SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Review: NASCAR SimRacing

We found NSR to be a stable game in all driving modes. None of us have suffered a single CTD or lock-up while racing or testing or MP, something that NR2003 could never lay claim to. In single player, the action is consistent and there don't appear to be any major glitches or hiccups with game stutter or memory leakage. This is no small feat in the world of demanding game code, so we'd like to give a nod to EA for making a stable, single player game product.

If you'd like to observe how your system is performing while running NSR, there is a little known key command that will bring up a FPS display for you ("little known" only because it's never been documented in previous ISI F1 games, nor in NSR's skimpy manual). But if you hit Ctrl + F on your keyboard, the command will display Frames Per Second in upper right corner of screen. Be advised that the FPS display will take about 2 seconds to show up on-screen and it doesn't work in replay mode. But it is nice to have available.

What the frame rate counter illustrated is what we knew by watching the screen — that by and large, NSR provides good frame rates on modern PCs even with the graphic details set to High or Full. And that's a nice aspect of this game engine.

Racing Gameplay

Heading into any race session highlights NSR's roots in the basic code of ISI's previous F1 series of games. Of course, F1 Challenge is a very fun game when you're racing and that's really what these games are about. But compared to other vendors, ISI sims offered a distinct lack of functionality and convenience that veterans of earlier NASCAR simulations will immediately miss. So as you try your first races in this game, one thing that will probably stand out are the convenient race management features that are NOT provided in this title. For those who have never tried F1 Challenge, Here's a rundown of those missing features:

There is no way to manage who the specific AI opponents in a race will be. You can select the number of opponents, but not who, as would be possible with an opponent manager GUI.
When starting a race, EA has provided you with 2 options to get you to the green flag: Either a full pace lap (or laps) that starts at the end of pit row (pretty, but eventually tedious) or you can hit the Space Bar after you hear "gentlemen, start your engines" to get advanced to a "running start." Selecting this option means you are dropped into the cockpit with your car rolling, just as the green flag drops. After the green flag waves, you are provided with partial (highly damped) control of your car for the first few seconds, after which full control is restored to you about the time you enter Turn 1. But don't forget to steer and mash down on the pedal while you're under partial control of the car — because you're not on full "autopilot" and failure to do so will put you well behind the pack. I guess the goal was to ease you into the driving during a running start and that's probably the only way to get that feature right — if that's how you're going to get the driver racing quickly, rather than a shorter pace period.
Once a race is over, there is no way to restart or rerun the race session without going all the way back to the main menu and starting the track selection process all over again. This is also true for Multiplayer races. In other racing sims, if players wish to restart practice, or adjust the length of the practice session, or begin a second race session at the same track, all it takes is a click of the mouse while within that track's race session GUI and you're back in business. In NSR, you must return to the Main Menu or Multiplayer "Create Race" GUI and restart the entire track and race selection process all over again — which kicks out all your online players to the Race Roster, where they must re-enter your server to drive.
In single player races, it is not possible to save a qualifying result and use that same starting grid over and over again in order to practice techniques. A feature like this is also particularly handy for if, for example, you practice and qualify but need to take a break before continuing on to the race itself. It's nice to click "Save" for the qualifying result, then break to have dinner with your family and return to the same race session when it's more convenient. Without this feature, you're forced to restart the entire race session when you return to the PC. Likewise, it's not possible to save a race halfway through and then pick it up where you left at a later stage. This wasn't possible with earlier NASCAR sims either, but it would be a nice feature for development teams to explore, as it would allow folks to work their way through an entire 500 mile race in single player rather than always race a short race that fits their available daily "driving time." Given the busy lives and limited "play time" typical of the motorsports sim demographic, we think a "save game" function that works during a pit stop, freezing the locations of the AI cars on the track so you could pick up the same race the next night would be a very welcome feature indeed.
Finally, it would have been nice to have a feature where your performance at a particular track is evaluated by the game engine, so that a suggested AI strength could be recommended to provide you with the best overall gameplay experience for that track at your current skill level.

While on the track, running in practice sessions and races with other cars we noticed a few minor gameplay bugs that are still in this title. Driving through the car in the pit stall ahead instead of hitting it. And we saw Busch (National Series) cars driven by AI at Richmond that alternately are jacked up as high as a Land Rover, or sinking into the pavement. This needs looking into, EA!

Rules

NASCAR has instituted some new rules for 2005 that impact how races are run, but it appears that they didn't give EA a head's up when they implemented them so they could be included in NSR. The most glaring example is Qualifying. Following in the footsteps of the FIA's F1 rules, NASCAR now places cars in "parc ferme" (that's "impounding" to Americans) after qualifying. That means the teams cannot tear the car apart after qualifying to reconfigure their chassis and suspension set up to a more race friendly configuration. That means the cars qualify with a more race-ready setup, rather than a twitchy and high strung one that would burn the car up after a few laps. To us, that means that the only things that should be changeable between Qual and Race setups are things like track bar, wedge, tape and tire pressure, while things like shocks and springs should be fixed between Qual and Race sessions.

Hopefully in a future patch, EA can determine a way to emulate this rule change, as well as many others that occurred in the off season.

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