NASCAR Racing PSX Review
As a racing sim fanatic, I've driven just about everything. I've driven
the Formula 1, NASCAR and IndyCar sims on the PC, Psygnosis' Formula One,
EA's Andretti, and of course the myriad of arcade racers out there. And
now Sierra/Papyrus steps into the ring with NASCAR Racing for the
Playstation.
Graphics
Appearance/Resolution
The resolution of NASCAR appears to be somewhere between the VGA and
hi-res SVGA modes of the PC version. The tracks and cars are all faithful
to their 1996 real-life counterparts. Judging from the graphics, this is
a distinct upgrade over the original NASCAR in graphics. In addition, a
more believable racing groove is on the track...basically a darker path of
asphalt where the rubber has been laid down. This is more believable than
NASCAR PC's occassional skidmarks. However, the asphalt and grass
textures are smooth and plain. The grandstands, signs, trailers and trees
all look great. In terms of appearance, there's nothing to complain
about. This is the way NASCAR racing should look on EVERY machine, not
just high powered PC's. In addition, you also get a fully textured
rearview mirror, and you get visible smoke in your mirror when you get
wheel spin (burning out of the pits for example). In addition, the night
tracks look great, with glowing orbs of light shining down on the track.
All the car graphics look super as well.
Of course now we have to discuss how those graphics perform in action, and
this is where things get dicey. Driving all by yourself around a track,
my guess is the frame rate is between 22-25 fps. Very respectable and easy
to drive. However, add another car in front of you and you can drop that
frame rate to 20. Another car or two and you're rapidly down into the
12-15 range. Still drivable, but choppy enough to be noticeable and
annoying, especially given the bumper-to-bumper driving often experienced
in stock car racing. And if you should bump someone and spin the car,
your frame rate drops to an apparent 5-6 fps. Very bad. What this
ultimately means is that the beginnings of your races will be a matter of
tolerance as you deal with the choppy frame rate. As the field spreads
out and you are dealing with fewer cars ahead of you, the frame rate picks
up and the action becomes smoother. Unfortunately, unlike the PC version,
you cannot tune the level of detail or the # of cars being drawn. You get
all the graphics all the time. So if you get slowdown, you're powerless
to cure it. This really is a major knock on the Playstation version.
In constrast to Andretti and Formula One, NASCAR's in-traffic frame is
completely unacceptable. The graphics, in appearance earning an 9, drop
to a 7 on frame rate problems alone.
SOUND
The sound of the NASCAR's is very authentic, and the sounds of other cars
is also well done. I noticed no support of any kind of surround sound on
my system, but I'm not discounting that it might be there. There are also
several tracks of music, and what I heard is basically your standard rock
fare. If you are any kind of sim fanatic, the music goes immediately.
You can also adjust independently the engine noise and music.
CONTROL
I tested this game with both the digital pad and the Mad Catz wheel (the
first game I've seen that actually shows a Mad Catz wheel on the config
screen!). With the d-pad, ovals just don't seem right. Unlike a
road-course game like Formula 1, its pretty tough to optimize a digital
control pad for the fine tuning corrections needed to hold a stock car
right on the line and on the edge of adhesion. You do have the ability to
push diagonal up and left/right to do a mild steer while left/right does a
regular steer. There is nothing tighter than that (and in NASCAR none is
needed). You also have the ability in your setups to define your wheel
lock (the maximum your wheels will turn if you crank the wheel or touch
the joypad). With the Mad Catz wheel, things improved dramatically. It
felt like NASCAR again. An important point to note to those of you who
are arcade fans is that if you like the way games like Ridge Racer
handle...you might want to rent NASCAR first. No one in their right mind
will criticize the physics model of this game. Real NASCAR drivers vouch
for the authenticity of Papyrus' sims, and the Playstation version feels
no different than the PC version in this regard. Fact is, stock cars
handle nothing like super-grip arcade racers. They don't like to turn,
and they don't like you slamming on the brakes going around ovals. Smooth
and easy is the way you baby a stock car around an oval. When you hear
tire squeal, and its hard to avoid hearing it, you're not doing a
powerslide -- you're screwing up. So the control is difficult to learn,
but rewarding at the same time. It just takes a lot of time and practice
to learn how to drive smooth, consistent fast laps in a real stock car.
If you're not the kind that wants to know what it REALLY feels like to
those NASCAR boys ... stay away from this one. Its just not your game.
