>I've been reading posts on this newsgroup for quite
>some time and since Nascar 2 demo is out I have a few
>questions that you fellow race fans can maybe help me with.
>I've played Nascar quite a bit. I have all of Papyrus' sims and
>will probably get the next ones. My question, is there any real
>big changes in Nascar 2? Seems to me that its no big break-
>through like ICR->ICR2. Ok, there is a spotter, improved graphics,
>better AI, fixed tracks, but is that really all? I'm not trying to
>knock it down, I just thought Papyrus would make it more
>revolutionary rather than an upgrade. They had two years to
>change it. If I missed any new improvements, please let me know.
>Right now I'm looking at spending $60 for an upgrade. Mind you,
>I might get the Rendition so that would be a big jump in change.
>Thanks for the info.
>Frank
It's more of an evolutionary change than throwing out everything and
starting over. The physics engine is the same, with the exception that they
fixed a couple of niggling little bugs that make setups a lot more solid
than in NASCAR1.
The most significant improvements are in the graphics engine. You get a lot
more detail with the same frame rate on a Pentium machine, just like the
jump from ICR1 to ICR2. The graphics details are on the cars and the tracks
are an order of magnitude better.
According to Papyrus, at least 5 tracks have been redone completely:
Darlington, Dover, Phoenix, Talladega and Watkins Glen. Someone else claims
that 8 tracks have been redone, but I haven't heard this from Papyrus yet.
The graphics at all the tracks is being revamped.
They've done away with the old carsets. Instead, as I understand it, you
can have any number of individual cars, and you can assign them to a
collection. When you start a race, you select which collection you want to
race against. The car detail is superb, and the cars that come with the
game are an order of magnitude better than the ones that have shipped with
the game in the past.
They're also reworking the race logistics. When you run a championship
season, you have to qualify well enough to make the field. If you fail to
qualify, you can take a provisional, if you don't have a provisional, you
miss the race. There's also 2-day qualifying, and as I understand it,
qualifying is in real-time, so if you qualify early, someone else may beat
you in qual later. I understand that there are improvements to the AI as
well.
Last, but probably most important, NASCAR2 is the basis for the NRL online
racing league. I think this is where most of their effort has been focused
over the last couple of years. You can argue about which sim has the better
graphics engine or physics engine, etc. but online racing is where its at.
There's nothing that will get your heart pumping faster than waiting for
the green flag to drop in a field of 40 cars all driven by human opponents.
Dave (davids) Sparks
Late Night League
http://www.sequoia-dev.com/Hawaii/latenite.html
