NASCAR Heat Evolution Available, Post Your Impressions Here

[TypicalPhenom]

This may be a stupid question but how do you change your race length in career?

[Turbojugend]

Quote: Originally Posted by TypicalPhenom

This may be a stupid question but how do you change your race length in career?

Press Triangle/Y when you're in the Career Menu. The button placement is really low on the screen, it's probably getting cut off on some people's monitors.

I wish I knew how Speed Rating worked. Last night I raced in Kansas, ran a clean race, lapped several cars and took first place for a Speed Rating of 99. In Martinsville I ended up causing several crashes, got a black flag for flying into pit road (did I mention I'm lousy on short tracks?) and ended up 40th, 4 laps behind the winner for a Speed Rating of... 99.

[brandon27]

Quote: Originally Posted by Turbojugend

Press Triangle/Y when you're in the Career Menu. The button placement is really low on the screen, it's probably getting cut off on some people's monitors. I wish I knew how Speed Rating worked. Last night I raced in Kansas, ran a clean race, lapped several cars and took first place for a Speed Rating of 99. In Martinsville I ended up causing several crashes, got a black flag for flying into pit road (did I mention I'm lousy on short tracks?) and ended up 40th, 4 laps behind the winner for a Speed Rating of... 99.

I just always assumed it went based on lap times.

[Turbojugend]

Quote: Originally Posted by brandon27

I just always assumed it went based on lap times.

That is definitely a huge factor but not the only factor. I'm pretty sure A.I. setting and race length act as multipliers, possibly position and number of cars passed as well but I'm not sure. All I know is as soon as increased the race length I was immediately getting results on the high 90s.

Just finished the Richmond challenge, the video reward is linked to Martinsville.

[bravesfan1984]

Are you guys seeing lots of wonky pit strategies, or lack thereof, from the CPU? I ran a 50 lap race at Michigan and the caution came out with around 20-21 laps left and everyone needed to pit one more time (I believe fuel window was ~22-23 or so. Anyways, instead of coming in to pit, only a handful of drivers, including myself, pitted. The rest took green flag pit stops with less than 10 laps left, leaving me to win the race by a huge margin. Pit strategy is one thing that kills realism for me pretty quick.

[Turbojugend]

Okay, I think I'm done with this game for now. I played for nearly a week straight, I also bought NHL 17 and Bioshock Collection in that time and both of those games sat on the shelf so I think I've given this game a fair shake. I'm finishing up my impressions with one huge positive and one huge negative:

Positive = Track authenticity. Whoever worked on the track modeling needs to stand up and take a bow, because it has been the best part of this game for me by far. You can tell DMi devoted a lot time and attention to replicating every track on the Cup circuit, they all look and feel great. There some visual snags that detract from the experience, but the venues themselves are impressive. If nothing else, NASCAR Heat Evolution works as a sort of virtual NASCAR track simulator.

Negative = A.I. At first I was impressed, but once you figure out what's going on here it's mind-blowing the way CPU A.I. has been handled in this game. Call it "rubberbanding", call it "20th place mode", call it whatever. The current state of competitive A.I. in this game is so bad that it's a wonder they chose to promote it as a feature in the first place. I do believe they'll iron this out eventually, fingers crossed.

I could go about the negatives, such as the bugged video rewards, sparse options and numerous typos that really make this game feel like a budget title. But I'll leave this as-is, hopefully a few patches will make NASCAR Heat Evolution a much better game in the coming months.

P.S.: I was wrong about needing a Speed Rating of 3 to unlock challenges. It seems like improving your rating on any track unlocks a challenge. I'm pretty sure I unlocked the final challenge this morning, there is one per track.

[TypicalPhenom]

Quote: Originally Posted by Turbojugend

Press Triangle/Y when you're in the Career Menu. The button placement is really low on the screen, it's probably getting cut off on some people's monitors. I wish I knew how Speed Rating worked. Last night I raced in Kansas, ran a clean race, lapped several cars and took first place for a Speed Rating of 99. In Martinsville I ended up causing several crashes, got a black flag for flying into pit road (did I mention I'm lousy on short tracks?) and ended up 40th, 4 laps behind the winner for a Speed Rating of... 99.

Do you have to get past the first couple races or something? I'm in the career menu, about to run my first race but triangle doesn't bring anything up. When I go to the race, triangle just brings up "Next session", but I keep ending up in super short races and backing out to try and fix the length.

[Turbojugend]

Quote: Originally Posted by TypicalPhenom

Do you have to get past the first couple races or something? I'm in the career menu, about to run my first race but triangle doesn't bring anything up. When I go to the race, triangle just brings up "Next session", but I keep ending up in super short races and backing out to try and fix the length.

Yep, you have to finish those first two "get a sponsor" races before you can change the race length.