NASCAR '14 Available Now - Post Your Impressions

[Cubfan]

Finished my first race at Atlanta and boy is the AI in need of some work. Still seeing break checking in the corners and straightaways. Also awareness issues the AI cars will just run over you. In one instance a AI driver was driving slow just before pit road and a second AI car just runs him over.

[oldphart667]

Pleasantly surprised. This game is fun, hardcore sim players won't like it, but it is actually deep in career mode. First, you start out as a no sponsor refurbished parts car.... You have to earn quite a bit of money to open up your R and D department in your shop. I played with 65% difficulty, 3xtire wear and 3x fuel, at 30 laps at Daytona. Somehow I got the pole for the big race.....not by much. Duels, I got kicked out of the pack, lost the draft and the pack. Pit stops and a wreck got me back to the pack, and placed 9th. AI was a hair quirky on the pits, like waiting to the last few laps to pit, but I would think that was do to the short duel race. My car in the race was a dog and that's how it should be! Now the big race was fun! Went from pole to 28th, then ended up in 34th. There was no AI yellows, ii am pretty sure I caused all the cautions! No DNF's........ 5 drivers one lap down.. Then a got a sponsor MOOG. I was supposed to put it on my car. This is my favorite addition, you are now able to use your own scheme or multiple schemes on each race! Paint booth, now you can design your car with a choice of around 15 base design's. I put MOOG on the car, changed a few colors. Next up Phoenix, before I went to the track......I had to pick my scheme to use, that is pretty cool! That's it for now, but I really do like this game it is fun when racing, handling is very good with a controller. This is based on a ps3.

[brandon27]

I was wondering... Does anyone know when the patch is supposed to be released? I was reading over on the Eutechnyx forums that PS3 users apparently have it, but not on Xbox360 yet. I can confirm I've yet to receive the patch on my 360. I've never seen a prompt to download it. Just wondering how serious we all should consider our impressions if the patch isn't out yet?

[bluengold34_OS]

Quote: Originally Posted by brandon27

I was wondering... Does anyone know when the patch is supposed to be released? I was reading over on the Eutechnyx forums that PS3 users apparently have it, but not on Xbox360 yet. I can confirm I've yet to receive the patch on my 360. I've never seen a prompt to download it. Just wondering how serious we all should consider our impressions if the patch isn't out yet?

From what I understand - the patch is in the hands of MS and could be released anywhere from the next few days to the next few weeks. My impressions and review are all from the patched PS3 version.

[TCrouch]

The controls are still somewhat wonky. Tried with both the TX Wheel and my Fanatec CSR Elite setup. I could get it to handle decently, but still not exactly where I want it. I didn't see any cars that didn't have to stop in a 10% race length on 4x wear, though, so that was good.

What I HAVE discovered is that I suck! I would put NR2K3 on 95% and race on default setups competitively. I tried 95% here and just got smoked. OK, 90%. Smoked.

85? 80? SEVENTY FIVE? Finally I was mid-pack competitive....in the default cars. Career car? Forget about it. I can qualify mid-pack, but then at the start I go zinging straight to the mid-30's and fumble around back there for the entire race.

Apparently I got really bad, really really fast.

I was so shocked by my first restart at Chicagoland that I thought my wheel was screwed up. I went sailing off into the wall, restarted, tried again--same thing. That's when I personally discovered the "spin your wheels" feature. I'll agree with the earlier poster--that is BAD ***. I've gotten a jump on the cars ahead of me at Phoenix that way, even in a crap car. Of course then I was stuck outside and lost 20 positions, but I gained 3 or 4 on the restart before plummeting!

Overall, I'm happier than I expected to be, but it's always easy to be happy the first day. It wasn't until the second week or the 50th race that I started really noticing things in the past. So I'm slightly more enthusiastic than I thought I'd be. Tempered enthusiasm, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It was VERY smart of them to release right before the 500 this year, though. 7 months or not, it was a smart move to get on schedule with the start of the year and not the end.

[[Icy]]

How did you set your wheel in the game? because my G27 is jumping from side to side and can't control the car in straights.

[TCrouch]

Same way as any other game, really. Go into controls and then go to the left (I use the left bracket key [ ) and set sensitivity, dead zone, linearity, etc. The problem for me is finding a happy balance on rotation angle (I've tried 900 all the way down to 210 and everything in between), linearity, and steering sensitivity. I monkey with that constantly, from race to race it seems.

With the G27, that's a FF issue at top dead center. Back your FF down some. I remember hearing about that with this game series in the past. The engine doesn't know which direction to apply force, so it just jerks it back and forth. There are 2 different FF settings--"road force" and "force feedback". Try leaving road force up and dropping FF. See if there's any difference. Play with those 2 sliders until you dial it out.

[JeremyB]

Im enjoying the game so far.

Has anyone noticed on the PS3 sometimes the sounds seems like its fading? I thought after one of my pitstops things sounded softer? as in somebody tuned the sound down on the tv?? maybe its just me though