corners. the driving itself is quite simple But one thing I do think needs work is the camera angle now most of the time this camera angles okay It works, and it looks quite nice but The thing I think needs improving is that It doesn't focus on your car all the time, it zooms in and out a bit. Now I think there should be an option to have the camera zoomed in closer to your car so you can better see where you are because I had this issue at the start of this race, I've had it in other races, it can be a bit difficult at the start of a race when you're surrounded by other cars It can be quite easy to get mixed up and try and control the wrong car which happened at the start of this race As I come into the pits again as the rain has stopped I do know where to stop this time and I put the soft tyres on Which should hopefully last to the end of the race. Now another thing to note is I forgot to use engine modes. I did the tutorial and highlighted the engine modes for a thing but unfortunately I got around to playing and because there was these lots of different things to focus on like the weather, the tires, the ERS and the engine modes I forgot the engine modes for a thing so I didn't use them Most of the time it was a few times I remembered and press the button a bit but that might have contributed to me not doing very well another thing I want to talk about is the assist drive. I Did try driving without it? However, I think it's way too overpowered it's makes it so much easier and I think Once you start using it, it will be too much of a disadvantage to turn it off knowing that a lot of other players are probably using it. So after this race I was able to get some upgrades. Now none of them made a noticeable difference I know statistically they make a difference but first upgrades were very minor they didn't really change the gameplay at all, didn't affect my strategy I think the game is a bit pay to win not necessarily with the upgrade partly with the upgrade You can earn the coins When you finish a race you get a little chest open it you get some cards and some coins and stuff you can use these coins to upgrade your characters your engineers But characters, your engineers, but if you purchase these coins, you could upgrade a lot faster. So I think in that regard it is a bit pay to win. Also with the gems for buying stuff like new cars, I'm not entirely sure yet if the cars are just skins or if they actually perform differently but I think they're a bit expensive because With the amount of gems they cost compared to the amount of gems that you get given at the end of the race I Think they're too expensive. It's going to take people too long to earn enough gems to buy new cars, and I think that might put people off if they get bored driving in the same car and it takes too long to get any meaningful upgrades, so I think maybe the speed of upgrades and the speed of earning gems or maybe the price of the stuff that you buy with the gems should be changed. I think the system is okay, it's just like the numbers need changing, it needs to be tweaked a bit. of it, it would also be good if there was a separate game mode that ignored any upgrades and everyone in that game mode just had the same car, the same engineers, it all performed the same. You could have different skins for the cars obviously, but a game mode where the performance of the cars and the engineers were identical would be more competitive and would be good for say competitions another thing I think should be added is a more a better multiplayer system, so obviously you should be able to go into these random lobbies like I have here. There should also be a matchmaking system, not in terms of skill, in terms of like your car and your engineer upgrades not so you're racing against people with the entirely same car as you I don't want to be racing against people with the exact same pitstop time as me all the time but set like different ranges so that way somebody with a 5 second pit stop won't be playing against people with a 1 second pit stop. It's not really an issue I've had so far because this gameplay was recorded when the game had only just released. I was recording this gameplay the day the game released so I don't think anyone has really upgraded that much While I was playing this making it quite close, but recently it has become more of an issue Also the ads there's a lot of ads everywhere which obviously makes sense It's a free-to- to play game but they do sometimes get in the way when you go around corners. The ads that I've just driven past when you're coming around on the other side of them, they can block your view of the car a bit. So maybe the way the ads are placed, maybe the amount of ads on the circuit should be changed, but it... I'm playing this on Steam, I know there is mobile versions as well. It is a lot better than what most mobile games do, where you have to watch a 30 second advert after each game. I'd much rather have these ads around the circuit than that. So if that is the alternative, then stick with these ads, because they're so much better than that. The music in this game is... is okay. It's not bad music, it's not bad music it's not great music it suits the game I mean the music as well as the art style fit the game quite well with like the handling and stuff it looks it looks like the kind of game that it is, which might sound a bit weird, but I don't really know how else to explain it, but it just looks right for what it is, other than what I've already said about the camera angle, not necessarily a cockpit camera, but maybe a camera that stays zoomed closer to your car perhaps. Now, one more thing I do want to talk about in relation to this game is the AI. Now, the purpose of the game is to be played against other players, but at least when I was recording this there wasn't that many players, but it was a new game and I think at the time of recording there was about 15 reviews on Steam. Now, obviously that means you get a lot of AI filling up the lobbies which isn't really an issue. A race with all these AI is a lot better than just having four or three sometimes even two cars in a race and it makes it a lot quicker to get into The AI seem to have some issues, I think with wet tyres. The AI can get confused with what tyre they need to be on in regards to the weather conditions. They might stay on wet tyres in the dry, they might not pit, but the effect of driving on the wrong tyre in the wrong conditions doesn't seem to apply nearly as much to the AI as it does to the player, they seem to be able to go quite working for Ferrari at one team because they just can't make the right decisions. Now, one last thing I want to point out in terms of gameplay really that could be improved is the weather. Now it's not really a big thing, I don't think it would take much changing, I could be wrong because the weather. Now it's not really a big thing, I don't think it would take much changing, I could be wrong because I've never made a game, I think it would be quite simple though, is before the race I think it would be good if you could see the weather forecast for the whole race, because if you look at the screen right now and like the top, just a bit right of the middle of the screen at the top, you can see the weather now. You can see a timer showing how long that weather is gonna last for, and then next to it, you can see the bit of weather that's gonna come next. But due to how much the weather affects your strategy I think it's really important that a weather forecast for the full race is added that you can view when you're selecting your tire to start on because I've had a few races ruined where I've pitted just before it was going to start raining, then had to pit again for wet tyres which I could have avoided. So I've said quite a lot of negative things in this review, but I think it's a good game, good idea, I like the mix of a top down racing game with the strategy as well and I think it's a fun game to play for an hour or two however you're probably going to get bored and not really be able to play for much more than an hour or two at a time because it does get a bit repetitive but I think it's a great game, a lot of potential especially if improvements are made. Now make sure to like and subscribe if you want to see more content from me and I probably will be making a bit more content with this game Formula Voie, so if you're interested in seeing more of this game, subscribe to the channel so you can see when I post more videos and I will put a link in the description as well as the comments section to this game on Steam. see when I post more videos and I will put a link in the description as well as the comments section to this game on Steam.