NASCAR The Game 2011 Patch Available Now, Post Impressions Here

[OnlookerDelay]

I'd have to give the patch an overall thumbs up, particularly offline. I'm enjoying career mode now, although there are some barely tolerable issue with the cautions, it's better than the release version. I can't get over how the AI varies in character and performance from track to track. I'm playing in "Hard" difficulty. The AI cars are pretty anemic at the super speedways. Only my own ineptitude at getting into the pits efficiently keeps them from being lapped in my 40%, 3X wear settings at super speedways. They kill me at The Auto Club Speedway, Richmond, Phoenix, and are pretty much even matches everywhere else.

Online has improved slightly, but it depends a lot of the connection quality of the weakest connection in the room. I've had some wonderful races online and I've had some absolute disasters. I hope this is something that will get serious attention in what will hopefully be a future edition. I wish we could customize quick race lobbies a bit more. The races are too short and non-configurable in the current system.

[BurghFan]

Did a 200 lap race at Pocono tonight and it went pretty well aside from being unable to tell how much my tires were worn. I like to race with cautions off and just mess around and, as I mentioned earlier, cautions will still occasionally come out even when they are turned off. Seems to happen if a car or cars get flipped over.

Also, there still seems to be at least one bug with the AI. If 2 cars are running side-by-side near the wall and the inside car gets turned into the wall, the outside car will continue trying to drive through the car turned into the wall instead of stopping. This lead to a situation in my race in which the #16 and the #9 were apparently racing side-by-side in turn one when the #9 got turned into the wall. Because the #16 wouldn't stop and back up to get out of it, they both ended up stuck against the outside wall for about 10 laps (remember, I had cautions turned off).

[gsize19]

There were improvements made, I just want to like this game and play it, but then I race and I am reminded why I shelved it for a few months waiting for the patch.

The patch corrected some issues, but many more are still present and should have been caught in testing. They had months to develop a patch, and missed so many key components.

Pros:
-Loving the new paint schemes, glad they are now on there
-Like how you can race 2011 now in addition to 2010
-Glad the new point system is now in

Cons- (there are a lot, but will only name a few)
-If a car flips, it should not return the race, and if it does, it takes more than a pit stop to repair damage. No way they should be on the lead lap
-Have raced every race up through KY, and never once has a race finished with a car not on the lead lap, nor have has the margin from 1 to 43 been more than 23 seconds (I am playing on the hardest level, 30% of races, 3X wear, full cautions)
-AI causes cpu cars to pit the lap after a caution
-Pit changes take too long (I entered the pit 22 seconds up on the second place car at Daytona, who also pitted, and I got four tires and 14.6 gallons of fuel, he left the pit and had a 3 second advantage on me, after I would assume getting the same things. I should have been in and out of the pits before he even reached his pit stall)
-Damage to cars look like shredded pork. If you bump draft, your whole front end is gone.
-after 2011 season, no "career" mode

I hope Eutechnex learns from this year. I as well as many others paid $60 for this game, to pretty much be Beta testers. This game has potential, the graphics are awesome, gameplay though has forced me to shelf this one again.

[Tidefan6869]

It plays better with a controller than a steering wheel, but I didn't buy a DFGT to let it collect dust. Even after the patch, the wheel still has feedback back and forth making it impossible to drive straight on a straight away. I don't know if they are trying to simulate the camber, but if they are it should be a constant pull to the left. Either way, I'm tired of messing with it. It's being traded into Gamestop. Next year, I'll wait til it comes out see what the impressions are before buying. I've finally learned my lesson on buying the first day of releases with the exception of a few titles. I wish I knew if my computer would run iRacing or the Simbin titles. Oh well back to F1 2010. Ok I'm done ranting now

[BurghFan]

Here's some visual documentation of the AI bug I mentioned in my last post.

ICON0.PNG

The 48 and 34 got stuck like that and since I had cautions turned off they remained so for several laps. The problem appears to be that the AI doesn't know how to back up and get out of such a situation. I have been caught in the position of the 34 car in the pic a few times and the car in the position of the 48 car will just stay on the throttle and continue pushing rather than stop and back out of it.

Also, another bug I have noticed. Sometimes after the race, the results will either take a very long time to display or they won't display at all. It seems to display result only up to my finishing spot and not show the results for cars finishing behind me.

[BurghFan]

Couple more issues I noticed when doing a 100% race at Infineon earlier.

When pitting, the game doesn't advance your lap. i.e. when you come out of the pits you are still on the same lap as when you went in. I pitted on lap 30 with an ~50 second lead and came out stil lon lap 30 in 43rd a lap down.

Also, more AI issues. You know how Infineon has the narrow pit lane entrance. Well, on lap 71 of 110 I managed to knock Jimmie Johnson into that entrance and he ended up getting stuck there. Instead of either backing out of the pits as I did (was well before the committ line) or continuing through, he just sat there against the wall for the rest of the race. Thought it would cause a problem when the computer cars pitted, but they just drove around him.

[jack1535]

Hey guys, I have been getting back into NASCAR lately and I started to play NASCAR 07 again on original xbox again.

Do you guys think I should get this or stick with 07? Is 2011 a big step up?

[Matty86]

Quote: Originally Posted by jack1535

Hey guys, I have been getting back into NASCAR lately and I started to play NASCAR 07 again on original xbox again. Do you guys think I should get this or stick with 07? Is 2011 a big step up?

I traded NTG 11 in today and picked up Dirt to Daytona for the PS2, I've played through 3 seasons in 1 day. Forgot how much I love this game, once you get past the graphics it's a lot of fun.