Charles Leclerc, a Monaco native, is a professional F1 driver. He partnered up with Codemasters to briefly give gamers a tour of the Monaco track in the F1 2018 outing set to release for home consoles and PC on August 24th.

The video clocks in at just under two minutes, showcasing one full lap of the Monaco raceway, taking the gorgeous sights and the sunny weather as the structurally aesthetic cityscape looms over the asphalt race course.

You can check out the video below.

The race is extremely fast. It’s also a nice little showcase of Codemasters having a very frame-rate friendly depiction of F1 2018. Leclerc talks out each of the turns – how to brake, when to brake, when to accelerate, how aggressive to attack a corner, how to ease out of a turn, how to focus on speed during the fast sections, and what to watch out for when other competitors are about.

The graphics look acceptable for what they are. I feel as if the resolution could have been cleaner or at least anti-aliasing could have been turned up; and the car model isn’t quite up to par to what some gamers might feel is acceptable from a racing game made for 2018 hardware (especially on PC – even with those arsehats ruining prices with bit-mining).

I think the lighting was decent enough. Large shadows cast dark lighting over the vehicle, while soft shadows passed by quickly. The multi-shadow light passes on the vehicle are also quite fetching at the 1:06 mark. You can see how the carbon leading down to the front nose of the vehicle cast shadows that shift angles depending on where the vehicle is aligned with the global light emitter. It’s equally nice to see how the light bends and sways from hard to soft shadows along the frame of the vehicle depending on how much exposure the vehicle has to certain light casting.

However, some of the lower-resolution background texturing on some of the buildings aren’t so hot and the blur effect can be distracting when coupled with the current internal resolution.

There’s obviously still time to refine some of these elements since the game is quite a ways out from release, and obviously some of the content that is there is actually quite impressive. I think the cockpit camera is great, and if the overall fidelity of the game was of a higher quality it would literally look like real life. The side-view mirrors also have great quality and it’s impressive that they’re rendering in sync with the game at 60fps instead of half-time at 30fps like some other racing games.

Additionally, game director Lee Mather explained in a post on the site that the Energy Recovery System has been added to the game, saying…

“The inclusion of a player-managed Energy Recovery System (ERS) has been added to vehicle physics for F1 2018 as we always strive to give as authentic recreation of the sport as possible. Augmenting the powerful internal combustion engine, the player will have multiple deployment modes to choose from. The inclusion of the ERS will not only give the player an even more authentic Formula 1 experience, but will serve to create even more varied and exciting races”

Anyway, if you want to learn more about F1 2018, be sure to visit the official website. The game is due out on August 24th for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.