NASCAR Heat Evolution

[Paul Jeffrey]

I was expecting the developers to send a copy to RD for in depth review

Judging by the reviews so far, it's probably wise they didn’t!!!

By the way, RD why not making YouTube reviews to complement the written reviews? It would be really nice. Video is the way forward.

Because it's a lot of extra work and I have a voice made for the written word

 

[aowzone]

No FOV adjustment or HUD adjustment but 3 screens should work fine. I'm running 3 screens (windowed mode) at 4700x1620 resolution.

I turned the steering sensitivity all the way down, and cranked the FFB all the way up and the steering is feeling much better now. Still not quite where I want it, but I'm out of options in the sim. Will have to tweak in Thrustmaster Control Panel, which sucks since there is no "per game" profiling.

I ran the first 2 career races and got my "top 30" finishes last night. Started to run Daytona but the car is so far off the pace with the default setup that it's pathetic against "Hard" AI. I hope they integrate some kind of setup sharing feature like F1 2016 has through Steam Workshop. I could barely get the car over 175mph in qualifying at Daytona even with some basic setup changes.

Lars -- are you seeing the "stutters" (for lack of a better term) somewhere around the start of a new lap that clear up by about half way through the lap and then return again around the SF line? My framerates are steady at 120 according to FRAPS but everything just stops running smoothly (no drop in frames though) and then takes about 2 turns to clear up. Really really strange behavior. I've got a pretty mega system (GTX 1080 ROG STRIX, i7 4790K @ 4.5ghz, 32GB RAM) and found this so annoying I almost stopped playing.

Another annoying graphical issue -- about 50 ft in front of the car the shadows look horrible and not aligned with the shadows closer to the car. It's almost like a draw distance setting. Makes looking up the track even a short distance look really ugly.

 

[Lars Hansen]

Ha! I knew you'd end up buying it

So seeing as I’m at work and can’t listen to the audio, give us a clue... good ? Bad? Dreadful ?

My guess is the latter, but I'm an optimist by nature so remain positive

IMO it's not as bad as other people make it out to be.
Is it the successor to NR2003? Definitely not.
But it is a vast improvement on the Eutechnyx offerings? Oh yes.
I think it in large part depends on what you're expecting. Make no mistake, this is a console game that got converted to PC, not vice-versa.
As such, there'll be a lot of features missing that PC gamers have come to expect.
No FOV adjustment, very little in the FFB tuning department, very few graphics options and so on.
It's a game meant for jump-in-and-play, it's not in any respect a hardcore-sim.
In the vid I make the comparison to F1 2016 (cue the ingrates throwing popcorn from the galleries) in that it's much more about selling the experience than having it 100% simulated.

So, in order of appearance:
Graphics: Servicable. Nothing special (console port, remember?), but they look nice enough.
Don't expect ridiculously shiny cars, with a ton of post-processing filters and you'll do fine.

Controls: This is where most people seem to have trouble. And it does need some work.
My T500 didn't even get recognized, so I couldn't start the game without first editing an obscure text-file, definig axes and buttons.
And it doesn't tell you which axes are supposed to do what, so it was a bit hit'n'miss.
I did eventually get it to work, but an in-game section to define and fine-tune the controls is sorely needed.
The upside of that debacle is that I figured out (by necessity) how to redefine buttons which you can't do in-game, so there's that.
Anyway, once I got it set up, the FFB isn't at all bad. It's definitely not AMS/R3E/AC levels, but it does the job as far as I'm concerned.
I don't seem to have the floaty feeling that other people are complaining about, and compared to NR15 it's much, much better.
The cars in NR15 I couldn't even control. Literally, I've yet to finish a race in NR15.
I will say that I usually run in Normal physics mode (since I suck at ovals), and I'll freely admit that once you switch over to Sim-mode the FFB does get a little wonky.
Still think it's better than NR15 though.

Sound: See graphics above. They do the job, but they're not going to wow you.

