This game contains all the official drivers, cars, circuits, rules, and teams from 2006 including Scuderia Toro Rosso, Super Aguri F1 Team and Midland F1 Racing in their debut year. There is also more pickup and play moments in the game with racing assists, automatic breaking, and spin recovery. It gives the player the chance to feel the real pressure of a Grand Prix with faster cars and unexpected collisions and race incidents. Now just because this game is related to racing, don’t think of it as a walk in the park if the player hasn’t played a 3-D racing game before or much of them. Sure, one may have played many racing games in 2-D such as RC Pro Am for the NES and Super Off-Road for the 16-bit systems but with for games like F1: Championship Edition, the player definitely has to be in total focus if he/she expects to win a race because those curves on the track have the “make or break you” feel to them.

The first thing the player does when turning on the game is to create a profile or load a previous one. While the player’s profile is generally not important for offline play except for a few modes, it does however tell everyone how good of a racer the player are doing online play and the best way to give everyone a good impression is to start in career mode to build up the player’s character. When the player starts a career, he/she enjoys the life as a rookie driver and as the player complete or fail tasks while bringing his/her driver up to racing pro, the player earns skill points that shows his/her online competition how well the player’s skill level is. People with high skill are more likely to have a race with someone who is good at the game rather than someone who doesn’t know anything about racing and can take the fun out of the race. One thing to note to is that unlike most of the other racing games, there are rules to prevent from driving recklessly and they are the same rules one may see during a racing event. These rules are enforced by flags. Whatever flag is displayed, the player must obey it unless he/she doesn’t mind being shown the black flag which means disqualification. There are pits stops too but even I don’t know how make one yet, the manual never gave any instruction on them.

The controls are top of the line for the most part. The only thing to worry about is the steering which I, myself, have a problem with since if the player goes too fast then it hard to clear curves without losing control of the vehicle. F1 Championship Edition, to my knowledge, is one of the first games to utilize the six-axis control scheme (Go to the control options and choose Configuration Type F). For those familiar with Nintendo Wii’s Wiimote, the control style of the PS3 controller is similar in terms of how one plays this game. On other Control Configuration Types, the player uses the Left Analog to steer left or right but with Configuration Type F, the player can tilt the controller to the sides to control his/her steering. However, it is harder to steer using this configuration without practice.

The graphics are crystal clear. Thanks to the PS3’s Blue-ray and HDMI technology, all of the characters, cars, tracks, props and everything else look absolutely realistic. The game’s polygons blend in perfectly and even the inside of the car when using the inside-car first person view looks exactly like the inside of a race car with the gas meter, pit stop callers, MPH indicator, etc. This racing game could have also doubled as a simulation game if it had the extra stuff to be one. It doesn’t stop there, if the player is racing on a rainy day, he/she gets to see what it’s like to race in the rain by giving the player a little blurry view (which is really rainwater running down the windshield). Ps3 was really starting to bear it's fangs when it first came out.

The sounds are great except for the music part. There is nothing wrong with the music but it’s not up to par with the NASCAR series created by EA Sports whom use music done by real musical artists in its games. The best sounds in the game are the ones that occur in the middle of the race. The announcer calls the race as he sees it and he does not make any silly comments during the race, he just informs the players who is in the lead, the conditions of the tracks is keeps his commentary all professional. The crew chief informs the player of how he/she is doing, the condition of the race car, and when to make a pit stop.

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Pluses: 

At the time I played it, online competition is fierce just the way I like it. 

The new Six-Axis control lets you control the steering with the tilt of the controller. 

The sound is awesome.

Realistic feel and look of the game.

Minuses: 

The driving displays are not displayed correctly since it’s hard to tell what gear the car is in. Rookies can easily lose control of their vehicle.

Lack of controller vibration (Damn you, Immerson and your patent at the time of this game's release). 

The manual is almost no help.

Whether you are new to racing games or not, give this game a shot and try to picture yourself driving the race car for real. Just try playing with Control Type F and you’ll see how well your race car driving skills would have been on a real track. All you need is the focus and the will to accept frustration when thing go wrong. Sooner or later, you’ll grow to like this game as a way of taking on a tough challenge.