As advertised a simulation, not an arcade game...
User Rating: 8.8 | NASCAR SimRacing PC
First, one thing that really bothers me about reviews are those left as abysmal or perfect with no comments. A review whether it nine or greater or two or less should have some comments left with it. To many “I hate EA” or “I love EA” votes are placed on sporting games and skew the reader rating. I believe that GameSpot’s review of this game is pretty much right on. I have been a long time fan of Flight Simulators and I find that most driving simulators, unlike their flight simulator counterparts, are nothing more then arcade games placed in framed pictures of a cars interior but don’t feel anything like driving a car. Where a flight simulator, such as Microsoft’s Flight Simulator 2004 or even more so Lock-On Modern Air Combat (LOMAC), require you to have a very good understanding aviation and in the case of LOMAC) you better understand more then just basic flying. What do my comments about flight simulators have to do with NASCAR RacingSim... a lot. NASCAR RacingSim is a true racing simulator, not just an arcade racing game. It requires you to come into the game with some basic racing knowledge and it further requires you to do more then push the pedal and turn the wheel. The game makes you setup the car for each track and it makes you learn how to squeak every bit of performance out of your car (or truck) based on the track at hand. The first career race, Daytona, had me making minor adjustments over and over to find the right setup for the best qualifying lap. It was not only educational but also fun to see what the changes did. The graphics are amazing and really make you feel like you are on the track. The sound could have been better. I had to lower the engine volume substantially to hear my spotter and crew chief. Gameplay is excellent, if you enjoy sports competition (racing particularly) you will love this. I agree with cmiles, the entire online experience wasn’t very pleasant especially the chat rooms. I think a patch is needed here. This reminds me a lot of the problems that plagued C&C Generals when it first came out. I would recommend this to any NASCAR or racing fan. I would also recommend this to anyone who enjoys a real challenge like flight simulation. I wouldn’t recommend this to someone who just wants to plug in the wheel and drive you’ll be tired of it in minutes. I tested this on the following custom system, with all graphics settings maxed out. O/S: Windows XP Professional CPU: Pentium 4 3.06 RAM: 1 GB Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 (128 MB) Sound Card: Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Hope this is helpful and remember… you are never too old to play games! 
