| Nascar Heat Facts : | ||
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INTRODUCTION
It has been over a month since I did an extensive preview of NASCAR Heat. Now that the game has been out for several weeks, I can surely say that Hasbro will be one of the main forces in the stockcar racing simulation community (even though they also have a stronghold with the F1 community) that will be compete with Papyrus' bread and butter. NH has so much going for it and that it could be in fact scary to any Papyrus zealot. Hey I, like most of you, am game for competition as competition usually makes better innovative products that are not of the typical winded, overdone or played out. One problem of having such innovative technology or something new in any product could be the amount of difficulty involved for one to master any game thus leading to a failure in sales due to the reports of previews and reviews. Think GPL! But is NH so innovative that it is too intimidating to get accustomed to? No, I think not. Will NH succeed in sales? Probably, they are a big company like EA and you can surely see in all seriousness that these gents are not playing around as the TV commercials are being aired during the NASCAR races. You know that they are in there for the long run. Has the legendary Papyrus ever aired a commercial for their PC NASCAR games? I don't think so. Papyrus seems to use their early racing title fame reputation to make up for the lack of funds to air a TV commercial. Again, this is my opinion. Is this a comparison of the two companies Sierra/Papyrus and Hasbro/MGI? Well, sort of, since you really look at their common factor, it seems to you have a publisher and a developer. Hasbro is definitely bigger than Sierra. MGI and Papyrus both have the experience in the creating auto racing simulations since the main core of the original Papyrus are at MGI. I wonder who will last in the years to come? My take is probably the Hasbro/MGI combo since Hasbro definitely has the funds and is definitely bigger than the Sierra, financially. Enough of this hubbub and on with the review! Being a longtime Papyrus NASCAR Racing simulation fan, I got really tired of the rehash of the same old game since 1994. It just seemed to me that the Papyrus NASCAR titles were more akin to Bill Gates' Windows evolution scheme. HAH! For a year now, others and I have been waiting for Papyrus to give we the consumers something different for the NASCAR title. We were told that a new GPL-based engine would be used in NASCAR 3, which never happened, the reason was the processing power was too slow to handle the physics and other refinements. Give me a freaking break! This has to be one of the poorest excuses that anyone has ever conjured up! I guess during the development of NASCAR 3, Papyrus was using a Cray machine? BAH! I just wish that they would really tell us the truth instead of that lame excuse. So now we have another rehash of the N1 genre and more milked money out of the consumer's pockets. Am I disappointed at Papyrus? You're damn right! When I first saw the screenshots of NH, I'll admit that I had my doubts with the game graphically. Yes, eye candy does sell America and please don't tell me that it doesn't! As time went on, those NH screenshots seemed to be changing quite a bit from those cartoon looking cars ala Papyrus to actually some very realistic shapes in which each auto manufacturer could distinguished easily. I have never seen this before in a stockcar racing simulation! Heck, for those rehash NASCAR Racing games from Papyrus they could at least change the body shapes and no, trucks don't count! I decided to contact MGI since I have a great relationship with them that started with their Viper Racing title. As I got pointed in the right direction, I got in touch with Ed Martin the Executive Producer of NH, I explained that I wanted to a do a preview of NH and of course after that a review of the game. So low and behold we are at the latter stages! As the beta builds were sent to me I noticed the progression of this title changing with every build. In fact, the most obvious difference from NH from the entire stockcar racing titles before it was the realistic 3D or 6DOF driving physics. But not only was the driving model adapted for the human driver but also the artificial intelligence a.k.a. AI. So the AI in NH can have the same conditions and misfortunes just like the human driver. As I mentioned in the preview, the physics are more refined in the retail version. TEST SYSTEM:
MODES OF GAMEPLAY BEAT THE HEAT This type of play is a compilation of 36 plus three bonus scenarios, created by MGI, Hasbro and several NASCAR WC drivers in which each scenario gives you an task for you to completed in an amount of time or place of finish. As you start each scene, you are shown a video with Alan Beswick of the MRN fame and several NASCAR WC drivers explaining what is involved. Each challenge trains your driving abilities of what to expect in the overall product of NH. If you do well, you will be rewarded points and trophy. The better you do, the higher the points and trophy. As the points accumulate, you will see an overall ranking bar denoting your status in BTH. The highest ranking is "Championship", which can only be rewarded if one would be able to get the maximum points obtainable. BTH is probably one of the best aspects of the NH as it is innovative and vastly