NASCAR The Game 2011 Q&A and Impressions

[Stormyhog]

Quote: Originally Posted by Brew

Ive had the game freeze on me multiple times as well. Only when Im leaving the paint booth without saving my work though. There are so many glitches with the paint booth that if I dont see all my decals I dont save my work and start over. Ive now made a habit of doing only a couple decals then saving and coming back to it. Ive noticed it happening more now that I have more layers on my car. I just finished my first car with 617 layers! Ill be posting it once I get a USB drive.

I have had a few freezes as well during a race and when pausing going into the settings menu. I have the PS3 version.

[Senor Nascar]

I know this is a long post but I have been gathering this info and pondering these ideas for the last couple of days. Hopefully they are welcome. They are in no particular order in terms of importance.

Here is my second list of NASCAR the game Issues and Suggestions.


ISSUES

1.Tear offs should get ripped off when the driver returns to the pits in test track and practice mode. It really would help those who like to have a test session lasting more than 30 laps. The windshield gets pretty dirty and there is no way to have a clean one other than exiting out and coming back in. This really kills the great addition of the final menu that pops up after the test session or practice which tells you your fastest laps with the setup you ran.

2. The XBOX 360 Microsoft wheel issue seems to also happen when you run into something. When the player hits a wall or another car, it triggers the noise as well.

3. On PS3, it has frozen twice with my G25 wheel when I pause the game while in a test session/race and hit game settings.

4. Leaderboard needs to be cleaned up to remove times that are glitched and hopefully moving forward can be prevented.

5. The bunching up of AI on certain tracks. It seems to happen between turn 4 and the finish line at a lot of the 1.5-2.5 mile speedways. For example, the AI tends to bunch up at Atlanta between turn 4 and the start finish line when there are a group of AI together after a restart.

6. At Daytona, the AI just dive into pit road at full speed (without getting a black flag). This happens on the tri-oval right in front of pit road. The AI cars should duck off of turn 4 and gradually slow down. They are actually making up a lot of time on pit road this way compared to the user. To add to this problem, if another AI car is underneath the car AI car that wants to pit, the outside car just turns in towards the pits causing a big wreck and bringing out the yellow flag.

7. The majority of cautions are only happening when AI needs to pit.

8. I had a very strange problem at Richmond. I ran in practice mode for more than 80 laps. The fastest lap was 22.7. When I went to test session it was 22.6. Then I went to career mode qualify and race. In qualifying, without much effort at all I ran a 21.6. During the race my average lap was in the high 21's. I cannot put my finger on this issue, but it seems as if there was a lot more grip in career race mode than in the other modes. This happened on XBOX 360.

9. There is currently no penalty for going under the yellow line and passing at a restrictor plate track.

10. I ran a 15 percent race on XBOX 360 at Auto Club Speedway in career mode with standard tire wear and cautions on. The AI pitted on the last lap with about 9 laps of fuel left. I was 34th and after everyone pitted on last lap, I finished 6th.

11. At Las Vegas, the AI would not try to pass me on the high side if I held the low line.

12. Certain tracks on VERY HARD setting are easier to qualify at than other tracks. Easy to qualify at is Daytona, Auto Club Speedway, Phoenix just to name a few. This is on XBOX 360.

13. There seems to be an issue in Private races. I saw this multiple times at multiple tracks. Two people in a private race. One user ( in this case was the original host of the room) leaves before the race is over. The other person runs a much faster than normal lap time ( Roughly one second faster).

14. It would be great if hardcore mode were to be added back into XBOX 360 online options.

15. In Private race mode, even with all of the driver assists off and full damage on, there is only cosmetic damage and all of the assists remain on no matter the user's personal settings.

16. In Race Now mode, races with Full Damage on are visual only. The handling of the car is not affected at all.

17. Online racers who drive backwards should immediately be ghosted and if they continue in the wrong direction for more than 5 seconds, they should automatically be DQ'd.

18. The in car visual tach is ahead of the virtual tach in it's reading of the RPM.



SUGGESTIONS (for the future)

1. Tires should start off cold, warm up to optimal temps than slowly begin to wear.

2. Under yellow, it would be great if you could start adjusting all of your fixes prior to entering the pit road. I think there are a couple of more seconds that could be used when the cars are still on the track and begin their journey towards pit road. Every extra bit of time would be a huge help.

