SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Feature: Race for the Chase

All three combatants have their ups and downs with the AI.

In NR2003 you need to be very careful not to cut down on the AI going into a turn. If you are hit, even slightly the chances are that you will spin out. When the AI see a hole, they go for it. In such situations they have no second thoughts and they don't back off.

The AI auto-adjust may work fine after the AI have been trained to race at your speed, but initially they race off in the distance and if they sense you are not quite on their pace they slow down too abruptly, causing very dangerous situations as you come racing towards the slowed-down AI.

NSRs AI exhibits a slightly worrying tendency to bump into you at every opportunity they get, even if such behavior would lead to a) damaging their own cars and b) them being black-flagged by any sensible race organizer. If you let them pass they run away from you ganging-up in drafting trains that seem to be very effective for the AI to use but less effective for the human driver who attempts drafting.

NH AI seems to have been blessed with a bit too much grip and they don't really know when to "regroup". Instead they are hard charging all the time.

This lap the top times are posted in this order: NR2003, NH, NSR.

Gameplay: Multiplayer

The multiplayer in Papyrus sims are rightfully considered one of the very best, truly supporting large fields of 40 + cars — given a server with the proper amount of bandwidth. Somehow, Papyrus found the holy grail of coding multiplayer for racing sims a long time ago and other racing sims have had a really tough time to reach the benchmark set by Papyrus... let alone surpass it. Modem connections can be used, although ISDN or broadband will reward the user with a minimum of lag and with decent ping times.

Again, rubbin' and paint-trading is not advisable in NR2003 while driving online. The collision detection is very sensitive and a nudge in the wrong place tends to cause serious crashes (they do look spectacular though).

NASCAR Sim Racing disappoints in the multiplayer arena because modems are not supported, and races seem to be fraught with latency, warp and high pings. The advertised full field of cars seems to require that all users in such a race are broadband users and that the server is of very high capacity. Due to these multiplayer issues you really cannot race closely online with much confidence in pick-up races.

NASCAR Heat proves that it is possible for other companies to code multiplayer properly. Fans of NH praise the multiplayer capabilities in this sim from the year 2000.

NR2003 is looking solid in first place at this stage and is likely to make it into the chase, while NH has gained a lot of ground on NSR, actually passing NSR due to the multiplayer capabilities in NH. Second place is far from settled yet.

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