original to what has come out in the past in the simulation-racing genre. After completing BTH, I usually find myself going to back and redoing several challenges trying to better my overall scores. The only problem I have with BTH is that you are stuck in the Normal mode, which is one of the driving models supported - I'll talk more about this mode later as this mode is a bit too easy to drive. It would've been grand to be able to play BTH with a more sophisticated driving mode. Also, you can't create your own challenge or scenario, which is probably due to the NASCAR licensing. RACE THE PRO During testing of NH, the Hasbro and MGI actually got some of the NASCAR WC drivers to sit down and drive or race in the game. After they played with the game, they recorded their best lap that in turn becomes a ghostlap. What you are suppose to do is race one of the several drivers using one of the driving models, Normal or Expert and your goal is to see if you can beat their best recorded laptime. As you get up to speed, WC driver will be shown as a faint image, like a ghost, and popup at the S/F line to race against you. As you run several laps, you will notice that the WC driver's car just seems to loop. You can try to hit them but it's not going to do you any good, as they are a transparent image. You might learn something from the lines they use. Each driver has several tracks for you to race against. If you chose to race in Expert mode, you can go into the Garage and play with your setup. I like this mode since you can learn something from their lines and it's quite a blast to beat them! SINGLE RACE This mode of Gameplay lets you race a single race. As you go progress through the menus you have the ability to choose which car you would like to drive and the ability to paint your very own car. If you decide to use an AI's car, there will not be a duplicate of this car since you are using it. Also, there is really one chassis that is modeled and it's a Pontiac. So gone are the days of discrepancy of which chassis you should use. I like this idea since all don't have to question on what chassis was used during the setup creation. After choosing your car, you pick what track you would like to race. Majority of all the NASCAR WC tracks are in NH with the exception of Pocono and Indianapolis. Once you have decided which track and what event (some tracks have more than one event), you see the Practice, Qualify, Race, Setup and Garage. The latter will only show if you are not driving in Normal mode, which can be set in the Setup menu. The Setup menu consists of setting the opponent strength, race length, amount of opponents, wear, auto pitting, and penalty flags. Let me not forget to mention the ability to turn the ghostlap so you can also race against your fastest lap on the track with the opponents if chose to do so. By default, there are two driving modes in NH: Normal and Expert. In Normal mode, you don't have to worry about creating setup and basically just get in and drive. This mode is more akin to the arcade side has the driving model is a bit too easy to drive as the car feels as if it is driving on rails. It's practically identical to the Papyrus N1-3 driving model. The stopping power is very quick so can really go in deep into the turns. When trying to spin out it is very hard to do. This driving is very forgiving and more adapted to less experienced drivers. Switching to Expert, gives you more of a less forgiving driving model as the realistic starts to almost completely show. Yet, there is a slight opposite lock correction in this model so you will have a tendency to catch a car spinning somewhat easily. The stopping power is greatly increased in distance as you get a sensation of the weight of the car. Locking up the brakes can be done but before that, there seems to be a slight introduction of ABS being used. Now for you hardcore drivers out there, I know this might sound like a disappointment but it's actually not. You see hidden in NH there is another driving model and this mode is called Hardcore. So in order for you to use it, you need to go into the options.cfg and look for "hardcore enabled" and set to yes. You will notice when you enter the Setup menu that there will be three listings for the driving mode. This is NH's most realistic driving model as it is the hardest to catch or safe a car and it feels as though the suspension moves a bit slower. This driving model is superb to what any stockcar sim to date as to offer. When going into the Garage menu, you will see a plethora of adjustments that you can tweak for your particular driving style. There's more shown than any Papyrus NASCAR genre ever had and bit more defined than EA's version. What is missing is the lack of adjustment to the track bar, bending fenders out or in and toe in or out settings. Other than that, everything is practically there that adheres to the NASCAR WC 2000 rules. What's really nice is the limit of the rear spoiler at the restrictor plate tracks in which you can only go as low as 45s but on all the other tracks you can go as low as 40s. Tire pressures are broken down to .25 PSI increments and are modeled realistically, so gone are the days of 50-60 tire pressures. The screen also shows the tire temps and weights for each wheel or corner of the car. If you would like to do some testing by yourself in the Garage menu just by clicking, "Test". You can also