I've taken the liberty of reposting this to R.A.S., since I think it
is completely relevant, and this guy did a great job.
It is a review of the new port of Papy/sierra's NASCAR to the
Playstation, and how it compares witht he PC version. I for one
couldn't afford a new computer (I have a 486), and went the
Playstation route- 1/15th the price! So far it has worked out OK.
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following forwarded from rec.games.video.sony:
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|As a racing sim fanatic, I've driven just about everything. I've driven
|the Formula 1, NASCAR and IndyCar sims on the PC, Psygnosis' Formula One,
|EA's Andretti, and of course the myriad of arcade racers out there. And
|now Sierra/Papyrus steps into the ring with NASCAR Racing for the
|Playstation.
|Graphics
| Appearance/Resolution
|The resolution of NASCAR appears to be somewhere between the VGA and
|hi-res SVGA modes of the PC version. The tracks and cars are all faithful
|to their 1996 real-life counterparts. Judging from the graphics, this is
|a distinct upgrade over the original NASCAR in graphics. In addition, a
|more believable racing groove is on the track...basically a darker path of
|asphalt where the rubber has been laid down. This is more believable than
|NASCAR PC's occassional skidmarks. However, the asphalt and grass
|textures are smooth and plain. The grandstands, signs, trailers and trees
|all look great. In terms of appearance, there's nothing to complain
|about. This is the way NASCAR racing should look on EVERY machine, not
|just high powered PC's. In addition, you also get a fully textured
|rearview mirror, and you get visible smoke in your mirror when you get
|wheel spin (burning out of the pits for example). In addition, the night
|tracks look great, with glowing orbs of light shining down on the track.
|All the car graphics look super as well.
|Of course now we have to discuss how those graphics perform in action, and
|this is where things get dicey. Driving all by yourself around a track,
|my guess is the frame rate is between 22-25 fps. Very respectable and easy
|to drive. However, add another car in front of you and you can drop that
|frame rate to 20. Another car or two and you're rapidly down into the
|12-15 range. Still drivable, but choppy enough to be noticeable and
|annoying, especially given the bumper-to-bumper driving often experienced
|in stock car racing. And if you should bump someone and spin the car,
|your frame rate drops to an apparent 5-6 fps. Very bad. What this
|ultimately means is that the beginnings of your races will be a matter of
|tolerance as you deal with the choppy frame rate. As the field spreads
|out and you are dealing with fewer cars ahead of you, the frame rate picks
|up and the action becomes smoother. Unfortunately, unlike the PC version,
|you cannot tune the level of detail or the # of cars being drawn. You get
|all the graphics all the time. So if you get slowdown, you're powerless
|to cure it. This really is a major knock on the Playstation version.
|In constrast to Andretti and Formula One, NASCAR's in-traffic frame is
|completely unacceptable. The graphics, in appearance earning an 9, drop
|to a 7 on frame rate problems alone.
|SOUND
|The sound of the NASCAR's is very authentic, and the sounds of other cars
|is also well done. I noticed no support of any kind of surround sound on
|my system, but I'm not discounting that it might be there. There are also
|several tracks of music, and what I heard is basically your standard rock
|fare. If you are any kind of sim fanatic, the music goes immediately.
|You can also adjust independently the engine noise and music.
|CONTROL
|I tested this game with both the digital pad and the Mad Catz wheel (the
|first game I've seen that actually shows a Mad Catz wheel on the config
|screen!). With the d-pad, ovals just don't seem right. Unlike a
|road-course game like Formula 1, its pretty tough to optimize a digital
|control pad for the fine tuning corrections needed to hold a stock car
|right on the line and on the edge of adhesion. You do have the ability to
|push diagonal up and left/right to do a mild steer while left/right does a
|regular steer. There is nothing tighter than that (and in NASCAR none is
|needed). You also have the ability in your setups to define your wheel
|lock (the maximum your wheels will turn if you crank the wheel or touch
|the joypad). With the Mad Catz wheel, things improved dramatically. It
|felt like NASCAR again. An important point to note to those of you who
|are arcade fans is that if you like the way games like Ridge Racer
|handle...you might want to rent NASCAR first. No one in their right mind
|will criticize the physics model of this game. Real NASCAR drivers vouch
|for the authenticity of Papyrus' sims, and the Playstation version feels
|no different than the PC version in this regard. Fact is, stock cars
|handle nothing like super-grip arcade racers. They don't like to turn,
|and they don't like you slamming on the brakes going around ovals. Smooth
|and easy is the way you baby a stock car around an oval. When you hear
|tire squeal, and its hard to avoid hearing it, you're not doing a
|powerslide -- you're screwing up. So the control is difficult to learn,
|but rewarding at the same time. It just takes a lot of time and practice
|to learn how to drive smooth, consistent fast laps in a real stock car.
|If you're not the kind that wants to know what it REALLY feels like to
|those NASCAR boys ... stay away from this one. Its just not your game.
|On the other side, there *IS* an arcade mode with super grip. You can
|whisk around all the courses with much greater ease. However, in this
|mode, the graphics and frame rate become more important -- after all,
|you're now competing with other arcade racers. The frame rate problems
|might make this game a failure for arcade racer fans. I'm a diehard sim
|fan so perhaps I'm not the best person to judge this, but I do think that
|if you try to turn this into an arcade game, it will come up short
|compared to its competition in that genre. You also have a choice of
|three levels of difficulty (3 different cars) in arcade mode.
