NASCAR Heat 2002
Monster Games takes aim at the NASCAR throne on PS2 and presents an
impressive case.
June 28, 2001
After getting a chance to watch the recent NASCAR Winston Cup race at Sears
Point just last week, my interest level in America's most popular sport
increased tenfold. It was the first race that I've watched live since a
Budweiser 500 at Dover Downs between eight and 10 years ago and I had almost
completely forgotten the intensity of this extremely popular and
highly-underrated racing sport.
Coming off the high of the race, it wasn't too hard to get up for the review
of Monster Games' latest NASCAR racing simulation and first for PlayStation
2, NASCAR Heat 2002. Based on the current NASCAR Winston Cup season, Heat
2002 features 19 of the 23 official tracks (it's missing Chicagoland,
Indianapolis, Kansas and Pocono) and 25 real-life drivers including Dale
Earnhardt Jr., Jeff "Booo" Gordon, Tony Stewart (surprise winner of the
Sears Point race), and Rusty Wallace.
Sadly, Bobby Hamilton, who recently became of favorite of mine after his
poor yet impressive performance at Sears Point, and his #55 car apparently
didn't make the cut, as he's not one of the professional racers in the game.
Gameplay
Luckily, Monster Games made up for this oversight by including a fairly
well-rounded feature set that should appeal to both the diehard simulation
fanatic as well as the diehard NASCAR fan that might just want to jump into
the game without much thought going into how to adjust the gears, suspension
or weight distribution of his car.
The game offers the same basic play modes that are a current staple in the
series -- Beat the Heat, Race the Pro, Single Race and Championship. The
Beat the Heat mode is somewhat similar to Gran Turismo's license tests in
that their mission is to teach you how to race. There are 36 tasks to
complete that include simple things like completing two turns on a track
under a certain amount of time or learning to draft another car to more
advanced tasks like finishing several laps on a particular track in first
place when you start at the end of the pack.
While some of these challenges work out great and really help teach the
player how they should actually race in the game, some of it actually has
the opposite effect. For instance, all of the second tier tasks have the
player start at the back of the pack with one lap to go with the expectation
of finishing in first place. While the challenge is there to get the gold
trophy, it's not a realistic situation, as this would never happen in a real
race. This can teach the player some bad habits and doesn't serve a real
purpose in trying to improve the player's driving skills.
Even still, the Beat the Heat mode is really fun to play through and adds
and extra dimension to the game that's not seen in other NASCAR games. It's
just too bad that it couldn't have been designed better to actually help the
player improve his driving skills, which would be great for those that
haven't played that many driving simulations but are interested in really
learning how to drive in a NASCAR race. In the same way, it would've been
nice if there were some demos showing a gold medal being won, with gauges
showing things like when the computer accelerated or braked and the general
racing line. This way, the Beat the Heat could've served as both a cool
extra gameplay mode and a learning tool for the novice.
The Race the Pro mode is simply a chance to go up against any one of 11 real
drivers and their best times on one of three tracks. There's not really a
lot to this, as it simply consists of you racing against a ghost car, but
just like the Beat the Heat mode, it adds an extra dimension to the game and
gives the player something to do when he's not taking part in any of the
game's main play modes, which includes Single Race, which lets you race with
any driver on any track, and Championship, which is the meat and potatoes of
the game.
The Championship mode is in essence a simulation of the current Winston Cup
season minus a race here or there. It can be setup to be of various lengths
(both the season and the race lengths), and with factors like wear rate (can
be increased so that you need to pit on shorter races), flags, opponent
strength and realism (Normal or Expert) able to be adjusted.
The Normal mode, which is best suited for someone that's looking to jump
right into the game, doesn't let you adjust any of the settings on your car
between races and sort of cheats a bit to keep you from spinning out too
much and won't completely destroy your chances of winning if you splash into
a wall or get a little too touchy feely with a lot of other cars. The races
aren't necessarily easy, though -- as if you bump up the opponent strength
to Hard or Pro you'll find that you have to perform extremely well if you
expect to finish in first place.
The difference between Normal and Expert mode isn't really the challenge of
the racing aspect of the game but more the driving. On Expert, the game
won't let you get away with as many mistakes. If you don't brake enough
going into a turn or try coming out of one too early, you can expect to slam
into a wall, which isn't necessarily going to happen on Normal. Likewise,
damage to your car has a greater impact on the performance of your car and
you can no longer just push around the AI cars or even knock them out of the
race by clipping their rear without having to worry about hurting yourself
as much as them.
Furthermore, on Expert you have the ability to setup your car between races
and how you tweak your car will be a major factor in how well you're able to
perform on each of the different tracks. And if you're a gear head, you'll
be pleased to find out that just about everything imaginable can be
customized from the weight distribution of the car to the gear ratios and to
spoiler angle and the percentage of Grille Tape.
