Game Review of:
NASCAR Revolution 
by David Heinig 

This game demands a lot of modern hardware, and as I learned, the requirements for this game are hard and fast. So, after an adventure that would be an article all by itself, (you wouldn’t believe it anyway, a tale that could make even the best of whiners genuflect in reverence) I finally bought the parts for a new PC that I hope will last for at least a couple more game reviews. 

NASCAR Revolution was just downright fun to play! The action is fierce, graphics are great and player options will keep you busy whether you choose to play alone or dabble in multi player racing. The one distinguishing feature that made this game stand out from other sports related action games is the ability to dig right in and play. Most action games of this sort require a lot of technical setups before play can begin. Don’t be fooled into thinking that this game is easy, not in the least. It too has its highly technical side! 

The tweaking and tuning that you can do to the car could keep you busy for hours on end. As a matter of fact, there’s a session called, “ Race Weekend.” This is a single player feature that allows the racer an opportunity to run his or her car and then fine tune the performance for an actual race. The Car Setup menu allows you to make adjustments to tire pressure, shocks and weight distribution, just to mention a few. There’s even a law of racing physics called “Wedge” that you have to set just right. 

Along with these technical issues you can select your favorite driver from a list of 31 current contenders and race at one of the top 17 NASCAR tracks in the country. In multi player mode, you can even design your own track and set race rules the way you want. This is definitely one of those games you’ll find yourself plunging into very easily. 

The hardware resources this game demands is pretty typical of today’s gaming software. Like I mentioned earlier, I grabbed the box and ran without looking at the infamous bottom flap. When I got it home having signed the agreement to take on the task of writing a review, I learned that my old PC fell short in just about every aspect of performance requirements. There are three issues you’ll need to take seriously: CPU size, 3D video and minimum memory. 

While the box flap says 200mhz CPU is minimum, this is a misnomer. In fact, once inside the box there’s a separate 16-page booklet that is dedicated to computer issues and concerns. In this booklet, it recommends that the CPU be nothing less than a 266mhzz Pentium II or faster. I tried running the game on my old PC (166mhz MMX processor) and while the intro video played, the game would either freeze at the desktop screen or simply blank the screen all together and freeze the machine dead in its tracks. 

The 3D-video card requirement is just as hard and fast. I tried to play the game on a PC that met the CPU requirements but not the video needs. At least this time the program issued an error message stipulating my PC failed to have the correct video card and did not collapse the machine entirely. The memory situation is obvious to all of us PC folks, the more you have the better. With 32 MB of RAM the video replay was choppy and the sounds was slightly out of synchronization. My new PC has 64 MB RAM and the action is smooth and seamless. 

As with anything, practice makes perfect and the manual that comes with the game is very clear about this for success in winning NASCAR Revolution. The default settings for the cars you race right away are pretty good. But, it becomes painfully obvious right away that in order to win against the Artificial Intelligence (AI) of the PC-based opponents or against other players, you will definitely need to learn the art of tuning your race car and the skill of race driving. Otherwise, it’s going to be a long day against the walls and lots of tire and fender replacements for you. 

There are three ways you can play this game: keyboard, game pad or the custom steering wheel and pedal gaming devices. The keyboard will take some practice in and of itself. While you can play this way, it is choppy and keystrokes intensive. You have to hit one key on the right and almost invariably hit the one on the left to get exactly what you wanted in performance to the screen. But, it can be done and play is just as exciting. I had a Microsoft, Sidewinder, game pad I bought to do some game reviews earlier on and this was definitely an improvement. The play was much easier to manage and control. I think we are all far more used to the two- handed game pad method of playing than the keyboard anymore. The game loaded the correct configuration of the Sidewinder for you and was useful and easy to use right away. There are a host of configuration changes you can make, but the default settings were more than adequate for the majority of race related tasks. 

The sounds! Oh, the sound. I treated myself to a set of 400-watt speakers with a subwoofer and it was down right impressive! EA Sports calls the system they used to capture all the various race sounds “Staccato.” What that means exactly I don’t know. All I do know is they did a superb job of capturing some very impressive audio to accompany the outstanding graphics in this game. To accompany the great sounds are the Spotter, your friend on the sidelines that helps you figure out when to come into the pits and gives advise on your driving (your eyes and ears outside the car) and the announcers. The announcers are both key professionals from the sports broadcasting world and as you’d expect, they have some complementary comments and some not so flattering things to say when you mess up (as you’d expect). 

Once out on the track, you can be kept as busy with information as you choose. All 12 F-keys have a menu attached to them. Some are pretty helpful. I liked the rear view mirror feature and racetrack diagram read out functions the most. The other stuff was statistics and other performance related information that perhaps some day when I actually get good at the game may be helpful. For now that find of information only reinforced and quantified the notion that I was lousy at the game (I knew this already!). 

I was apprehensive about taking on this game. I had done a review of an EA Sports game in the passed and found it to be quite intimidating with screen after screen of adjustments and settings that had to be done before meaningful play could even begin. I was delighted by the play right away capability of this next generation of sports gaming. Of course, in order to really enjoy this game, you’ll have to learn how to get to the settings menus sooner or later. 

This is quite a full sensory game indeed. The sounds are crisp and lively. They add dramatically to the action on the screen. The visuals are wonderful in and of themselves. Car and track graphics are near life like and are so smooth and detailed that its hard to tell the difference between them and actual video clips. If you are a sports gaming fan, this is definitely one for your collection! The pace will keep you occupied for and focused for months to come and if you can find someone to race against, I bet you could get seriously hooked on the action. 

There is one very serious dark side to this program, it is prone to system faults and program fatal errors that completely collapse the system at irregular intervals. I can’t put my finger on why these fatal errors occur, but they are obviously not a lot of fun. My only bit of advise here is not to have any other programs running at all; this includes the Office Tool Bar. My impression is this is a resource intensive program and cannot tolerate sharing these resources with other programs at the same time. 

There are a number of web sites you can visit to get the latest news on this game and the sport of NASCAR racing. For information on the game itself, visit www.NASCARrevolution.com. For information of NASCAR racing itself, visit www.nascar.com. Of course Electronic Arts has a web site of their own (www.ea.com) where you can view the many other sports related offerings they have to offer. 

If you buy this game for your sports fan, you’d better expect to become even lonelier than you were with just regular sports on TV. I’d even bet this could replace commercials between innings or the half time show. Happy gaming!