save, delete and load setups. There are default and advance setups that can be used for a baseline setup though if you plan on just using the advance setup, it was really designed with the AI set at the medium setting. Overall, the setups are pretty good to handle a broad amount of driving styles. The Auto Pit feature when enabled lets the game control your car as you enter pitroad. All pit adjustments are done prior entering your pitbox. The one problem I have with this during green flag pitstops is that you can practically go full speed onto pitroad without worrying about breaking the speed limit or wrecking. This makes the game a bit unrealistic and I hope they would the tone speeds down, as you get closer to pitroad instead of abruptly slowing down the car. In way you could use the Auto Pit feature as a nice way to gain some ground on your fellow competitors. Using the Auto Pit feature disabled, you only have complete control when you first leave the pits during practice so no speed limit is governed and the ability to pull into your pitbox. Other than that each time you enter and exit pitroad your speed is kept in check automatically. What I hoped for is full control of pitroad speed by the human driver. There is another feature you can enable in the options.cfg file in which you have a certain amount of range you play between the timing mark segments (white lines that go across pitroad) so this will take the average speed between the two lines. You can enable this feature by looking for "force_legal_pitspeed no" and change the no to yes. What NH doesn't list is the weather since all racers use this to change or base their setup. For those of you use to setting weather, you can't do that in NH and this doesn't really bother me since in real life you really can't control the weather. Now the weather in NH isn't dynamic but for some reason I have noticed the lighting of the Sun change by looking at the cockpit gauges each time I have entered the track. CHAMPIONSHIP This mode is basically identical the Single Race mode with the exception of racing in a championship with varying amount of races. You also get the opportunity to create up to four seasons. MULTIPLAYER Here's a mode that you can race with your fellow humans and you get the option of adding AI in the foray also! NH supports LAN and TCP/IP. Depending on your bandwidth, you can have up to 16 opponents on the track. Now what's missing is the modem to modem connect, you know when you dial your buddy's house and it's just you, him and probably some AI but I don't see this as a problem since most simracers race on the Internet. Also, the lack of this feature could tell the bandwidth requirements needed to run a multiplayer successfully. You can also chat with other people during the online racing or when you and your comrades are just sitting there waiting for everyone to click in and start. When hosting a game, you will have control of what you want to do during your time. You have the ability to set a password, set race length, IROC style racing, amount of wear, amount of AI, driving mode, and what track. You also have the ability to kick someone out of the game if they were bad or was lagging during gameplay. If are joining a game, you need the IP address and state the connection that you are using. Once you connect, you will see the host's name and the ping time to them from you. After every online race, you will see a race summary of how the race went and who did what in the race. Once that is completed, you will be given an option to save or watch the replay of the race, which I feel that this should be an option on the enable. If you choose not to watch or save the replay then the race standings are shown with the overall race time and race speed. Overall the performance of online play is a mixed bag since it's really how clean everyone connects and that ever-important bandwidth that the host can provide especially on the upstream side. Having connected to a host with a ADSL line of 1Mb/128Kb, the performance was great for five or six cars although pushing past this can be quite a task since warping, flying cars or ghost cars will be evident at either at the start of race or during. During the start of race there will be the race intro showing what's the starting line up, this feature will constantly be shown until everyone is synchronized and at times, you will see some cars lag back for some distance. These cars seem to gain ground when the green flag drops, which sometimes they ram the cars that are in front of them. This phenomenon practically occurs at big tracks like Daytona and Talladega. I have had several experiences racing with 16 human drivers, which wasn't that bad but it could be better. In this area, NH needs a bit of work. Lastly, there are no yellow flags implemented. