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Availability
NASCAR Sim Racing can be picked up in the shops or ordered
through the Internet so this title should be readily available.
NASCAR Racing 2003 Season is becoming increasingly difficult
to find and prices on Amazon.com can soar to ridiculous heights
— past the $100 USD mark. But if you browse through forums,
ask, Google, or try eBay, you should be able to find a copy
that sells for less. Or so I'm told.
NASCAR Heat is probably also a bit difficult to find. Thanks
to a friendly SimHQ member I got a copy sent over to me. The
sim itself sold for $3. Interestingly, if you go to www.themodsquad.uni.cc
and read through the various downloads, you'll find that with
a package called NASCAR Heat Essentials and the NEXTEL05 mod
from Team
Westside, you can sample NH without owning a copy. It
is a situation similar to the Grand Prix Legends 2004 demo
where you get the ability to add community created tracks
and in the case of NH, some mods, without actually owning
a copy of the sim.
Qualifying sees NSR on pole as the newest sim and
due to its availability, NR2003 qualifies second and NH third.
Graphics
Being released in 2000, NASCAR
Heat naturally lacks in dynamic lightning/shadows and the
sort of eye-candy and realism made possible by newer versions
of graphics cards and DirectX 8/9 software.
The tracks that shipped with the sim don't look
bad, but the 5 years that have passed since NH was released are noticeable. Spectators
in the grandstands is one of the areas where the graphics surprise as they don't
look flat and cardboard like.
In the Team Westside NEXTEL05 update you get better looking
and newer car models than those shipped with the original
game. If you're racing NASCAR Heat, that update is a certain
must-have.
NR
2003 still looks very good and graphical updates and add-ons available from various
sources on the net, e.g.
Superspeedway's megapatch, replace older track signs with current signs, adds
general and overall enhancements as well as contemporary driver roster and very
beautifully done paint schemes.
The colors are crisp and clear, the graphics look great at
resolutions like 1280x1024x32. With system requirements where
they are, you can run large fields on most machines, even
if your machine isn't cutting edge anymore.
One huge letdown concerning the graphics is the flat appearance
of spectators in the grandstands. They look just plain awful.
Hopefully the modders will turn their attention to this in
the future. Please?
NSR also looks very good. The eye-candy is very well done and things that
impress are the crowds watching the race from the grandstands, the changing skies
and the dynamic shadows that are very noticeable from the cockpit, which also
is very nicely done.
On the less-positive side the car models when viewed
from the exterior still don't quite look right, and to look its absolutely best
NSR needs to be run at high resolutions and preferably with AA/FSAA which naturally
means that it will look best on newer hardware.
Better car models for NSR exist and can be found on the net.
These car models have been, ehhh... "converted"
from another sim (I believe).
The Dodge Charger, missing from the retailed
game was included in the patch though.
In this phase of the race NSR has
the upper hand with the crowds in grandstands and the lightning
and shadows effects, while cars, and the overall appearance
look better and cleaner to me, in NR2003.
So the order in the early stages of this race is NSR, with
NH closely on the heels of NR2003.
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