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Nascar The Game 2011 Review for PlayStation 3 (PS3)

Nascar The Game 2011 Review for PlayStation 3 (PS3)

Black Flagged

Let me preface this by saying that not only do I enjoy racing games, but I’m also a casual NASCAR fan. So, the promise of the return of a video game franchise for NASCAR intrigued me, having enjoyed playing past NASCAR Thunder titles and eager to see how developments in recent racing games (i.e. the tuning options in Forza) would impact NASCAR 2011. In regards to the latter, we’re given some nice tuning options to customize our car to handle how we’d like it to handle, adding in a subtle strategy to the game. For the former, however, this plays nothing like NASCAR Thunder. NASCAR The Game 2011 has spun out, wrecked, and been sent back to the garage. Or at least it should be.

Nascar The Game 2011 Screenshot

The game wastes no time throwing you into a NASCAR season. Once you boot things up, you’re given the chance to either pick your own unique racer or browse through the roster of Nationwide and Sprint Cup drivers. Once I picked Jeff Gordon, I was brought to my garage, after a lengthy loading screen. From there, again waiting in a lengthy loading screen, I was brought the season. After choosing to qualify for Daytona, I waited….again…and proceeded to qualify. See where I’m headed with this?

When you’ve waited more than you’ve played within the first five minutes of a sports game where you drive 180+ MPH, something is terribly wrong. Once I got into the actual race, I was thrown a curveball and played through some pretty realistic and addictive gameplay. Daytona feels like it should; you have to draft and stay in line with the pack, or else you’re going to get left in the dust. Drivers aren’t afraid to go three wide often, and the pack stays together, naturally causing a wreck, which I got the worst of. When there’s a big wreck, the caution flag comes out and resets the field.

Nascar The Game 2011 Screenshot

There’s two things that NASCAR The Game 2011 does right. The first is that it provides a great racing experience (provided you don’t wreck). As arcade-y and unrealistic it may be, driving through traffic for an entire race on every track is lots of run and requires careful planning and near perfection on the track. More importantly, it requires a lot of on-the-fly thinking and adjusting: what worked for you on, say, Fontana, doesn’t work in Atlanta, because the tracks themselves are different. You’re given clear indications as to when you’re both drafting and when you’ll be able to sling shot past the cars in front of you, as well as helpful reminders that you should probably slow down heading into a turn. In addition, the strategy of tuning your car and adding in common race strategies during your pit stops helps make things seem more realistic and adds an additional sense of strategy to the game not seen before in past NASCAR titles.

Nascar The Game 2011 Screenshot

That’s about where all the praise for the game ends. As much as I enjoy weaving through giant packs of traffic in every track, that’s not how things work in the sport, and the lack of any caution flags, unless I’m facing the opposite direction for several seconds, really punishes me for getting into an accident, regardless of whether or not it was my fault. The game’s tendency to destroy any and all progress you’ve made through the course race is one of the biggest turn-offs I’ve ever come across. In a game that clearly touts itself as the most realistic NASCAR experience ever, it’s flat out inexcusable to overlook this detail.

Nascar The Game 2011 Screenshot

So, let’s say that you want to take out some frustration and race human drivers online. You have the option to race against up to fifteen other drivers at any NASCAR track…supposedly. Out of the 50+ lobbies I entered, maybe a fifth of them actually ever got to the track, thanks to loading screen freezes and random lobby drops. Half of those races didn’t even work probably, due to bugs that caused my car to face head first into a wall, or not even move at all. Finally, the races I did actually compete in weren’t the same as they were in the NASCAR season. The frenzy of racing against forty-two other drivers was gone, and it was replaced with a ho-hum experience of only about six other drivers, most of which didn’t even last the entire race.

NASCAR The Game 2011 isn’t all too much to look at. The graphics aren’t bad, per se, but they’re not good either; they’re average. Crowd models appear to be flat and two-dimensional, and the loading screens/garage menus look incredibly dated. Things don’t get much better for the game’s audio: commentary is an afterthought, as you’ll hear some small talk before the race and that’s about it. No in-game commentary, or even a soundtrack to listen to; all you get is the hum of your car, adding to a really poor polishing job.

Deep between all of its issues, there’s a successful core to NASCAR 2011. The idea of combining an arcade feel to a sport sim is one that could work really well in this case, but the game’s bugs, errors, and lack of realism bring it down far too much to be enjoyed. It’s almost as if the game was rushed out to meet the start of the NASCAR season, which is already a month old as of this writing. Should Activision bring NASCAR back for another lap next year, we could have a really good game on our hands. As for now, it’s extremely avoidable, to say the least.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 3.5 Graphics
Nothing to write home about, but nothing awful either. Each track looks as it should. 4.0 Control
Cars handle well and reflect both the track’s condition and the car’s. 2.0 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
Hope you enjoy how a car sounds; no in-race music or commentary. 1.0 Play Value
Broken online play, lack of caution flags, and the inability for the pack of cars to spread out. You’ll have fun for five minutes, then become incredibly frustrated. 2.4 Overall Rating – Poor
Not an average. See Rating legend below for a final score breakdown.

Review Rating Legend
0.1 – 1.9 = Avoid 2.5 – 2.9 = Average 3.5 – 3.9 = Good 4.5 – 4.9 = Must Buy
2.0 – 2.4 = Poor 3.0 – 3.4 = Fair 4.0 – 4.4 = Great 5.0 = The Best

Game Features:

  • Race with up to sixteen players via multiplayer bumper-to-bumper battles, or engage in high-speed split screen action.
  • Get ready to be blown away with never-before-seen crashes and realistic vehicle damage.
  • Jump into the race action with easy auto-tuning or tweak everything from engine and tires to suspension and pit strategy.

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