Well, I got a good look at the upcoming NASCAR Racing
from Papyrus this weekend at a friends house. I am an
avid Indycar Racer so I must admit that I may be biased
in this text.
First off, I must admit that the 640x480x256 color graphics
are superb, that is, to LOOK at. We started off with the
SVGA graphics, after selecting the sound card. Papyrus
seems to be supporting more sound cards in this release.
No music was available, though who needs music at 180 MPH?
Now for the game. There are four tracks in the beta release:
Bristol, Michigan, New England and Phoenix. In the SVGA mode
running a 486/66 VLB and 8 Meg RAM, the frame rate was very
jercky and unexceptable. Those of you with 386's who thought
that Indycar was jercky haven't seen anything yet. There was
no selectable frame rate in this version but it is promised
in the final release. I turned off all the details and things
smoothed up a little but even with 8 cars on the track with
you, it's still very unplayable and frustrating. Imagine what
it would be like with 30 cars! An article in CGW is VERY
correct in saying that you will need a Pentium based PC to
run in SVGA mode. I must say the tracks were very detailed
and SVGA mode blew away Indycar's 320x200 anyday.
Now for VGA mode. Well, what can I say, it's just like Indycar
but seems much more "grainy" while using the in-car view. There
are three views in this one: in-car, outside-behind, and
further back behind the car, for those of us who like to see
further ahead. The frame rate on the 486/66 with all details
on was great. No jerky video at all, but that was only with
8 cars on track, again, non-selectable in this version, nor
will we know if more cars means slower frame rates. The replay
feature is here too, but with MANY MANY more camara views.
There were maybe 10 in total, outside car, indide, out each
window ( right & left ), behind, chase, blimp, TV and a few
others. I don't know if they will remain though.
As far as the garage feature and save/load, there are there
BUT unusabe in this release. The whole look is Indycar, but
there's a small window on the upper left of the screen that
shows what's been selected. For instance, when you choose a
track, you don't see a full screen shot, but when you
highlight the track name, it shows a pic in the box of it
with stats below. Pretty nice IMO.
And as for sound, as mentioned no music was heard but the
sound effects were pretty cool. The engine sounded alot more
like an ENGINE, than Indycars puny wheezing. there seems
to be stereo effects too, as cars pass you right or left
you will here them on either side. A funny thing was that
no damage was on, so cars would drive right through you
like you were not there and upon hitting the wall...nothing.
None of the promised "accidents" are in this version.
Overall, it was a fun day as I put in many hours on this game
and it looks great. For those of you who are awaiting it and
are die-hard NASCAR fans, and want to experience it the way
Papyrus would like, you'd better get out and purchase a
Pentium soon, or you'll be stuck in the VGA mode which
really doesn't shine once you've seen the SVGA mode. Anyways,
it's a game worth waiting for.
NOTE: I DON NOT work for or advertise for Papyrus.
Jim
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