Reviewed: May 28, 2001
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Sierra Entertainment

Developer
Papyrus

Released: February 7, 2001
Genre: Racing
Players: 43
ESRB: Everyone

8
7
8
9
8.1

System Requirements

I'm probably the last person who should be reviewing this or any other serious racing sim title. While I have owned and played every racing game ever made, I seldom have the patience or desire to drive around in circles for more than 10-20 laps before I get frustrated and start a game of "chicken" with the lead car. I salute those of you with the patience and stamina to sit in a chair for 2+ hours and actually finish a 100% race at full realism.

But one of the little perks of reviewing software is getting to experience games you might not have otherwised purchase and this is one of those titles. NASCAR 4 is the latest in the long line of racing sims from Papyrus and definitely one of their best attempts to capture the real-life racing experience. Papy has always put realism ahead of traditional "fun" which is why their racing games are always the preferred choice from the huge assortment of driving games that release every year.

NASCAR 4 has some big shoes to fill. Grand Prix Legends is still considered to be the ultimate in serious and accurate racing simulation software, and no one is going to expect anything less than the high standards set forth in this title. NASCAR 4 comes with the complete set of standard features and a few long-awaited options that will send most stockcar racers running for the nearest software store.

We start the package with all of the 2001 teams and appropriate corporate sponsors and paint jobs. All of the car manufacturers including Dodge are back along with 21 official tracks including Indy and the triumphant addition of Daytona. For those of you who haven't been part of the computer-NASCAR scene, SEGA has held the exclusive license to Daytona since the original NASCAR game. There have been a few hacks and semi-professional attempts to recreate the Daytona track, but the only track that ever showed promise was quickly squashed by copyright lawyers. Now we have Daytona in all its glory in both day and nighttime racing.

The AI in NASCAR 4 has been beefed up making for some serious competition with up to 43 drivers fighting for that number one spot at the head of the pack. A toned-down arcade mode is available for rookies (like me) or you can turn everything on and make this game as hard as driving one of these cars in real life. There is realistic damage modeling which allows you to turn your car into a twisted pile of scrap metal, although there is little to no visible debris during contact with other cars or the wall.

NASCAR 4 offers the traditional Practice and Single race modes along with the Championship season where you compete in all the races and earn points for finishing in the top positions. Sooner or later most of you will probably want to take your racing action online against other real racers who are just as serious about the sport as you. But for those of you wanting to enjoy the solo experience you will find some very competitive AI. The computer opponents manage some aggressive racing styles without getting sloppy or overly dangerous. Opponents will draft you and wait for that perfect moment to make their move. Papy seems to have somehow captured the essence of the real-life drivers for each of the cars, so if you are familiar with how they drive on TV then you can expect similar results when you are racing against them on the PC.

The AI seems to fluctuate with each track so you can expect some quirks here and there. Hopefully these will be addressed with future patches, but in the meantime there is nothing that is impossible to overcome and certainly nothing as crazy as you will find racing online against a bunch of kids who don't take the game seriously.

While there were early rumors that NASCAR 4 was using the same engine as GPL, it in fact uses an entirely new engine based on the GPL engine. Each game offers its own unique racing experience and one engine could never cover both styles of racing. You now have much better control over your car than in any other NASCAR game before. Each car handles exceptionally well, and if you have a force feedback wheel you can even "feel" the NASCAR experience.

Using my Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback Wheel I was able to get the subtle vibration from the engine as well as the tugging of the wheel in the sharp turns and the jolt when I collided with the wall or another car. Unlike GPL however, the use of force feedback doesn't really enhance the driving experience. In GPL you can actually "feel" when your backend is about to break loose. In NASCAR there are no such subtleties. While they don't detract or even hinder your ability to race well, the feedback effects are present only as a gimmick.

Even more detail has been put into the cars themselves. If you manage to spin around your roof flaps will deploy. Spoilers and roof rails are now authentically modeled using the physics of the super speedway chassis and are track-specific. Tires and tire wear now play a crucial part of every race. Heat and excess wear due to skidding or scrapes with the wall are now accounted for, and you need to monitor and change those tires more than ever.

Papy has included all the rules for official NASCAR racing in this release including many ways to get black-flagged. These are all explained in great detail in the 130-page manual that comes with the game. The manual also has excellent descriptions for all your car parts and setup details as well as information on each of the tracks. It is one of the few manuals that is educational and informative even if you aren't playing the game as a serious racer.

I'm happy to report that the bugs in NASCAR 4 are few and the ones that do exist are not that horrible. Aside from a few AI bugs on a few tracks and the unrealistic ability to "ride the wall" around turns without losing a lot of speed there just isn't anything wrong with this game. It's as close to perfect as you can get out of the box and after an update patch this should be the NASCAR game to end all others - at least until NASCAR 5.

The cockpit view is now in 3D and while it is quite confining (if not downright claustrophobic) you won't get any more real unless you get into a real stockcar. You can look right and left which is great to check out those cars sneaking alongside you, and being in 3D, the cockpit view bounces and shakes independent of your head so you can almost feel the bumps in the track and the G-forces as the car leans into the turns. Real time lighting and shadow effects are even reflected on your dash and impressive array of instruments for total immersion into the racing experience.

