Find: Games - Movies - Music - Free Stuff! - Electronics - Computers

NASCAR 2001
PS2 Preview by Shawn Fogarty


Its time for the redneck in all of us to climb out of the woodwork and rev up the ol engines and start bumpin and grindin with EA Sports NASCAR 2001 offering for PS2. Will it be a revolutionary addition to the series or just another revision? Well find out soon.

From the sound of things, its not going to be just another revised game with new cars and sponsors. NASCAR 2001 is running on a brand new game engine to allow for enhanced car physics, graphics, cunning AI and also a slick damage model. Here is a run-down of the highlights of the game so far:

The 33 active drivers will be updated for the NASCAR 2000 season including all your favorites from Jeff Gordon to Dale Earnhardt. Apparently, the driver AI reflects the driving styles of all the individual racers. This game will be totally authentic, capturing all the licenses, sponsors, tracks, names and cars. You wont find any cheesy made up names or sponsors here. The game is also going to pack in over 18 tracks with both day and night driving plus some road courses to boot! Now thats what I like, a healthy serving of tracks. This alone is going to enhance the enjoyment of the game. There is a few really cool game modes too which include full or "track pack" season. Players can choose to race a full or just part of the NASCAR season or in the track pack mode select to race on short tracks, road courses, speedways, fantasy tracks or superspeedways.

Some of the track locals include: Daytona Beach, Atlanta, California, Charlotte, Bristol, Darlington, Homestead, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Martinsville, Michigan, North Carolina, Phoenix, Pocono, Richmond, Sears Point, Talledega, Texas and Watkins Glen.

The cars in the game will look pretty much exactly how they are supposed to. There is twelve separate damage points on the cars so youll actually be able to see your car crumple up into a heap of junk as you mix it up with the other drivers. Expect to see a lot of use of particle effects such as sparks, skid marks, flying parts and smoke. The damage should look very realistic as it is made polygonally and texturally. This means that there wont be just a black mark or something like that where your car was hit but the surface will be actually crumpled just like real metal. At the games current 40% completion state, the graphics still need work but they already are looking quite impressive. Some early hints of flaws however are blurry car textures and anti-aliasing problems but these should be remedied for the final version because then the game will be running in a constant hi-res mode. But it looks like there is a lot of minuet details being thrown in that help establish that authentic NASCAR environment. The track locations are very accurate and youll be able to find every little thing that you would see on TV. No more black voids in the center and no more racing in space either. Players can also see right inside the cars at the drivers. I wonder if well be able to see expressions on their faces? Ok, maybe next year.

I believe this game will make a successful jump from the PSX to PS2 although there may be some flaws in graphics or less impressive graphics than expected but I have no doubt that the gameplay will at least as good as previous versions but probably better because of the enhancements being done with the new engine. This one looks like it will be one of the front runners in the sports genre on PS2.


Expected Release Date:
Fall 2000

Developer / Publisher:
EA Sports

Players:
2

Additional Pics:
pulling an Earnhardt
your engine is showing!




All products and names are registered trademarks to their respective company. This site is Copyright & Copy 1999-2000 . All Rights Reserved. This site and the this site's logo are trademarks of the authors.