|Given that the control is identical to that in NASCAR for the PC, I give
|it a 9, with one point subtracted for the simple fact that a d-pad just
|doesn't cut it on an oval.
|You can also drive from inside the car, behind and slightly above it, or
|much more above it.
|OPTIONS
|For the NASCAR PC experienced folks...here's the quick and dirty: its all
|here except the following:
|- TV1, TV2 replay cams -- all other cams/options are there
|- Only the last 20-30 seconds of replay are available
|- You can't blow your engine, at least not in arcade damage mode
|- There are only 20 drivers available
|- No adjustable weather
|- No adjustable graphic options
|Everything else I can think of is there, and implemented similarly to the
|PC version.
|For the non-NASCAR initiated, if you want to get really good at NASCAR
|you're going to have to learn a thing or two about car setup. You have
|independent shock settings, where each wheel's shock can be set from 0
|(soft) to 100 (stiff). You adjust wheel lock, wheel camber (the angle of
|the front tires against the road), stagger (differential in wheel sizes
|left to right), gear ratios, tire pressures, weights (rear, left and
|cross) and front and rear spoilers. And these aren't just a couple of
|settings either. All of these items have a wide range of possible
|settings, making for all intents and purposes an infinite amount of
|tweaking combinations available. In addition to the garage, you have the
|ability to load/save setups. 3 race setups (Easy, Fast, Ace) and a
|qualifying setup are provided to get you started. You can load these at
|any time -- unlike the PC version, during practice you can load them while
|you're paused on the track and you don't have to go back to the pits --
|you literally resume on the track whre you left off albeit with the new
|setup. Weird.
|In addition, NASCAR has to be the most incredibly tunable game there is,
|with the option to select the race length (unlike the PC version, the #'s
|are 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% -- with nothing selectable in between).
|You can determine how fast your opponents are on a scale from 0% to 100%.
|Beginners should start at 85-90% to make life easy. I'm not sure if, as
|in the PC version, you can exceed 100%.
|You can also turn on/off pace laps, yellow flags, and you have three
|levels of damage, from off to arcade to realistic. And it DOES affect
|your cars' performance, but it depends upon the track. A slower track
|like Martinsville will let you race around banged up. But a banged up
|fender at a super speedway like Talladega is very bad news.
|Fortunately you can go into the pits at any time for repairs, and that
|brings up the next part -- the pit screens. You have a series of screens
|you can toggle through while you're driving and while you're paused,
|showing you your standings, your tire temperatures (left, middle and outer
|on each tire), your tire wear, your cross weight setting, your spoiler
|settings, your fuel status etc. You pause the game to issue orders to
|your pit crew, and the next time you come in they do what you've set up
|for them to do. Pit lane speed limits are also enforced, so be careful
|about entering closed pits or breaking the pit lane speed limit.
|Pretty much all of the above stuff is disabled for arcade mode, btw, so if
|you're only interested in driving the arcade mode, none of this matters to
|you.
|Of course you can load/save your setups and options to a memory card, and
|you can put your own name in so you see your own name in the racing
|standings during and after the race.
|Options: 10
|MISCELLANEOUS
|Also, in addition to having the 16 Winston Cup tracks minus Indianapolis
|(thanks for nothing Tony George-IMS owner) and Daytona (thanks to our good
|friends at Sega who locked an exclusive for their Daytona game which has
|nothing to do with Daytona speedway), you get 2 fantasy tracks, based in
|Colorado and California. As it so happens I have lived in those states.
|The mountain scenery in Colorado is Great looking. This is a road course
|custom built by Sierra and it has all the options the other tracks have,
|but it adds an extra road course to a series predominantly consisting of
|ovals. The other one is a race among the Red Rocks in California, and its
|also rather nice, a combination of a road course and an oval.
|Miscellaneous: 9
|THE BOTTOM LINE
|Overall, NASCAR for the Playstation is very competitive with its PC
|counterpart. However, unlike the PC counterpart you can't do anything to
|help your frame rate out, so the rather annoying frame rate drops while
|maneuvering through traffic is probably enough to turn off anyone who
|isn't either a NASCAR fan or someone who is open minded enough to consider
|being a NASCAR fan.
|Even if you can live with the frame rate drops, if you're used to zipping
|around corners in your Ridge Racer car or with futuristic racers ala
|Wipeout, you will undoubtedly be frustrated by just what kind of pigs
|you're being asked to drive in a Winston Cup race. The phrase from
|Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy might be appropriate to apply to stock
|cars "Looks like a fish, moves like a fish, steers like a Cow". Its
|perfectly realistic, but it can be perfectly frustrating if you're
|expecting something easier to drive. If you want the look and feel of
|stock car racing without the difficult and realistic steering, get
|Andretti racing and enjoy an stock car game.
|However, if you're a NASCAR fan and you don't have a fast Pentium on which
|to run NASCAR for the PC, definitely check out NASCAR for the Playstation.
| You get used to the frame rate drops and compensate for them, and the
|sheer number of options and fine customizability of this sim guarantees
|that its a game that you will NEVER master, just like real life. If
|absolute realism and depth appeal to you in a racing game, NASCAR can't be
|beat.
|Sim Racer Fan's rating: 8.5 (would be a 10 with the TV cams and a
|consistently higher frame rate).
|Arcade Racer's rating: 5