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.