NASCAR Racing (Mac) Review

Originally from Inside Mac Games. November, 1996.

Okay, everyone is in trouble now. I have tasted the thrill of topping 175 miles an hour through a long banked turn. I’ve felt the purr of a perfectly tuned Pontiac flying down a straightaway. How can I drive a sedate 35 mph to the grocery store again? NASCAR Racing from Papyrus Design Group and Sierra On-Line has ruined me for commuting.

This is not some nice little arcade driving game. It is a complicated and realistic simulation of almost every detail of stock car racing. It’s not perfect, but it is a heck of a lot of fun.

This Is Not Your Father’s Oldsmobile
(Unless Your Dad Is Richard Petty, That Is)

NASCAR Racing allows you to adjust every aspect of the car. For those who don’t know their downforce from their camber adjustment, the manual contains over one hundred pages of engine set-up, car design and track performance theory. That said, there is also the option to leave everything automatic and just drive.

The manual recommends that you begin with a practice run at Talladega Superspeedway, a 2.66 mile tri-oval that boasts the fastest speed record in NASCAR Racing. You have the option of practicing alone on the track or jumping in against other drivers. Needless to say, unless you’re Bobby Allison’s granddaughter with the best joystick on the market, you will absolutely need to put in twenty or thirty laps alone until you’re ready to race with the big boys.

The realism of the simulation is stunning: every element from weather to tire temperature factors into how the car handles and how fast it goes. Once you’ve gone around a few times in the default car, you may want to play around with the settings. NASCAR allows you to go to the garage and adjust almost every aspect of your car, or you can build a new car from scratch. Choose between a Ford, Chevy or Pontiac chassis. Settle on Goodyear or Hoosier tires. Fiddle with gear ratios, adjust spoiler heights, wedge angles and weight distribution. Even take you car to the paintshop and design custom color schemes, decals, and team uniforms. Then go drive your creation until you can take Talladega’s long corners with confidence.

Go, Speed Racer, Go!
Once you’ve got the controls down and your car in order, the fun really begins. There are sixteen courses to choose from (significantly more than in the PC version), though amazingly Daytona, the granddaddy of all NASCAR tracks, is not available. There are options for single races and full season mode. A season means a race at each of the courses, which run the gamut from superspeedways like Talladega, to short-tracks like Charlotte and hairpin road courses like Sears Point. Once you start a season, the object is to finish a race at each course. Point scores are awarded based on where you place in each race, and the driver with the highest number of points at the end of the season wins the famed Winston Cup. Appropriately, once you begin a season you can save any time through it—just not mid-race.

Races are tough to finish, much less win. Opponents are based on the driving skills and specs of real drivers on the NASCAR circuit, and their AI is formidable. In addition, maximizing performance on all of the different courses means extensive fine-tuning, occasionally in the middle of the race. Fortunately, NASCAR Racing allows you to view detailed feedback on your car during the race, and to communicate, via menus or voice recognition software, any necessary adjustments for your pit crew at the next stop.

NASCAR Racing also supports network play, so with enough friends on the track you can dumb down your opponents enough to make a fair fight.

There is a choice of several camera angles during the race, including cockpit view and chase car, or an arcade mode for all of the Pole Position die-hards out there. Even more views are available in the replay function, which can show any or all of a race just completed or still in progress. This is particularly fun for getting a bird’s eye view of the more spectacular crashes.

Out on the track, the detailed road, crowd, sky, and scenery textures and sounds make for dizzying realism. Course backdrops are based on the scenery at the real-life tracks, and a few courses even give you the option to race at night. You can set the level of realism for things like damage and weather. Crashes involve a great deal of skidding tires, billowing smoke and flying dirt (but not, as I was disappointed to find, fiery explosions or flaming wreckage. Oh, well, maybe future versions). At most tracks, the cockpit-eye view of the road is realistic and easy to follow. My only complaint is on the road courses like Watkins Glen or Sears Point—it is nearly impossible to get a clear idea of upcoming turns in time to prepare for them. Braking and curve markers on these courses are too difficult to see.

The Bottom Line
NASCAR Racing is an amazingly complex and exhilaratingly fun ride. If the idea of having to slog through a 200+ page manual doesn’t discourage you, you’ll find nothing in the game itself that disappoints. A note on controls, however; although you can get by with just a keyboard (though do not give in to temptation to use your mouse to steer!) a joystick or wheel is crucial for finer control and a truer experience. Overall, it is a terrific way to pound out your demons, work off some adrenaline, learn a little power mechanics, and never have to cough up a cent to the state troopers.

Pros
• Kick-ass racing realism
• Allows choice between minute adjustability and plug-it-in-and-drive simplicity
• Cool custom paint shop.

Cons
• Stiff computer requirements
• Loses realism on more complex courses
• Leaves bad Sammy Hagar song in head hours after play.

Publisher Info
Sierra On-Line Inc.
P.O. Box 3404
Bellevue, WA 98015-8506
(800) 757-7707
http://www.sierra.com