3. Lap times for all cars or fastest cars would be nice during practice mode to see how you rank. Maybe even a position HUD like in race and qualify or a scrolling bar that is present during the race could show the order, the car , and their lap time.

4. Test track and practice mode need an option to turn on the amount of tire/fuel wear the user wants (x2,x3 and x4)

5. When saving a setup, it would be nice if the track you are testing or practicing at shows up at the bottom so it saves it to that track automatically instead of having to scroll through all the tracks.

6. The addition of a hefty set of wheel settings would be much appreciated. It really lets you custom tailor the experience you want to have with the game via a wheel. Forza 3 did a very good job of this.

7. Brake Pressure setting in the advanced tuning would be a welcome addition.

8. The rubbering up of the tracks is strange. It seems like it rubbers up to fast in certain modes (Test Session and Practice). The high line does not seem to be rubbering up at all. It would be nice if it were more dynamic and rubber could only be laid where a car actually lays it down. Outside groove needs to rubber up as race goes on so it can be more effective.
9. Night tracks should be all night (like Darlington and Bristol) instead of dusk. It would be great if the DLC could have Texas night like this.

10. Full tank every time you go to test session/practice pits should be the default.

11. The rearview mirror in custom cars and certain Nascar driver's car (Bobby LaBonte for example) needs to be reworked in my opinion. From the cockpit view with the hands, it would be much better if at least our custom car had the rearview mirror in a much more prominent place to look back. It currently seems as if the rearview mirror is in the passenger seat.

12. It would be great to see a timer while your crew works on your car on pit road. That way you can see how fast of a pit time you had. Under yellow, it would be a great to see an overlay with the race off of pit road, informing the player of the order, pit stop times, who took 2 tires and who took 4.

13. It would be great to be able to work on damage in the pits.

14. Why is the grill tape only allowed to be at 70 percent? It would be nice if this could be raised and have the player use higher amounts, especially on Qualifying setups. I understand the engines do not blow, but they could at least be damaged and run at lesser power if too much tape was applied.

15, I wish the intros to the races were longer and could show all rows of cars for the race. If the user doesn't want to see this they can always just skip it.

16. It would be great if under the driver stats, you could add number of championships won.

17. The AI at Bristol seems to run the low line a little too high especially through the middle of the corner.

18. The trophy at Martinsville should be a grandfather clock.

19. It would be a great addition to have season standings/stats in the career menu.

20. It would be nice to see brake wear/failure if brakes are over used at tracks like Martinsville in NTG 12.

21. I would love for the spotter to tell me what cars are around me either by name or car number. It would be nice if they could say at your quarter, at your door, etc. When 3 wide- 3 wide your in the middle, 3 wide your on the bottom, 3 wide your on the outside.

22. Marbles being visible on very high groove at certain tracks would be great. Especially if they affected the handling of the car.

23. The paint shop...you need to be able to scale things just horizontally instead of the entire thing getting smaller. An example of this is trying to make a thin line. In Forza, you take a square and make it a thin line by simply scaling it horizontally. In NTG, you try to scale down a square and it makes a small square.

24. The stock setups are just too good out of the box. They need to be drivable but slower so if you work on your car you can be rewarded.

25. Fixed camera for race replays at different parts of the track (like turns1 and 4 for example) would be a very cool addition.

26. Need an engine temperature gauge to allow for engine to get damaged (even if they do not blow up).Also engine temp could make drafting interesting if engine gets too hot when you are the pusher, you may have to duck slightly out of the draft to cool the engine.

27. Last lap timer should be added to HUD because even though it tells you when you cross the start/ finish line, it seems to go away too quickly. It would also be nice if spotter could tell you your lap time (this would have to be an on/off feature though).

28. During driver celebrations of your CUSTOM driver, it would be nice to see options pop up (maybe tied to the d-pad) to do different types of celebrations. Maybe more can be unlocked as you rank up in career mode. Examples could be climbing the wall, celebration lap with the checkered flag, polish victory lap, bow, back flip, etc.

29. Some Post-Race commentary by the announcers at the end of the race would be a welcomed addition. It would certainly help with the quiet ambiance that currently happens when the user wins a race.

30. The AI needs to make core mistakes. They are too much on rails. I would love to see lesser skilled drivers make more mistakes than skilled ones.

31. It would be nice to see teammates work together more at restrictor plate tracks.

[Brew]

Very good writeup there, Senor Nascar!

