Nascar Revolution - My Evaluation

After reading all the pro's and con's about this new Racing Game, I decided to get it and try it out for myself. What is to follow is my evaluation of this game, and how it performed on my computer. I really, really wanted to like this game. Visually, it is stunning. I went into this evaluation with a open mind, ready to allow it to take me over, or flop, on it's own merits. I did not go into this trying to grade it as a Simulation OR an Arcade Racer. I tried to look at it as it's own entity. First, this is the configuration of the computer that I tested the program on: Home-Built ASUS P2B Motherboard Intel Pentium II 450Mhz - True speed, not overclocked, 4.5 X 100 128MB RAM 11GB UDMA (Maxtor) 36X CD-ROM (Digital) Diamond Monster II - Latest Drivers Diamond Viper V550 RivaTNT - Latest Drivers Windows 98 DirectX 6.1 Installation ------------ Installation, from the time I double-clicked on the Setup Icon, to the time I was returned to the Desktop, was 4 minutes. 370MB worth of data is installed on the hard drive. Comments - There should be other install options. I am not complaining at all about the install time or size, but not everyone has the hardware resources available that I do. Stability --------- No stability problems were noted. However, I never did get the rear-view mirror to work, so there are bugs in the game. Graphics -------- No one can argue that Nascar Revolution is one of the greatest pieces of Eye Candy that has come out in a while. The use of 3D, including shading, reflections, etc... are outstanding. Comments - It's over-done, and the game suffers because of it. See below... Physics ------- I ran everything in what EA calls "Sim" mode. I ran everything from 'Cockpit' view. Anything else is unrealistic and I'm not interested in it. As for true-to-life Physics, there are none. This is not a sim. The car settings have nothing to do with reality. Comments - I tried two tracks, widely different in scope. Talladega - you can't crash. No matter what you do to the settings. Just floor it, and turn the wheel when appropriate. I swung settings wildly from one extreme to the other. While subtle differences could be felt, true, realistic modifications to the cars behaviour were not present. Bristol - Talk about a push! I cranked all the wieght to the left, including crossweight and wedge, and I could NOT loosen this car up. It always pushes up in the apex of the turn. The AI cars do not seem to suffer from these problems... There is absolutely ZERO realism here. None. Nada. The steering feels completely detached from the car. It's not linear, and it's not non-linear. Frankly, I can't tell what the hell it is. There appears to be no wheel spin. You can't spin this car out from a stand-still no matter how hard you try. Dale Earnhardt would be greatly dissapointed. Performance ----------- As I mentioned above, the graphics in NasRev are the best you will currently see. Unfortunately, I think that is the games un-doing. Performance, even on a high end machine like mine, is deplorable. To get ANY sensation of speed at all, I had to change to 640X480 resolution, and turn off ALL graphic options. This problem is more noticeable at large tracks like Taladega. Even with everything de-tuned as far as possible, you still can't see more than 1/2 lap ahead. The turns don't draw until you are about 1/4 lap away from them at Dega. It's kinda funny, you can see the AI cars running off the edge of the track, like it's a bridge that hasn't been completed yet, before the track is finally rendered underneath of them! At 1024X768 or higher, the game is UNPLAYABLE. At least in any fashion that would offer any enjoyment. There is no difference between Glide or RivaTNT play. Both are equally bad. I dare say, even a VooDoo 2 SLI setup would have a hard time presenting a game that is enjoyable. Folks, I think it's more than just over-done graphics, though. The fact that the game provides little speed sensation even with everything turned off indicates to me that there are underlying design and technical problems with the graphics engine used in NasRev. For crying out loud, I'm running a 450Mhz PII and the fastest general purpose 3D *** video cards in existance! Sound ----- Not bad, but the engine sounds seem tame to me. Comments - Do the announcers ever shut the hell up? It wouldn't be so bad if they were having coherent conversations, but geez, they say things in random order! At one point, Ned said the _same_ thing three times in a 30 second period! Fun Factor ---------- There is none. This game has so many technical and performance problems, it is totally beyond me how ANYONE could get any enjoyment out of playing it. As I said in the beginning, I really wanted to like this game. It has the _potential_ of providing some real entertainment, but in it's current form it goes beyond falling flat. It makes you want to remove it from your hard drive 30 minutes after you install it. Value ----- From a scale of 1 to 10, it's a 1. And that's being forgiving. Folks, it borders on criminal that EA is charging $40 for this software. It belongs in the bargain-bin at $9.95. In Closing ---------- Folks, this game makes me sad. It makes me sad that good people (programmers) obviously spent a large chunk of their lives creating this software. I'm sure that these people really poured their hearts into the project. I simply cannot understand what went wrong here. I can't believe that, early in development, these issues weren't forseen. Or that they were forseen, and ignored, by EA. Was it marketing pressures from EA? I have to believe that the programmers were shaking their heads to the very last minute saying "Boss, it AIN'T READY YET", but they were forced to go Golden Master anyway. I can't think of a single programmer that would be happy letting a program in the state that NasRev is in go out the door. To the programmers - I thank you for your efforts, but I think your journey has just begun. I don't think you were given the time to optimize NasRev the way you would like to see it, and the way WE would like to see it. I can only hope that EA will realize what they have done and give you the time, and resources, to rectify this sad state of affairs and allow you to finish your work. Your work is not unappreciated. You just aren't done yet :) So, save your money. EA hasn't provided a compelling product. They have provided a defective, er, scratch that. They have provided an unfinished product. To the simmers out there (of which I am one), you will not be happy with this game due to it's poor physics, ineffective car setup, and non-existant steering feel. The total lack of speed sensation also kills it. To the gammers out there (of which I am also one), you will not be happy with this game because the performance factors prevent any sense of e***ment or fun. And, in closing, I feel ripped off. Not by the programmers. By EA for selling this product before it was finished. Version 2.0 had _better_ be free. -Larry

