For most of the United States, two words describe automobile racing – turn left. That is the tag that follows NASCAR circuit racing. The cars go in what amount to an oval, always bearing left. But that is not what the majority of the world thinks of when they consider the sport of racing. To the rest of the world, it is very high-end machines, built low to the ground, putting out a whine akin to a jet engine and winding through a track that requires left AND right turns, sometimes in hairpin configurations and even – at times – in the winding streets of towns.

It is Formula 1 racing and Sony is bringing the racing series back to gamers with the release of Formula One Championship Edition on the PS3.

Sporting a full on-line racing forum, the game is not your basic racing vehicle. This is a game where a lot of the work is in the setup, followed by strategic driving – not always the gutsy high-speed passes. You will need to know when to pit, where your standing is, what lays ahead on the track and how to manipulate vehicles and corners to your advantage. And this is just in the single player quick race type mode. Get into the career mode and you will find yourself the driver who gets to test all the vehicle setups under some of the more extreme conditions.

It should be mentioned that F1CE  is not for the faint of heart. There will be some frustration, challenges at even the most rudimentary level in the career mode, online components, SIXAXIS motion controls, and real-world lighting that will drive you crazy at times.

Sony Computer Entertainment’s Liverpool Studios are behind this title. There are the usual suspects when it comes to the game modes – quick race, time trial, multiplayer, but the cornerstone is the career mode. In this mode, you will take on the role of a rookie trying to break into the F1 scene. You begin by running trials and hoping to catch on with one of the race teams as the test driver. Through your work on the track, you may be promoted to second driver, and then to the coveted first driver position. Fail and you will be relegated to driving the tracks under some of the more ‘testing’ circumstances.

You see, as the test driver, you do not always get the optimum machine to take a few spins around the track. ‘Test’ means exactly that. To that end, you will drive cars that have been aerodynamically altered, that have fuel loads varied, that have different tires … in short, the crew does everything possible to the machine that will lead to the right features when it comes to race day – which you sit on the sidelines and wait for the results.

The caveat is that if you do well enough in the trials, you may be promoted, or another race team may come along and snatch you up for one of their driver slots.

Begin on the easy setting to get a feel for the car. The courses wind from short sprint straight-aways, to hairpin corners that require you to go slow and then accelerate madly out of them. There is an optimum line, but with the changing lighting, sometimes seeing that line of attack is almost impossible.

The game’s lighting is both a blessing and curse (aka, a source of frustration). The best lighting of the day is usually reserved for the racing. As a test driver, you get to run the tests at twilight, or dawn, when shadows can leap across the track and obscure the turns, or a low sun will glare straight into your eyes as you round a corner for a dash down a straightaway. And while the F1 tracks are challenging, it is the street courses that provide the most severe test of driving prowess. Through it all, you will have your pit crew exhorting you to go faster, telling you how much time you dropped in one sector, or how wonderfully you are doing in another. Sometimes what they tell you is just plain inaccurate … or not what they are looking for. Running a trial as fast as you can, consistently breaking your own lap times is not always what they want. Instead, they may be looking for consistent times under the desired lap time.

And just when you thought that trials were the most challenging, along comes the actual race with cars bumping, pit stops to deal with severe tire wear from the nudges you get, or spin outs when you are bumped onto the grass or gravel.

The game allows the option of using the motion sensors of the SIXAXIS controller to steer the car. While the game does have challenging AI and deep gameplay mechanics, at times it can feel a little too deep. Each and every element, it seems, of the professional racing is captured here. Fortunately, for the more casual player, you can turn off many of the options – like traction control, wear and tear on the vehicle, recovery from spins or braking variations – to create a game that is somewhat more arcade-like in feel. But if you do take on the challenge of the full-blown racing, then prepare for a workout. As mentioned, you will need to pay attention to the strategic end of the race. There is tire set-up for fuel load, and you will have to take the weather into account through it all.

When racing as the test driver, you may find the graphics problematic at times. The dev team has decided to create weather conditions that mirror real life. That may mean coming around a corner and have sun glare blind you, or driving so early in the day as to be – in places – in darkness, making the track hard to see. These vehicles do not come with headlights, so driving in bad lighting is a real chore.

The game’s graphics are first rate, and the sound is serviceable. There is not much in the latter that has not been heard before.  Sony set up some multiplayer sessions, which highlighted the need to understand the controls. Ignoring the pit crew exhorting you to come in, just to take the lead can feel foolish when you run out of gas half a lap later.

As it stands, F1CE is not for the casual race fan. This game is geared for the hardcore driving sim fanatic. It does a very good job but for those that are not deep into car setup and fine-tuning for weather conditions and so on, this game may contain more than a few frustrations.

Gameplay: 8.0
This is a game built for the driving sim fan that likes micro-managing car setup and doing a lot of work. The controls are responsive,  and the AI is also very good.

Graphics: 8.5
The environmental effects, while annoying, are very well done. The vehicle physics are also well done.

Sound: 7.0
This is very little, if anything new here. The sound is what you have heard before.

Difficulty: Med/Hard

Concept: 8.0
A tip of the hat to the dev team for bringing this title into the next-generation of console gaming. It looks good and reacts well. Much of what is here has been done before, but this is definitely a next-gen game.

Multiplayer: 7.5
You will definitely have to know when to pit and when not to pit. While NPC cars ghost in the game, other player cars have collision on them and you can have a car phase right through you one time and the next car in line completely put you into a slid onto the grass and into a wall. There is a solid online element to this game, though.

Overall: 8.0
The game can be frustrating at times – especially in the career mode. The weather and lighting effects can also create a few sore spots when it comes to racing, but the actual racing is very well realized and the multiplayer is also enjoyable. Just make sure you understand the nuances of the game before you try to go online.