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.

Even if you can live with the frame rate drops, if you're used to
zipping around corners in your Ridge Racer car or with futuristic racers
ala Wipeout, you will undoubtedly be frustrated by just what kind of
pigs you're being asked to drive in a Winston Cup race.  The phrase from
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy might be appropriate to apply to stock
cars "Looks like a fish, moves like a fish, steers like a Cow".  Its
perfectly realistic, but it can be perfectly frustrating if you're
expecting something easier to drive.  If you want the look and feel of
stock car racing without the difficult and realistic steering, get
Andretti racing and enjoy an stock car game.  

However, if you're a NASCAR fan and you don't have a fast Pentium on
which to run NASCAR for the PC, definitely check out NASCAR for the
Playstation.  You get used to the frame rate drops and compensate for
them, and the sheer number of options and fine customizability of this
sim guarantees that its a game that you will NEVER master, just like
real life.  If absolute realism and depth appeal to you in a racing
game, NASCAR can't be beat.

Sim Racer Fan's rating:  8.5      (would be a 10 with the TV cams and a
                                   consistently higher frame rate).
Arcade Racer's rating:  5