Other views are available such as the chase-view generally reserved for arcade racers, and the bumper cam. Normally the bumper cam is my preferred view, but in NASCAR 4 the camera is so low to the ground that it not only exaggerates your sense of speed, it also limits your field of view. For those who don't like the out-of-car views or the dash view there is a view from the driver perspective but with no cockpit. Only the instruments are present overlaid much like a HUD on a fighter plane.

Special effects are excellent with sparks, smoke, and even a few body parts that will detach themselves during the more serious impacts. This all ties into a much improved damage model and you can actually witness you car dent and start to fall apart the more you crash. Rear-ending a car can actually crumple your hood and block most of your view out the windshield. Crush a fender and you might find your car starts to pull to the left or right. Track details like skid marks, pavement cracks, and scrapes on the walls are all present and new damage remains with the track for the duration of the race warning you of possible trouble-spots.

With all these high-octane graphics and up to 43 cars on track you are going to need some serious horsepower under your desk. The minimum specs for this game are adequate for turning practice laps, but if you want to race against the pack with all the graphical goodies turned on and maximized then even the recommended specs won't get you there.

My P3-700 with 384ram and a GeForce 2 GTS with 32mb was able to meet the challenge of running NASCAR 4 at 1024x768 at 32bit color with all details on and maximized. Several things will affect your frame rate including the track you are on and how many cars are currently in your field of view. The latter can be adjusted in the options but who doesn't want to see that dual-line of cars stretched out in front of you during the pace lap. You can also adjust the "draw ahead" and detail settings trading off valuable FPS for the occasional pop-up of distant objects. Sky detail is another resource hog that has several settings. The skies in NASCAR 4 are beautiful, especially the twilight race at Daytona, but be prepared to spend the CPU-power if you want to see it.

With my setup and everything set to full I was able to sustain 30-50fps on most tracks. When I skipped the "qualifying" process and started at the rear of the pack with full detail and all cars visible ahead of me the frames never did drop below 25, which was more than adequate. Naturally, you will have to do lots of trial and error to find that perfect combination that balances visual quality for smooth frames that suit your own personal taste.

Another interesting observation is the support for both OpenGL and Direct3D. The Direct3D mode seemed to offer much better visual quality and special effects than the OpenGL mode, but at a substantial cost in FPS; anywhere from 8-12. OpenGL conversely offered better frame rates but at the expense of washed out graphics and fewer special effects. This may be limited to my GeForce 2 card and the nVidia 6.50 drivers I was using for the review, so once again you will have to experiment to find what works best for your system.

The menus and other interface displays are excellent and offer colorful and informative screens with easy-to-access menus and pull down option settings. Papy has finally broken the larger info screens up by including tabs you can click on to change various pages of information. The paint shop is incredible and you can easily get lost in creating your own car designs and color schemes if you aren't careful.

Last but certainly not least is the new animated pit crew. While it offers nothing to the actual driving experience, it is very cool to see your motion-captured pit crew jacking up your car, changing the tires, and filling the tank. You can even hear them pounding out the dents as you race the clock to get out of the pits and back into the race.

Other sound effects are perfectly reproduced from metal on concrete as you swing wide and scrape the wall, or bottom out sending a shower of sparks at the guy behind you. Speech is present in the form of verbal info (and some criticism) from your spotters and crew chief. As with previous releases, their commentary is not always accurate so you are often left to make your own decisions based on visual confirmation. New for NASCAR 4 is the addition of the track announcer telling drivers to get in their cars and the ever-popular "Gentlemen, Start Your Engines" followed by the spine-tingling roar of a few dozen high-performance engines starting up.

After the release of Grand Prix Legends and its all-but-perfect online gameplay it's probably safe to say that any serious NASCAR racer is going to want to take their car online and challenge the thousands of other racers looking for something better and more unpredictable than the computer AI. NASCAR 4 delivers all the quality online racing action you have come to expect from a Papy racing sim.

As with any online game, your weakest link is your connection. While you can join and competitively race with a 56k connection, don't plan on hosting 10-40 racers. Just like GPL, you are going to need a cable modem, DSL, or a T1 if you want to host the big races. You can always bring up the Communication Meter that shows your Q/S/L in real-time. Your goal is to have a high Quality connection with little to no Time Skew or Latency. Even with a T1 line you will never have the "perfect connection", but keeping those final two bars as low as possible is important to smooth racing without cars that jump or warp around the track.

The built-in software makes it easy to setup a dedicated host with all the advanced features you would expect such as controlling the types of races, skill levels, car setups, and even ejecting unsportsman-like drivers. Of course the challenge of any online game is finding people to play with. GPL made this easy with the 3rd-part community program WinVROC. Currently, there is nothing of that caliber available for NASCAR racing so finding someone to race against can be as challenging as beating them once you do. This will undoubtedly change as the game matures and more 3rd-party applications begin to surface.

And while you can never compare open-wheel racing and stockcar racing in the same sentence (or even the same review), I would venture to say that NASCAR 4 equals the quality and expectations that racing fans would expect from any racing sim in the post-GPL era. NASCAR 4 is easily the best and most complete NASCAR simulation you can currently experience on your PC.