NASCAR Racing 2003 Season

by Vivendi Universal

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000077WA5
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: February 4, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #18,744 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Platform: PC

Amazon.com Review

NASCAR Racing Season 2003 brings the intensity, grit, and roaring sound of NASCAR to the PC. This 2003 incarnation of Sierra’s 10-year old series is once again built by Papyrus, the first name in racing simulation fidelity. It doesn’t disappoint.

NASCAR Racing Season 2003 features 23 venues including all the real-world tracks in the Winston Cup series, every major driver, and all the licensing NASCAR is famous for. There’s advertising everywhere, from M&Ms to Cingular Wireless and AOL, but that only makes the game look more realistic.

True to the NASCAR Racing legacy, this isn’t an arcade racing game. You can crank the realism settings up and expect to race in all the qualifying rounds to determine your place in the opening pack for the race itself. You can set the physics to perfectly model the real world, where you have to fight your car every step of the way. Set the AI to maximum and you’ll have to battle for every inch of track space. You can even tweak the tire pressure and brakes, and set how your pit crew behaves. It’s a race fan and grease monkey’s dream come true. Less hardcore fans have the option of dialing down the realism settings. You can add a green line to the track showing the ideal route, let the computer help you with traction, steering, and braking, and even set unlimited fuel and unbreakable cars. Admirably, Papyrus puts you in charge of your NASCAR experience.

The graphics are decent, better than last season but behind the curve when compared with other games. Cars look good up close, and the sense of speed is extremely realistic. The sun glints in your windshield and the smoke effects are impressive. But farther way, even at the highest detail settings, there are problems with shimmering and jagged lines around cars and objects. The audio is perfect, from the pit crew giving advice to the roar of the engines; it’s all very convincing.

NASCAR may look like a crowd of cars all turning left but in reality it’s split second timing, daring, and skill. It's not easy riding an oval for 20-200 laps at high speed with little margin for error, or passing a crowd of 10 two-ton vehicles all hurtling along in excess of 170MPH. This game perfectly shows just how hard NASCAR racing can be. One word of caution before you get the green light: the keyboard or a game pad will let you play reasonably well, but you’ll never take the checkered flag without a good force feedback steering wheel. --Bob Andrews

Pros:

• Fun NASCAR racing for both beginners and experts
• The best racing simulation on the market

Cons:

• Some long distance graphics flaws
• Confusing menus and interface

Product Description

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Looking for a gift? This is it!, September 11, 2003

By 

C. Nimmo "Nimmo" (Hendersonville, TN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: NASCAR Racing 2003 Season (CD-ROM)

Can't decide between EA's NASCAR Thunder and Papy's NASCAR Racing? Well Thunder is an arcade game, and Racing is a simulation. First time buyers or people new to racing sims would do well to pickup one additional item Papy's NASCAR Racing 3. It takes real computer driving skills to play this game, and N3 helps you learn that. (Note: N4 and NR2002 do not have a brake assist option, that's why I suggest N3 for rookies) Then when you're ready to take full control, load this one up. The only thing that this Simulator is missing from the real deal is the seat of your pants feeling that the car is getting loose, or is tight. Ride in a real stock car just once, and you'll gain a prospective that can't be built into any computer simulation. This game features two unique options, Adaptive AI and Auto AI strength. No one can drive all 36 tracks at the same 100% AI strength and have a realistic race. This game will tailor each track to your ability and then improve the AI ability as yours improves for each track. (Second note 100% AI strength has the cars going faster then real life top speeds anyway, 96% is closer to current real competition levels at most tracks). Plus the ability to create your own team, paint your own car, and add additional special paint schemes is priceless. The Online community has lots of add-ons for this game. And the developers even put out a free fantasy track add-on. I also strongly suggest a racing wheel for this game. I got away with a joystick with N3, but you will be challenged to produce realistic lap times with a joystick. And you'll need the gas and steering pedals to keep yourself out of the wall. Force feedback is a preference, one I have chosen to disable for myself, but some people like it. Final note, this will be the last Papy NASCAR Racing game released. So I wouldn't look for NASCAR Racing 2004 and beyond.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome!, February 24, 2003

By 

Douglas Welzel (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: NASCAR Racing 2003 Season (CD-ROM)

Even though I'm a huge racing sim fan, I've really had no interest in any of the Nascar related games. I generally prefer Formula 1 style racing sims. However, for some reason I decided to download the demo for Nascar Racing Season 2003 and I was hooked!

Nascar racing seems to translate very well to the PC. NR2003 captures the door to door racing and keeps the excitement level high. The tracks are pretty simple to learn (hey, there are only a couple of turns), but difficult to master, especially when you throw 40 other cars in the mix. In traffic you'll be fighting to keep your line as cars surround you and your own car always feels like it is on the verge of swapping ends.

The large variety of tracks makes for very different racing experiences. On the superspeedways, drafting is king. Loose the lead pack and you're in for a long, lonely drive until you can work your way back into the lead draft. Small tracks like Bristol are wars of attritrion. By the end of a race your car will be fully battle scarred from brashing your way around the tight, fast track.

Oh, and I have to mention the graphics... amazing. They are so good I would even consider buying new hardware so I could increase the detail level. On the highest settings this game will easily bring a top end system to it's knees. Oh, if I had to criticize the graphics at all, it would be some of the lighting effects at night. They are pretty bad.

I haven't played any of the other versions of this game, so I can't comment on how good this is compared with the 2002 version. However, I will say that by itself, this version is simply amazing. Papyrus has done a great job of reproducing the Nascar experience. I (sadly) haven't touched F1 2002 in quite a while.

I highly recommend this to all racing sim fans. If you have any doubts, try downloading the demo first.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Still Going Strong in 2006!! Best Nascar Sim to Date!, February 14, 2006

By 

Grant Easton "Bracketman" - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: NASCAR Racing 2003 Season (CD-ROM)

I've had the game since it first came out and I must say I'm very happy with Papyrus's final Nascar simulation. The game itself has a believable physics model, Great graphics when it first arrived (still not too bad in 2006), OK damage modelling (could have done better) and fantastic multiplayer and modding capabilities. The only problem I have with the singleplayer game is the AI difficulty. I'm extremely good on just about every track in the game, but the auto-difficulty measuring tool is a bit off, saying on tracks where there was no possible way of going faster or reaching better lap times a value in the mid 90 percent where as on other tracks I'm topping the scale at or near 110%. Right now the game is of high value, since its the last "true" simulation that has emerged, and prices are usually around $100USD. You will also need a wheel for this game, because the keyboard just wont cut it unless you only want to play the game on arcade settings. If your not into Nascar, check out GTR or GT Legends (and soon GTR2) - newer games with even better physics and graphics than Nascar 2003, but focusing on the Road Courses instead of the ovals (even though in GTR there are oval track downloads). [e-mail]

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