Gameplay

Newton loves Papyrus

NASCAR Racing 2003 has every option any NASCAR or race fan would want. It’s possible just to go on test runs, play single races or replay the entire season. The length of the races can be set as a percentage. So whether you want to get the entire race over and done with on a gas tank, or run the entire marathon at Daytona, it’s up to you.

Smoking my way in

Haha that engine isn't happy

I feel the need

The game’s depth gets a new level should you choose to race longer. Not only do you have to worry about driving properly, you now have to plan pit stops. How long do you want to wear your tires? There’s a yellow flag with 15 laps to go – do you take advantage of the opportunity to move up easily, or do you think you’ll be running on empty by the time the checkered flag comes around?

Of course, that’s not all to the game. No amount of features or realism is worth a damn if the driving game doesn’t have good feel. So believe me when I tell you: NASCAR 2003 has all the feel you could want and more. Even when limited by the joystick controls (ie, no analog throttle, poor steering control), the game provided me with absolutely awesome feedback – on the level of the vaunted Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec.

Multiplayer is great. The community is friendly and the Sierra matchmaking interface is as simple as battle.net. Besides, it’s the only way to get a realistic challenge. Setting the computer player’s difficulty tends to turn races into either guaranteed wins or guaranteed losses, but a human opponent is unpredictable and uncontrollable. Just don’t play destruction derby out there, or you’ll run out of friends quick.

Complaints department

There are very, very few things that irk us about NASCAR 2003. First and foremost is the performance. The team at Papyrus might have been looking far into the future with NASCAR 2003 since this is the last game of the series for a while, but one would hope that a full track of cars wouldn’t bring a 2GHz Pentium 4 with 512MB of DDR to its knees. This isn’t a killjoy, but it’s something that potential buyers should watch out for. You can simply forget about running a full complement of cars and high detail on today’s hardware.

The need for speed

ZOOOM!

Green line makes ya happy

The other issue is that the box is missing the most important system requirement: steering wheel and pedals. It’s not to say that NASCAR 2003 is unplayable without those, but it’s quite tedious. Being able to modulate the throttle makes driving all that much more fun, while having an actual steering wheel will keep your arm from cramping up into a pretzel. The game is aimed at hardcore racers who will have the equipment anyway, but casual fans should be aware of the problem.