Nascar 2002

The Graphics on the cars and tracks are spectacular running full GFX in 1024x768 and the coolest thing is when you start at the back of all the cars in the race (unfortunately I found it impossible to get right up there but hardcore nascar players probably do it with ease) and you can see every car ahead! or if your infront everycar behind you in the rear view mirror because the view distance is so good that there is never a blank bit or fog effect in the distance to cover up for a lack of view distance although im sure this can be turned down which I did not try. The detail fade on the cars is also very good as you dont notice the detail decrease as they get further away and the same when they get closer.

Theres nothing more exciting though than starting at the back and slipstreaming your way past 40+ cars to 1st place and doing the occasional cheeky tap on one of the rear sides of your opponents and watching them spin out and destroy all the other cars behind although you regret it when you get round and find yourself having to break at 190mph which doesnt happen :) and end up writing off your nice and shiny nascar.

The Damage effects are very good as you get scrape marks on the panels if you've been scraping round the barriers from going to fast or smashing in your opponents. Then theres what all gamers will do and thats drive the wrong way round the track for a laugh thats when you get hit and your car and several others fly into the air and start rolling all over the place while bits of panels fly everywhere. If you survive its probably a slow drive to the pit where your crew will take off all the body kit that cant be repaired and change all your tires. A great feature in the pit is that if you dont line the car up properly they cant change certain sides of the tires.

Now the main reason I bought this was for the Paint shop feature. This is where you get to make custom paint jobs for your cars. I can say its a dream come true after using the original you can hardly see the paint job you made because of the low res graphics but in this the detail is so sharp whatever you make (how tiny) its perfectly visible which made my Spaceballs car :) look really great. Its easy to use as it gives you the ability to totally blank off a car and with 1 click you can give it tires detail, bumper, fender ,headlights so you dont have to draw your own. It also comes with many stickers to put on the car or the option to import your own pictures so you could put anything you wanted (serious or comical) which is your choice. The pit crew and notices are also fully paintable to make as good or stupid as you wish.

There is also a feature to update the game which downloads new paintshop features and it also gives you the ability to change the car drivers for in the real nascar (real life) so that if any drivers are changed you can do the same in the game. The garage is also the usually extremely complicated if you wish with these games but also has several schemes for the arcade racers who dont want to play around with the options.

Multiplayer is ok. I played a few games against people online on my ISDN which I think this is a game for cable modems as the lag and ping were not great. You have to be really good though (as in make a perfectly set up car though the garage) otherwise you get totally outdone or smashed off the track. Lag is a problem because its really hard to slipstream the other cars because they appear close and then appear far away depending on the ping on the server. Playing against the computer AI is more fun I would say and with the helpfull commentary from your pit man he lets you know when there are cars comming up on either side and how fast, he also lets you know when there is a crash or pileup on the track which is usually caused by yourself :)

The game would get 5 stars except for the demand on my computer, ok im running it in full gfx fair enough but it is slightly choppy on mine when all the cars are on the screen at some points. here are my pc specs

AMD Athalon 1.5ghz
256mb ram
Geforce 3
Windows XP