Where the physics do feel a little unfair is when contact leads to slides, as the AI rarely loses speed as it tries to correct itself, but the same cannot be said of the player.
Cars will bump into one another as they fight for the best driving line, or when they’re three wide and closing in on others ahead, but it feels fair. This doesn’t mean that collisions don’t happen in the race, quite the opposite really, as the close-quarters racing means that trading paint is inevitable. Luckily it doesn’t happen much in actual races, which is quite impressive given the sardine-like nature of the packed grid. The AI is reasonable on your fellow racers at least, although it has a tendency to shunt you during practice if you’re in their way. The sheer size of the grids is comparable to those of the real thing too, with 40 cars on screen at once, vying for position on an already narrow track. Make no mistake, this game will dispel the myth that NASCAR is nothing more than turning left while keeping the accelerator pressed firmly into the floor of the car. Speedway tracks are incredibly narrow and tight-cornered, meaning you need to brake hard before turning, and getting that right while avoiding the mass of cars offers more of a challenge than you might expect. Each oval feels genuinely different, with varying turn-in speeds and corner angles, meaning that you really have to judge your speed as you drive around the bends. The last major release was probably EA’s NASCAR ‘09 (if you don’t count this year’s NASCAR expansion for Forza Motorsport 6, or its inclusion in Gran Turismo 6), but the licence expired after that and eventually ended up at Eutechnyx, where it stayed until this year, when Monster Games took up the mantle.įeaturing all 23 tracks from 2016’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (plus a couple of regular tracks like Sonoma Raceway), this new game offers one of the most comprehensive and realistic representations of the motorsport to date.
Even die hard petrol heads will struggle to find that interesting, when watching it on TV.Įven in video game terms, the NASCAR games haven’t exactly set the world on fire. Without the race day atmosphere beside the track, the smell of burning rubber and exhaust fumes, the roar of 800+ horsepower engines drowning out your own thoughts, it’s essentially watching fifty-odd cars driving around an oval for a few hours. Outside of the US NASCAR will always be a tough sell.
0 kommentar(er)