I agree with everything you said.. I failed to mention it in my previous post but when I first hooked up my G27 I had it freeze twice at Auto Club in Track Testing. It hasnt happened since though.

[thekodinator]

Quote: Originally Posted by lVlAtlZiX

CGR has been around for a long time and his reviews are always pretty good. He learns how to have fun with video games and always shows that. Also he doesnt sound like an 8 year old, and just because heh as fun wrecking the CPU off the road means he sucks? Its how he likes to play his game. So why do you care? You guys need to remember that this is called NASCAR 2011: THE GAME not NASCAR 2011: THE REAL LIFE DRIVING SIMULATOR

Whether the game is sim or not, the dude is right- that review sucked. The dude may be very smart, but in that video, he comes across as incredibly juvenile. I realize we're talking about video games here, so perhaps it's ridiculous to say this (lol), but it's hard for me to listen to anyone like that or take them seriously. (Especially when you compare him to other reviewers like Blue).

Oh well. I won't read his site or any of his reviews in the future, so it's a non-issue going forward.

[olefivetime48]

Everyone I've talked to who has both platforms has told me the "patch" (which isn't likely to ever be released) isn't worth waiting for and they are trading it in for other sports games. I don't think Eutechnyx realizes how badly they dropped the ball. I regret buying NASCAR: THE EA REMAKE 2011. They refuse to answer what the first patch helped. I cannot image how bad it would have been being released on Feb. 15.

[bigdoc85]

I think the ball was dropped but I think it's way too soon to know whether they will pick it back up. Dave keeps updating the status of problems / fixes on his blog. The reason the patch WILL be released is that the future of NASCAR by Eutechnyx / Activision depends on it. Sometimes you gamers forget that it's all about money. I guarantee that the first week's worth of sales wasn't enough -- they are looking at this project as an annual stream of income. Further, the Wii version hasn't even been released. They have an incentive to fix this. Will it be fixed perfectly -- I don't know but your comment is pretty presumptive.

Quote: Originally Posted by olefivetime48

Everyone I've talked to who has both platforms has told me the "patch" (which isn't likely to ever be released) isn't worth waiting for and they are trading it in for other sports games. I don't think Eutechnyx realizes how badly they dropped the ball. I regret buying NASCAR: THE EA REMAKE 2011. They refuse to answer what the first patch helped. I cannot image how bad it would have been being released on Feb. 15.

[franko3219]

I disagree, if the patch fixes what it is supposed to fix, then I believe this will be a strong game. Now I am speaking in terms of online more than offline. My biggest problem with offline is the lack of depth and that cannot be patched.

[Romain El 82]

I mean, there's just so many things wrong with this game. Obviously the lists upon lists which have been presented before, but I mean there's serious issues like:

• When I can't get into Turn 1 at Darlington without smacking the wall, or likewise let off the gas while also racing at Darlington without the car darting right and usually into the wall/the car outside me.
  
• I can't drive in a straight line (using the MS WW, FF turned off) at Daytona and Talladega.
  
• The spotter is essentially useless. I just tried Bristol before giving up and trying Dover, and at both tracks I ran out of retries because the spotter said "clear" either in the middle of coming off a corner, so I'd cut to not pound the wall/so I could get underneath another car and I'd get spun. "I almost choked on a shrimp cocktail!" "I dropped a hotdog on a fan!" "The birds are something all over my fries!" I DON'T CARE, THIS IS NEVER SAID, LET ME KNOW WHEN AND WHERE THE OTHER CARS ARE AROUND ME.
  
• It's impossible to adjust on these cars. The menu's are clunky and changes which are guessed at don't give the desired result and thus make the car worse. I mean, I could deal with all the other crap if I could actually wrench on my car, because that IS part of the fun, not having to resort to the out-of-the-box set-up.
  
• I reluctantly tried to start career mode, but gave up on that because (a) I can't set-up a car anyway, apparently lowering the car at Daytona makes it slower from the default set-up, and (b) because during the 3 times I tried to start one, it has frozen before I even took the green flag each and every time. This is incredibly unacceptable.

I really wish I hadn't thrown $60 down the crapper when I bought this game. Is the single racing fun? Hell yeah it is, 15 laps at a time, because I can't even do races long enough to pit because the cautions are messed up and the AI crashes itself when getting onto pit road.

RAGE. Love/hate to the max. What a crap game. 08 was better than this trash.