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE To date, NH seems have the best AI out there during racing conditions as they are somewhat aggressive and times relentless if you pass them or want to. At the PRO, the AIs are somewhat slow in qualifying speeds as I find myself taking the pole about 97% of the time. Their races aren't too far off from the qualifying speeds and during a long run; their speeds seem to fall off a couple of tenths. In the early beta builds of July, the AI race speeds were in fact more realistic as they are in real life yet the clock being used to time the laps was way off. I hope in the future of NH that there would be fix or a new version to slow the AI and human driver down during the race. For example at Lowe's, in real life the WC drivers race at 176-182MPH and in NH, you can expect to go a great deal higher than that. In fact, even all the Papyrus NASCAR sims exhibit this behavior hopefully soon someone out there will get this right. One of the major sore spots of the AI are their actions during a caution or yellow flag, as they seem too inconsistent with your speeds during the caution laps, which in turn can cause damage to your if physical contact is involved. Plus, they seem to ram into you when they are going onto pitroad for some service. You can think of these scenarios of playing tag or chicken with the AI. It's actually fun at time but quite aggravating most of the time. I did find a trick to prevent these scenarios and that was to enable the Auto Pit. So not only do I have the luxury of relaxing during the caution laps but also the time to think which adjustments to do the car. Bringing out a caution can be quite a task especially if you have been on a long green run and you need fresh rubber. Cautions seem to be a rarity in the retail version of the game as the early builds had the AI causing cautions easily. I have seen several times when there was several AI in an accident and the yellow wasn't even thrown. DAMAGE MODELING You can vary the damage model's intensity by selecting how much under the Wear option. The higher the number you set, the more drastic the damage will occur. Under normal wear, visual and physics impairment are not shown realistically but you know there is some damage when the suspension or aerodynamic lights are illuminated, it's just seems to have no effect to the performance of the car. Now when those lights to come up several more times, you will certainly see a change in your car's overall performance but it just takes too long. I think the damage model needs to be more sensitive since it's a bit too forgiving in this area. At times, when you run into the wall pretty hard, you should see that part of the car really damaged. Not so in NH, depending on how many times those idiot lights have come on, most of the time you want see a proper visual representation of the damage. When you set the wear to 2x, the damage is a less forgiving yet the fuel window drops in half though racing at 6x wear is a blast! I have noticed that when any car involved in a flip, those cars should not be able to continue in the race and that yellow flag better be shown. In fact, they should be towed off the track thus ending their race. The same situation can be said about one exploding an engine, all you have to do is limp back to pitroad to get some work and all of a sudden your engine is singing healthy again. As you can see this are is NH's thorn on its side. This is probably one of the weakest links of the game beside the online play. RACING IN HEAT Having 6DOF physics is just bliss for any racing simulation driver. I am so amazed how realistic the physic really are. The actions of your wheel will surely show you how much weight you are tugging around as those suspensions remind of a loaf of bread on wheels. NH definitely takes a different type of driving style are the days of just driving a rail car and now you really have to take care of your car. The better manage your tires the longer you will last. What really neat is that for the first time you can make a run to the front and if you can't pass the leader, you can just set back and wait for your tires to cool down and then make another run at him. Tire temps are properly modeled since you will be able to see all four tires go over 200s. Where NH shines above any stockcar sim, is racing at long lengths with a lot of side-by-side racing. This is NASCAR being simulated at its best! GRAPHICS NH is probably the best-looking photorealistic stockcar simulation that has been out in a long time. Using up to 512x512 textures, NH exhibit excruciating detail. Everything seems to be almost perfect with the exemption of such abnormalities of missing braking signs and little tidbits here and there. Smoke, sparks and backfires are shown graphically. And if you are system has the ability to run the game on full tilt, you will be rewarded of a game that looks so close to the real action that isn't funny. Lighting is modeled very well. The cars themselves show their distinctive traits where no other stockcar simulation has ever done. NH uses Microsoft's Direct3D (Buh-bye GLIDE!) and makes you have a card that has at least 32MB of memory so you can run that game all the way up to the maximum resolution of 1280x1024. The game doesn't support 32-bit color. SOUND MGI implemented their existing 3D sound albeit tweaked from their past racing title, Viper Racing. Overall the sounds are realistic and in fact, very close to the sound that you hear when watching a NASCAR race via the in-car camera. When using headphones, you can certainly tell which tire is squealing and the approximate location of the cars around you. The only bad thing about the sound is the menu click since it seems to be loud. CONCLUSION NH is certainly a new breath of fresh air in the racing genre of stockcars even though there were several flaws in the release version. Hasbro and MGI released a patch and fixed almost all the problems. |
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