As a primarily PC-based racing sim fan, I have not had a new championship season made available to me since the 2002 season modeled in EA Sport`s final version before Sony acquired an exclusive license with Formula One. I won`t bore you all with my feelings regarding the consumer unfriendly practice of exclusively licensing entire professional sports leagues, but I do find it somewhat ironic, in a Karmic sort of way, that it is EA Sports that got excluded. As they say, live by the sword, die by the sword.

I found it quite easy, though, to set aside my distaste this industry-wide affront to free market competition when offered the opportunity to spend a few days with a loaner PS3 and a copy of Sony`s Formula One Championship Edition. This was a chance to see how well the state-of-the-art console racing sim compared with what have traditionally been the far more robust PC versions. My expectations going in were that I would be impressed with the graphics and sound, but not so much with the car physics, AI behavior, and controllability. I also expected at least a rudimentary car setup "garage," but nothing as extensive as those found on the PC.

I won`t try to enhance your suspense by holding my judgment close to the vest: I was right about the graphics and sound, not really right yet not really wrong about the physics, completely wrong about the AI drivers, and partially wrong about controllability. If you`re a bottom-line kind of buyer, all you need to know is that it is a very good, and in some ways truly innovative, Formula One sim for the PS3 that is definitely worth having, but it does not yet meet the standards of a PC-based ride.

Ok, now that the folks with short attention spans are gone, we can get down to the nitty-gritty. Everyone likes to know about the graphics first, and in this case I`m happy to oblige. Viewed on a 56" HD through an HDMI cable, they are superb. My first in-car view, looking through the simmering exhaust gases rising from the line of cars sitting in front of me on the starting grid, was breathtaking. When I later set up a race on a rainy day, the rain drops on my racing helmet`s visor and the blindingly thick rooster tails of water trailing the speeding cars in front of me were nearly panic inducing. I was also impressed to note that my tires had been changed from the grooved dry weather tires to heavy rain tires by my attentive crew and that the difference in tire type was easily visible. The wide screen of the big TV gave me a panoramic view that added to the sense of actually sitting in a car. The liveries of the opposing teams` cars were crisp and detailed, which of course offered the benefit of my never having to doubt exactly who it was that I had just rear ended or cut off. Of course, in the PC world there is always a piper to pay when it comes to stellar graphics, and I was curious as to how well the PS3 would hold up under the harshest test that I could think of: a full field of highly detailed cars at the extremely polygon-voracious Monaco Grand Prix. The short answer: with remarkable aplomb. Not a single stutter. Wow.

As I mentioned above, the great graphics were beneficial in letting me know who I had crashed into. This segues nicely into a discussion of the damage model. For those who like it short and sweet, it is ...