Nice review. This is probably my #1 complaint. Even if the framerate in the incar/cockpit view were good, this detached feeling would still be a problem. I'm glad I wasn't imagining it. -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes. cisko [AT] ix [DOT] netcom [DOT] com

Thanks, Greg. I try :) -Larry > Nice review.

Larry, Great review. I was salivating for a long time, waiting for this game to arrive and give me an alternative to the Papyrus engine, but it looks like Papyrus has got it down. Too bad because N2 and N99 suffer from the same stupid AI that you can always take advantage of to win any race, even with a mediocre setup. I was hoping I'd get a game that really was a good simulation. Hopefully N3 will improve in the AI department. The only thing I dread about N3 is the graphics engine. Hopefully they'll have support for other cards than Rendition, RivaTNT. GPL is totally unplayable on my machine - I've got a Matrox M3D board that's great with Direct3D, but totally chokes on GPL. Too bad. Brendan

Larry everything you said was accurate. I also loved the eye-candy, but this maybe one of the poorest racing games I've played. Maybe you should send a copy of your evaluation and mail the program to EA. Ex

Hmmm.... Not a bad idea. Thanks! -Larry

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> Larry everything you said was accurate. I also loved the eye-candy, > but this maybe one of the poorest racing games I've played. > Maybe you should send a copy of your evaluation and mail the program > to EA. > Ex

This is an area that concerns me just a bit. I'm hoping that there isn't anything intrinsic within Nascar Racing that would cause it to have more performance issues than GPL. GPL runs pretty good on the machine I have. You can tell that the 3D Accellerators are tapped out (the move from 300mhz pII to a 450mhz pII did little to help frame rates, so it's the accellerators that are tapped). Does that mean Nascar 3 will run well? Will it have the same issues as NasRev? Of course, we are talking about Papyrus here and they most certainly wouldn't do to us what EA did with NasRev... I'm sure there will be issues, but I doubt they will be this excessive... -Larry

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> Hopefully N3 will improve in the AI department. The only thing I dread about > N3 is the graphics engine. Hopefully they'll have support for other cards > than Rendition, RivaTNT. GPL is totally unplayable on my machine - I've got > a Matrox M3D board that's great with Direct3D, but totally chokes on GPL. > Too bad. > Brendan

Mike McCallister