Intelligent Game Reviews

NASCAR stock car racing is one of the fastest-growing spectator sports in the country. Millions of people attend the races in NASCAR’s three top series, and stock car racing has become a multi-billion-dollar industry. And computers aren’t immune from NASCAR fever, either. Papyrus, now part of Sierra, continues to ride the wave of NASCAR popularity with the latest incarnation of their NASCAR Racing series, NASCAR Racing 1999 Edition.

Basics of Play

NASCAR 99, it must be said, is really nothing more than a freshening and re-release of Papyrus’ NASCAR Racing 2, with some interface changes, 3D graphics, and the addition of the Craftsman Truck racing series. It lets you race in the three top series of NASCAR: the Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, and the aforementioned Craftsman Truck series. Of course, this is 1999, so tobacco and beer companies can’t be mentioned inside the game or on the default car artwork… are we surprised?

Most of the tracks that all three series ran on in 1998 are included; the only real glaring omissions are Daytona, Indianapolis, and Pocono, which are not in the game due to licensing and legal problems. Each series also comes with a partial list of the 1998 drivers that ran in them, and their cars (again, with beer and tobacco sponsorships removed).

You can select single races or season-long championships in each series, with a wide variety of available customization settings. The length of the races, overall opponent strength, weather, and number of opponents can all be easily adjusted. Once “at the track”, you can then run practice laps before trying to qualify. After qualifying, you have the opportunity to run more practice to fine-tune a race setup, and then it’s time to race.

Setting up the car has been an important part of all Papyrus’ NASCAR Racing series, and it’s no different here. You can go to the garage to change the transmission gears, spoiler angle, wheel camber and caster, shock and spring settings, and other tweakable car parts, then save your settings, go back out on the track to practice and check your handiwork. Default setups are included for all tracks, and are a good place to start from when building your own custom setups. You can also create a custom paint job for your car or truck using the included “paint shop”.

During the race you won’t be out there alone. You have a spotter on the radio, who will constantly be yammering in your ear telling you if there is a car next to you, reminding you how many laps there are to go, and advising you of incidents on the track ahead. Fortunately, if he gets annoying (and he will, despite his usefulness) you can turn him off in the options. You also have control over options during your pit stops; your gas tank will always be filled with 22 gallons of fuel (a change from previous NASCAR versions, where you could take less gas) but you control which tires to change, tire air pressure adjustments, wedge adjustments, and spoiler angle changes.

The racing itself lives up to the fun factor of previous NASCAR Racing iterations, but the NASCAR Racing 2 game engine is really starting to show its age. This is not Grand Prix Legends by a long shot. The physics model for the player’s car is good, but not even up to the snuff of more “lightweight” titles like Viper Racing. The AI cars seem to use a horribly simplified model; they simply seem to pivot about their center of mass to make turns, sometimes accomplish impossible feats of physics, and ride around the track on rails unless they randomly spin out for some reason. The Craftsman series trucks have a slightly different “feel” to them than the cars, but not much.

Multiplayer Features

NASCAR 99 supports multiplayer, and is an extremely popular multiplayer racing game. While I didn’t have a chance to test it out, its immense multiplayer player base seems to indicate that Sierra got the multiplayer part right. A good place to start for multiplayer information is the NASCAR Racing Online Series.

Graphics, Sounds, etc.

The graphics are no better than the racing physics and, again, are quite long in the tooth. NASCAR 99 only supports 3dfx and Rendition 3D chipsets; sorry, Direct 3D users, you’re out of luck. Even with 3D turned on, though, there just is no “wow” factor in the eye candy. It’s serviceable, and gets the job done, but nowhere close to leading edge. The non-accelerated graphics look almost as good, and paradoxically, run faster on the test system, due to my using an older Voodoo1-based card. One odd thing is that auto makes were removed from the game; instead of Ford, Chevy, and Pontiac (or Dodge, for the trucks), the different chassis are labeled “Chassis 1,” “Chassis 2,” and “Chassis 3,” and the default car artwork all look roughly like Chevy cars and Ford trucks.

One good thing about NASCAR 99 using the older NASCAR 2 engine is that while it may not be graphically and realistically up to snuff, almost the entire huge base of NASCAR 2 user-built modifications is compatible with NASCAR 99. NASCAR 2 carsets, track modifications, and most other changes will work in NASCAR 99 with a few tweaks (usually changing the installation directory, the two games have slightly different directory structures). So if you want to drive Mark Martin’s #6 Ford Taurus and actually have it look like a Ford Taurus, there’s a world of versions out there for you. In fact, most of the car and track data is stored as simple text files, making tweaking easy. For example, several people have created accurate modifications to Martinsville Speedway adding the new pit road access lanes put in this year, which the stock NASCAR 99 Martinsville doesn’t have.

The Verdict

NASCAR 99 is definitely last year’s model, repainted for one last run. Despite an older, inferior physics model and graphics engine, it still manages to do a good job of capturing the feel and excitement of NASCAR stock car and truck racing. What real virtual stock car race fans are hoping for is a marriage of the NASCAR franchise with the ultra-realistic physics modeling of Grand Prix Legends. If this ever happens it could create the ultimate NASCAR race sim, but for now, NASCAR 99 will tide us over fine.

NASCAR Racing 1999 Edition Screenshots

While the graphics engine is showing its age, the look is still serviceable.	You can customize your car using the paintshop or load a wide variety of fan-created modifications.
This time around you can race in the Craftsman Truck Series as well as Winston Cup and Busch Grand National series.

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