The racing physics when on Expert seem to be pretty solid and offer a very
realistic racing experience, with an excellent drafting model that shows
just how important this aspect of racing comes into play during real NASCAR
races (this sport gets mocked often for the lack of right turns in most of
the races, but there's an insane amount of skill and technique involved in
the real thing). Since I've never raced in a real NASCAR race, I don't have
a clue if the timing of braking, downshifting, or acceleration out of turns
or the drafting physics are completely realistic, but it definitely appears
as if it's so.
My biggest complaint about the game centers on the caution flags, how
they're handled and the fact that the computer AI doesn't seem to wreck.
Throughout an entire Winston Cup season, I didn't notice a single crash or
yellow caution flag that was NOT caused by myself. The computer never once
got into a big accident or pile up unless I purposely or accidentally caused
one. What's more, the caution laps are completely run automatically and are
out of the hands of the player when racing on the Normal mode, so there'll
be nothing to do but watch the screen for several minutes waiting for the
pace car to leave and let the race continue. It's not automatic on Expert,
but it would've been nice to have this be a changeable option regardless of
mode.
Back to the good points, NASCAR Heat 2002 deserves some praise for its
control options. Racing gamers are often picky when it comes to how they
like to race and there are enough control options here to meet the demands
of just about all of them. Whether you like the gas and brake and the right
analog stick, the face buttons or the front shoulder buttons, you'll find
that there's a control configuration that'll likely suit your needs.
Likewise, the game offers four different and completely playable viewpoints
including a standard behind-the-car view, a far-away behind-the-car view, a
full screen view from the bumper and a cockpit view. All views work well,
with the behind-the-car views and the cockpit views giving the best look at
the damage that's being done to the body of your car. The only real
complaint that I have with any of these is that too much of the screen is
cut off for the cockpit view and the lack of hands or feet in the cockpit
really makes these feel a bit awkward when playing from this particular
viewpoint.
Regardless of the settings you use, you'll find that NASCAR Heat 2002 does a
wonderful job of making you feel like you're really inside a real-life
Winston Cup race. The intensity level when you're sandwiched between several
cars trying to pass you both high and low, with your spotter yelling their
locations constantly, can get pretty high -- especially when you're on
expert and are trying your best not to bump into them too much.
Graphics
The game's visuals are quite good on the whole but don't you dare expect to
get something that looks as good as Gran Turismo 3. Then again, GT3 is
limited to only six cars per race while Heat 2002 boasts 24 cars per racing
event. At any rate, the car models are highly detailed, the sponsor logos on
the cars are crystal clear and easy to read, and the smoke effects are more
than passable.
The tracks are also highly detailed, contain a lot of infield elements and
seem to be completely accurate when put up against their real-life
counterparts. The framerate is generally solid but will dip every once in a
while, but it doesn't hurt the gameplay too much. For the most part, if
you're running a realistic race, you won't encounter the really bad slowdown
problems, but if you're playing on easy and try and pass all 23 other cars
on a single turn, the game will chop up drastically.
Sound
The game's audio is appears to be fairly authentic, at least when you
compare it to what it sounds like on TV. The sounds of cars hitting each
other or the walls seem right on and the spotter, who tells you where other
cars are in relation to you, will talk your ear off much like is the case in
the real deal. The problem here is that after recently watching a NASCAR
event live, the engine sounds in the game just fail to impress. While they
do seem accurate to what you get when watching a race broadcasted on
television, it fails to mimic the true power of the engine sounds when
you're at a real race (turning the volume up doesn't really help). Maybe
it's just asking for too much, but the powerful sounds of these 700+
horsepower V8's are one of the biggest reasons to like the sport, so it'd be
much appreciated if this aspect could be brought home completely.
Comments
NASCAR Heat 2002 brings a lot to the table and really offers a well rounded
racing experience that will appeal to arcade and simulation racing fans.
It's simply a very solid racing game and is currently the best NASCAR racing
game available on PlayStation 2. EA Sports' NASCAR Thunder 2002 might give
it a run for its money when it's released, but for the time being, Heat is
simply the best.
--David Zdyrko
Presentation
The menus are cool and the FMV commentary from Allen Bestwick and the NASCAR
drivers is a nice touch. 8.5
Graphics
Very clean, framerate is usually solid but will dip when there are a lot of
cars bunched together, and the car models are nicely detailed. 7.5
Sound
Lots of chatter from the spotter, the sound effects and engine noises are
fairly accurate. Still, it doesn't represent the full power of hearing the
engines up close. 8.0
Gameplay
Lots of play modes, gameplay for arcade and sim fans, solid racing physics
and great control. 8.0
Lasting Appeal
Good season mode options, and the Beat the Heat and the Race the Pro modes
will keep things fresh. 8.5
OVERALL SCORE (not an average)
8.1