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NASCAR is a racing game in the guise of pinball, and even though I am no great fan of motor racing, I have to admit this one has some clever tricks. You are one of several (presumably well-known) drivers, and the pinball is your car. The plunger is actually an accelerator pedal and the whole pinball table is surrounded by a race track with cars zooming around. The tables are set out as race tracks, and are covered in sponsorship type advertising: the demo I played has the Kellogg's table (featuring Terry Labonte as driver), which is less intrusive than some of the others. The ball is very convincing, nice and shiny and solid seeming, and the flipper action is solid and dependable. Small figures in the pits move around now and again, to add to the idea that this is your pitcrew. You gain points by taking turns one through four, which send your ball up and through raised track areas. Hitting the ball out to one side sends it for a "pit stop" � two mechanics treat the ball like a car, "service" it and send it back into play, which has a certain "oh wow, look!" factor, the first couple of dozen time it happens. The most inventive part of the game is certainly the sounds: the "commentary", referring to your ball's progress in terms of the race proves surprisingly effective, and not at all annoying. The accelerator plunger sounds like a real car, and each time the ball moves quickly round a stretch of track it is made to sound like an engine zooming past. The full game has a number of tables, some racetracks, others set inside garages. I can see some racing fans ecstatic over this, but I think the novelty would wear off for me quite quickly. That being said, the demo is great fun, the graphics and sounds a delight and definitely up to the usual Sierra standard.
Requirements : P90, 16Mb RAM, soundcard, Win95, DirectX 5.0 Download the demo (14.1Mb from Gamespot) |
