NASCAR The Game 2011 Q&A and Impressions

[chapmac24]

Quote: Originally Posted by Perfect Zero

I've been playing for the past three hours, and I must say that this is about what I expected from the game to begin with. I knew from when they first announced it that the game would not be perfect in the first go around, but they have really worked on giving people what they want in this game. My first race was a 6 lapper at TMS, and the visuals are really good for this game. Not only that, but the track feels like an absolute dream, and the race itself was lots of fun. The multiplayer needs some refinement, but I found plenty of lobbies where the racing was good. I joined one doing 10 laps at Atlanta that produced some close finishes, and there was one instant where the big one happened on the second lap on the frontstretch. Another lobby had 6 laps at Daytona which was pretty good, and I joined in on a 25 lap race at Richmond which was a blast. Honestly the people who are holding out on this game are missing a great one if they love racing. I'm more of an IndyCar fan than anything, but this game plays a great race.

I have found there is a huge difference between "hard" and "very hard".... I haven't even tried to race on anything less than these, but "hard" is too easy and "very hard" i get blown away! What happened to the adaptive AI?!?

[buckeye02]

Quote: Originally Posted by chapmac24

I am having issues during career with create-a-car.... sometimes I will have a solid color car and no sponsors/decals/numbers EDIT: After I save the car and go for a race Also when you get around 200ish layers it forgets some and when I saved it and brought it up in a race, it was only like 1/2 full of stuff... (since there isn't a 'stripe' decal I had to create one with squares)

Ive had that happen to me as well.

[brandon27]

I like the potential that this game has, graphically its nice. Although in some of the "night" races that are more set for dusk, the lighting seems really off to me, like the lights are on, but when in the shadows you can barely see the cars because its so dark. That is a bit annoying, but it all in all looks really good.

The cautions are driving me nuts though. Ive lost track of how many times i've been wrecked or spun and the caution lights on the track come on, but no caution flag flies. Half the time it seems like the caution lights around the track are just always on, very rarely do i see them green unless im qualifying.

I'm not a fan of the paint shop either. I can tell by looking at it that the possibilities are pretty much endless, but its way too cumbersome and time consuming. At least give me the option to make one side and mirror it automatically to the other side of the car so I dont have to go do it all again. at least have some base designs to work with too like EA used to have some basic templates that you could build upon with different kinds of effects and designs already painted on the cars before you go put the decals on. I see that for my driver, they have several paint schemes I can run with that have no decals on them, and thats nice and all, but who wants to run that? Give me the ability to edit those and add some sponsor decals. Then comes the text editor, maybe its just me and something I'm doing wrong, but anytime i try to add text, so i can put my number on the car, or a name for a sponsor i can apparently only add one letter at a time, which is really annoying when it comes to trying to line everything up straight. Going EA's route for being able to edit cars offline, then import them to the game would be much, much better. Have to say, EA really got it right there.

If they can work out the bugs here, especially the cautions, i think theyve done a nice job for a first year title being built from the ground up. It makes me pretty excited to see how they build upon it for next year with more features and depth. Hopefully they can find a way to speed it up too, all the loading breaks really drag it down too. All in all though, when the game is playing behaving like it should, the racing is fun. Thats pretty darn important.

That being said, hope they get it fixed up rather soon.

[Ænima]

The AI at Daytona is terrible. I'm playing on Very Hard.

1) You are the best pusher in the field and the worst leader in the field. If I am behind ANY CAR and lock onto his bumper, we will gain on the leader. Period. If I am ahead of ANY CAR and try to stay in front of them to lock up (or even just draft together) they will fail to stay close and we will go 186 or slower. It's ridiculous.

2) When two cars hook up in the two car draft as first and second, your only option to catch them is to fall back to fourth, grab whoever is in third and lock onto their bumper. If you try to lead the pack back to the lead two cars, you will drop like a rock. If you don't lock on, you will drop like a rock. This would be okay if two car trains overheated (or even attempted to stick noses out to cool down). They don't. I watched Kyle Busch lock onto Jeff Gordon's bumper for 20 laps without faltering while I crawled my way back to the lead pair with Jamie MacMurray. Busch's motor should have blown a dozen times during that timespan.

3) Whoever said the AI gets more aggressive at the end of the race was dead wrong. The race I just completed was the Daytona 500. THE DAYTONA FIVE HUNDRED. With three laps to go, here was the running order:

MacMurray
Allmendenger
Keselowski
Montoya (Me)
J. Gordon

Do you know how many times a driver other than myself made an attempt to pass? Do you know how many times a driver other than myself even poked his front end out to see if he could make something happen?

ZERO.

In the last three laps of the Daytona f'n 500, my AI competitors were content to finish 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th respectively. Every time I tried to make a move, they stayed locked together. My only option was to draft Keselowski tight and hope he tried to pass. This was exciting as we took the white flag. I figured all hell was going to break loose. BK was going to get skinny and wild and try to make something happen. I was going to push him past my teammate and AJ one way or another and then have a shot at the win coming out of turn four.

Nope. Keselowski pushes Allmendinger. Allmendinger pushes MacMurray. Brad Keselowski and AJ Allmendinger - two drivers that in real life would desperately be trying to win the Daytona 500 - are content to finish second and third in the biggest race of the NASCAR season without so much as an attempt at the win. I have no choice but to stay on BK's bumper, finishing fourth in the process.

[DikNDixie]

Not impressed at all. Praying for a fix sometime in the next couple days for the online portion. I haven't had a good race yet online. Prior to the start I have seen multiple accidents, loose starts. spread out field, etc. Cautions in career mode are pathetic. I honestly expected soo much more from this game. I would lovtry a private match to see how it goes then. On 360 GT - DikNDixie msg me if ya wanna join

[chapmac24]

Quote: Originally Posted by DikNDixie

Not impressed at all. Praying for a fix sometime in the next couple days for the online portion. I haven't had a good race yet online. Prior to the start I have seen multiple accidents, loose starts. spread out field, etc. Cautions in career mode are pathetic. I honestly expected soo much more from this game. I would lovtry a private match to see how it goes then. On 360 GT - DikNDixie msg me if ya wanna join

lol I hear you.... racing online right meow and jump into the game cars are all over the place.. world record lap of .022 seconds at martinsville

this is kind of the worst case scenario for the devs, we'll see how they respond............ if they do

....they'll probably tank this game and start work on '12

[Rules]

Just finished racing Daytona and Bristol. Played on the highest settings with no assists. Very pleased with the difficulty setting and if you lose the draft, they are gone!

Daytona: 50 laps
It was a blast drafting with Tony and Kyle. I was doing great until I got turned by Jeff Burton of all people. Took a while for the yellow to drop so I can see that bug is still present. Bristol was even worse as I spun and ended up in the middle of the track. I stayed there to see what would happen and cars piled up with NO YELLOW!

Personally, I don't like the feel of the tracks. Seems like a disconnect using my G27. This is where I feel that EA's version is better. The basic car settings should not be this good right from the get go. You can actually compete and fight your way thru the pack without touching the car setup. Not sure if you have a winning car but it will enable you to mix it up and move towards the front. Shouldn't have that ability on the hardest settings. This is where they need to make car setups more important. I really don't have to turn the wheel much at Daytona and I have to believe one would need to turn the wheel more than what I had to.

This will still be a fun game once I start my career tomorrow. I didn't even bother to hop online as I have read enough horror stories in this thread.

[petty43]

Pitting under caution is a crash fest u can't believe this game was ever tested.... Maybe ea is not so bad ...Its the most screwed up game I ever played

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