Of all the titles that came out for the PSP on launch day, it’s rather fitting in a sad way that Formula One seems the most, well, rushed. The promise of the first decent handheld F1 title since… er… ever had series fans like me peering quizzically at screenshots and movies for months on end trying to ascertain whether the newly scaled-down world of the fastest sport on the face of the planet would end up as a trophy winner or the back end of a crashed Minardi. The answer, sadly, is rather more the latter than the former. Actually no let’s be honest; the answer is almost completely the latter.

Before I start rambling on like Janice Street-Porter at a glossy magazine launch show, let’s get this more than clear: the premise of Formula One on a handheld system is a good one. With the processing power and mass-market appeal the PSP will afford developers there’s plenty that can be done to give fans of the sport and gamers alike a plethora of potentially superb pocket racing titles. The problem for this initial instalment is that firstly it smacks of a rush job to bolster the console’s release-day library, and secondly that developers Travellers Tales don’t seem to have really got to grips with various issues the hardware brings.

The most important of these has to be the handling of the cars themselves, and the way that the lesser precision afforded by either the PSP D-Pad or the rather awkward thumb stick makes controlling the cars themselves an act of patience more than anything else. Whereas this season’s PS2 outing showcased a new handling model that positively encouraged smooth, proper racing lines, Formula One on the PSP sees you dashing around as if Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen and company had been fed through a Benny Hill filter and put back on the track with half of their brains turned off.

It’s the fact that the racing itself is so downright frustrating that completely undermines the whole experience. Opponent AI is basic at the very best and at times seems to go completely awry, with computer cars seemingly content to either stick to the racing line at all costs or to dart around for no apparent reason. Collisions with other cars become depressingly inevitable, be it through you running into the back of them when they judder around at the merest sniff of a corner apex or alternatively when they go all Takuma Sato and completely forget to take into account the location of your car in their field of vision, leading to umpteen rear-ending incidents.

Some may say that this is because the game is an arcade racer, and should be viewed as such. I disagree. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a good arcade racing game; Ridge Racer and Wipeout more than capably demonstrated this at launch, but even if Formula One was aimed at the same market it has missed the target. The game seems to fall into some awkward middle ground whereby dashing into a chicane with the merest hint of braking and making it through unscathed is entirely possible, but learning the handling characteristics of the cars remains distinctly unmanageable and consistently punishing, especially given the haphazard nature of your opponents. The trick of a good arcade game is to keep handling relatively simple and to offer the player a game that is difficult to master yet at the same time accessible and fun. Formula One fails at both.

Collisions and damage are handled in a similarly halfway house sort of way, with the result of your misdemeanours often seeing your cars snap into bizarre half-spins at speeds which would quite possibly see the driver subjected to g-forces in advance of a space shuttle launch. Even with damage turned on heavy collisions often result in no damage whatsoever, only for a light tap on a wall or such to suddenly dislodge a wing or wheel. The penalty system that is so criticised by fans of the PS2 series has also been employed, with players given a time-limited speed penalty for cutting chicanes or corners. Given the game’s wayward handling and the likelihood of you being bundled off the circuit by a piece of AI idiocy, it doesn’t take a genius to fathom how frustrating this can often become.

In fact, it’s pretty safe to say that every step the PS2 Formula One series took with this year’s instalment has been completely bypassed with the PSP iteration. People imagining the prospect of starting their own portable Formula One careers on the bus trip to work are going to be disappointed to find that the career mode has been given the big snip, replaced with a scenario mode that allows you to undertake bite-sized pieces of Formula One such as performing a pitstop in a certain amount of time, or overtaking a set number of opponents. To give the game its dues this is probably the most interesting and rewarding mode on offer, although there are just ten to work through. Elsewhere there’s standard quick race, time trial and World Championship modes to get stuck into, although the latter completely shoots itself in the foot due to the unfortunate decision to not allow competent racers to jump straight in at harder difficulties and to instead force them to work their way through the (very, very) easy mode and the medium setting, both of which offer little challenge. Oh, and there’s also an option to watch an AI race if you wish. Nah, thought you wouldn’t.

The only real saving grace for the game is its graphical prowess, which to be fair is actually rather good indeed. The cars all look the part and are shaped relatively correctly with appropriate liveries to boot, and the circuits lack a little trackside detail but are otherwise surprisingly authentic in terms of layout. It goes to show that with a little backbone there is a lot that could be achieved with the sport on this platform, but for now fans of Formula One and arcade racing nuts will both look upon the first Formula One offering on the PSP as a missed opportunity. Taking on the greats of the sport whilst sitting in my seat at Silverstone this year may just have to wait until next season.