Published by: Sierra
Reviewed by: Pascal "Saturnman" Vellet
System: Sony Playstation
Genre: Racing
Rating: 4 out of 10
Summary:
From PC to Playstation, Nascar Racing makes its appearance onto home systems with little changes. The result is an outdated and unpowered racing game.
The Review:
What already seems like eternity, Nascar Racing made its debut on PC a couple of years ago. Despite somewhat crude graphics, the game was well received as a fairly realistic racing sim. But that was years ago and on the PC. Now is today, and in the shiny and fast-paced world of home-systems, Nascar Racing seems to belong to another era, which begs the question: why is this game on Playstation? Perhaps it was thought the past success of the game on PC could help carry some sales on Playstation. That may be so but left on its merits, Nascar Racing just can't compete.
In terms of graphics, the game is pitiful. The same bland polygons have been faithfully ported onto Playstation without using whatever extra power the system could offer. The only exception to this is how the road surfaces have been smoothed with some gouraud shading, but that's the only improvement. The frame-rate is extremely choppy, and that's when you're alone on the road. As soon as a couple of cars appear close-up, it slows down so much, that even the worst mathematically-challeged person could count each individual frame per second. I've seen some bad-looking games on the system, but this one has hit a new low.
But graphics aren't everything, right? Wrong. It does matter, because if the frame rate is too low, then the game becomes unplayable. It's like an advanced flight simulator running on a slow PC. TO make matters worse, the control was already slow on PC Nascar Racing. And one annoying thing I've never noticed in the PC version, is how cars tend to stick to walls in rhe Playstation version, you almost have to come to a full stop to be able to move away.
Some will say: "What about all the tracks this ame offers?". True. Nascar Racing has dozens of tracks to race on, supposedly faithful replicas of real tracks all over the United States. But since they're all pretty much the same oval tracks, quantity here doesn't make a difference, because it equels redundance.
And following an annoying trend in racing games, the music is horrible. A dreadful, hard rock soundtrack, which feels obviously like padding. Can anyone take music seriously in games and compose some good rock tunes?
Nascar Racing is a game which doesn't belong on Playstation. Some might enjoy its sim feel (as opposed to the arcade-style racers you usually have on the system), but it still remains an unplayable and underpowered racing sim. I just can't recommend it.
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