NASCAR Heat Review

If you are good with mechanics, and know your way around engines, you can try and tamper with the engine settings. I have to admit I'm no expert, but hey, I enjoyed modifying the engine settings anyway! I wonder if the cars enjoyed it as much... I don't think so... In fact, I think that my mechanic, who really loves his job, would probably shoot me if I were doing that to an actual car, even if it was my own. Anyway, the cars would get really bad-interesting to drive, afterwards. They would skid, sway and I wouldn't stand a chance winning the first place. Then I discovered a new hobby in the game, albeit an artistic one! (My God, who gave this guy a license! - Ed.) NASCAR Heat offers a paint kit that reminds a lot of the Windows Paintbrush, with which you can smear away, change textures, place pre-defined logos, etc.

Whoa! The ghost is gaining up on me!

Move you faggot!

The game's AI is remarkably good, placing Heat in the category of those few NASCAR simulations worth playing. The AI varies from driver to driver and it adapts to your driving skills. The computer will (well, unless you really suck) study your skills, and adjust your opponent's driving accordingly. Expect most races to be "wheel-to-wheel", nail-biting from the beginning to the checkered flag... In some situations, several opponents will work against you, exhibiting some fairly aggressive AI properties. On the other hand, the non-aggressive AI driving really bugged me. They would let me go past the other car easily, not taking advantage of some situations in which they could easily pass me, etc. The only thing I didn't understand is why they made the opponents' cars so hard to crash. The game never gave me a chance to use "Plan B" against the more skilled drivers... You know, wreck their cars, and win...

What About the Eye Candy?

NASCAR Heat boasts some excellent graphics. There are several supported resolutions, starting from 640x480 all the way up to 1280x1024, providing that your graphic card has 16 MB or more RAM, although, in most cases, you shouldn't expect to go much higher than 1024x768. Car models look good, there are some quality reflections, and the game, generally speaking, doesn't have steep hardware requirements, considering there is a minimum of 16 cars competing in-game. The higher the number of cars on the track, the lower the frame rate, but even with 42 cars the game is still very playable.

When making heftier maneuvers, the tires leave skid marks and thick smoke, and if you pay a little more attention, you will notice sparks flying from under the chassis. While driving, the whole attention is on the track, so the surrounding environments (e.g. the stands) are spared of excess objects. I am under the impression that the programmers did this on purpose, since "scarce" is directly proportional to how far the object is from the center of attention. So, for example, the tarmac texture and fence look good, the shadow that the fence casts on the tarmac is even better, and the lights on a night ride are great... Further more, a gang of well-modeled, and animated mechanics is waiting for you in the pit stop. In contrast to that, the inner court (the part surrounded by the track) has objects and cars that are presented in plain 2D that turn and face the general view. The crowd and the banners are nothing special, just inanimate, plain textures. The whole thing can get on your nerves if you don't have a Voodoo or GeForce card, since you'll be deprived of the anti-aliasing effect. They really worried about playability, you know, so MGI made a compromise, and the picture quality suffered. This feature, because of its tendency to lower FPS, was left out on purpose in the 3D engine. So, the only solution is playing the game through on one of aforementioned cards, or one that can perform the same effects.

The sound is average, with a few interesting twists. The engine sound is realistic, and changes depending how much throttle you add, or what state your engine is in. Maybe the collisions could have been followed by a tad more stronger and effective samples; to compensate, the programmers added a somewhat fanatical crowd. They cheer in critical moments, like when you take the lead or go through the finish line.

I found NASCAR Heat to be an enjoyable experience. With the exception of minor flaws, the graphics and playability are simple and fun, so all this makes a game that has a lot to offer to the fans of the sport.