NASCAR Racing 4 Hands-On

Sierra and Papyrus dropped by the GameSpot offices today to show off the latest installment in their NASCAR series of racing games. This year's offering features a number of significant improvements over Papyrus' last NASCAR Racing effort. The graphics engine in particular has received an impressive upgrade. The cars in this version look incredibly detailed - the clean textures and reflective lighting effects really stand out as the cars rotate in the customization screen. The tracks are equally detailed and realistically recreate the real-life environments surrounding the courses. Papyrus also plans to add a fully animated pit area featuring crew members who change your tires and refuel your car in real time. The four different camera views - cockpit, roof, bumper, and arcade chase - do an excellent job of showing off the new engine.

NASCAR 4's physics engine has also been improved to provide a much more realistic racing experience. For those of you not ready to handle the sometimes frustrating realism of actual driving, NASCAR 4 also has an arcade mode that lessens the impact of the physics model. The new physics model was developed around all four points of the car, so whatever is happening to one of the four quarters of the car will affect the other three, thus forcing you to compensate for the change during the race. Of course, customizing your car with different types of shocks and springs will also affect the way your car performs on the track. Different race techniques, such as drafting, also benefit from the new physics engine.

NASCAR 4 includes plenty of extra details to enhance the racing experience. You'll be able to hear radio chatter from the pit crew, who will let you know if there's a caution flag up on the track. They'll also tell you if another car is coming up on the high side or low side of the track. Different gauges and windows containing race information appear on the screen, which give you basic speed and RPM information as well as current race details such as your position and the lap number. These windows even let you tell the pit crew what to do during your next pit stop.

NASCAR Racing 4 is scheduled for release in February - just in time for the Daytona 500 - and we'll have more information on the game as its release draws near.