On the other side, there *IS* an arcade mode with super grip. You can
whisk around all the courses with much greater ease. However, in this
mode, the graphics and frame rate become more important -- after all,
you're now competing with other arcade racers. The frame rate problems
might make this game a failure for arcade racer fans. I'm a diehard sim
fan so perhaps I'm not the best person to judge this, but I do think that
if you try to turn this into an arcade game, it will come up short
compared to its competition in that genre. You also have a choice of
three levels of difficulty (3 different cars) in arcade mode.
Given that the control is identical to that in NASCAR for the PC, I give
it a 9, with one point subtracted for the simple fact that a d-pad just
doesn't cut it on an oval.
You can also drive from inside the car, behind and slightly above it, or
much more above it.
OPTIONS
For the NASCAR PC experienced folks...here's the quick and dirty: its all
here except the following:
- TV1, TV2 replay cams -- all other cams/options are there
- Only the last 20-30 seconds of replay are available
- You can't blow your engine, at least not in arcade damage mode
- There are only 20 drivers available
- No adjustable weather
- No adjustable graphic options
Everything else I can think of is there, and implemented similarly to the
PC version.
For the non-NASCAR initiated, if you want to get really good at NASCAR
you're going to have to learn a thing or two about car setup. You have
independent shock settings, where each wheel's shock can be set from 0
(soft) to 100 (stiff). You adjust wheel lock, wheel camber (the angle of
the front tires against the road), stagger (differential in wheel sizes
left to right), gear ratios, tire pressures, weights (rear, left and
cross) and front and rear spoilers. And these aren't just a couple of
settings either. All of these items have a wide range of possible
settings, making for all intents and purposes an infinite amount of
tweaking combinations available. In addition to the garage, you have the
ability to load/save setups. 3 race setups (Easy, Fast, Ace) and a
qualifying setup are provided to get you started. You can load these at
any time -- unlike the PC version, during practice you can load them while
you're paused on the track and you don't have to go back to the pits --
you literally resume on the track whre you left off albeit with the new
setup. Weird.
In addition, NASCAR has to be the most incredibly tunable game there is,
with the option to select the race length (unlike the PC version, the #'s
are 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% -- with nothing selectable in between).
You can determine how fast your opponents are on a scale from 0% to 100%.
Beginners should start at 85-90% to make life easy. I'm not sure if, as
in the PC version, you can exceed 100%.
You can also turn on/off pace laps, yellow flags, and you have three
levels of damage, from off to arcade to realistic. And it DOES affect
your cars' performance, but it depends upon the track. A slower track
like Martinsville will let you race around banged up. But a banged up
fender at a super speedway like Talladega is very bad news.
Fortunately you can go into the pits at any time for repairs, and that
brings up the next part -- the pit screens. You have a series of screens
you can toggle through while you're driving and while you're paused,
showing you your standings, your tire temperatures (left, middle and outer
on each tire), your tire wear, your cross weight setting, your spoiler
settings, your fuel status etc. You pause the game to issue orders to
your pit crew, and the next time you come in they do what you've set up
for them to do. Pit lane speed limits are also enforced, so be careful
about entering closed pits or breaking the pit lane speed limit.
Pretty much all of the above stuff is disabled for arcade mode, btw, so if
you're only interested in driving the arcade mode, none of this matters to
you.
Of course you can load/save your setups and options to a memory card, and
you can put your own name in so you see your own name in the racing
standings during and after the race.
Options: 10
MISCELLANEOUS
Also, in addition to having the 16 Winston Cup tracks minus Indianapolis
(thanks for nothing Tony George-IMS owner) and Daytona (thanks to our good
friends at Sega who locked an exclusive for their Daytona game which has
nothing to do with Daytona speedway), you get 2 fantasy tracks, based in
Colorado and California. As it so happens I have lived in those states.
The mountain scenery in Colorado is Great looking. This is a road course
custom built by Sierra and it has all the options the other tracks have,
but it adds an extra road course to a series predominantly consisting of
ovals. The other one is a race among the Red Rocks in California, and its
also rather nice, a combination of a road course and an oval.
Miscellaneous: 9
THE BOTTOM LINE
Overall, NASCAR for the Playstation is very competitive with its PC
counterpart. However, unlike the PC counterpart you can't do anything to
help your frame rate out, so the rather annoying frame rate drops while
maneuvering through traffic is probably enough to turn off anyone who
isn't either a NASCAR fan or someone who is open minded enough to consider
being a NASCAR fan.
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