Gameplay: Unsure. This is still very early days, and I'm in the middle of a real-life kitchen renovation so I sneak off to do a few races while e.g. the paint is drying.
So I haven't even looked at the career mode yet (arguably the biggest selling point of the sim), and I've only done 2% races meaning no flags/pitstops.
But the races are great fun. The AI is challenging, and it's aware of you so it doesn't smack into you.
The adaptive AI (which is default) does take a little long to get to competitive level especially on super-speeedways but it will eventually get there.
The races in the vid aren't really representative since I had no Track Rating at Daytona yet so the AI was set to the slowest pace. But I've had plenty of fun races once the AI got up to speed.
The damage-model needs some work though (again, console port). It's very forgiving even on Full Damage, and you pretty much have to work at it to kill the car.
Although with my skills that's not necessarily a bad thing.

So, in closing I think DMR is being run over by their own hype-train.
It's a fun game, but it's not the sim that they've alluded to.
That said, DMR has a good history of game-support so I expect a lot of the issues will eventually be fixed.
So if you're still on the fence, wait a while.
There are issues to be solved, and at present I think the game is over-priced.
So give it 3-4 months for the patches and the inevitable Steam sale.
But I really don't think it's as bad as a lot of other people are making it out to be.

One final thing: The DLC policy.
That's one thing that really irks me. No the policy, but peoples reaction to it.
Hate it or love it, DLCs are the name of the game these days, no matter what franchise we're talking.
It's a simple fact of life.

But......saying a DLC should've been in the original game is just wrong.
The developers make a game, and set a price for it. They also get to set the prices for any eventual DLC.
Oddly enough, most companies are in this business to make money.
You, as a consumer, get to look at the pricing structure and decide for yourself whether or not you think it's worth the price of admission.
It really is that simple.
So please stop making claims that this or that 'should've been included in the base-game'
Trying to convince people that you're entitled to something for free really makes you look petty.

 

[Lars Hansen]

I have a voice made for the written word

You and me both.
You should probably be thankful you don't have sound on that video.

 

[Lorenzo Bonder]

You and me both.
You should probably be thankful you don't have sound on that video.

I Could do that if I had the editing skills. I just have to put my voice acting techniques (lol I don't have any techniques at all I just like to do voices ) to work.

 

[Lars Hansen]

I Could do that if I had the editing skills. I just have to put my voice acting techniques (lol I don't have any techniques at all I just like to do voices ) to work.

Then again, I could just do the narration in Danish, to the bewilderment of the whole of RD, except a select few.

 

[TheGrunt]

No FOV adjustment or HUD adjustment but 3 screens should work fine. I'm running 3 screens (windowed mode) at 4700x1620 resolution.

I expected that triples do work technically, but without FOV adjustment triples on landscape mode is just horrendous looking because of the large default FOV value. I think this is the final nail in the coffin for me not to get this game.

 

[Lars Hansen]

Bit disturbing that it looks like even I could win a race

It's adaptive AI. It does eventually get up to speed.

 

[Kenny Paton]

It's adaptive AI. It does eventually get up to speed.

Damn, so it would soon be faster than me

 

[Catalysis]

One final thing: The DLC policy.
That's one thing that really irks me. No the policy, but peoples reaction to it.
Hate it or love it, DLCs are the name of the game these days, no matter what franchise we're talking.
It's a simple fact of life.

But......saying a DLC should've been in the original game is just wrong.
The developers make a game, and set a price for it. They also get to set the prices for any eventual DLC.
Oddly enough, most companies are in this business to make money.
You, as a consumer, get to look at the pricing structure and decide for yourself whether or not you think it's worth the price of admission.
It really is that simple.
So please stop making claims that this or that 'should've been included in the base-game'
Trying to convince people that you're entitled to something for free really makes you look petty.

Well, back in the day we used to get something called a paintkit with titles like this. This had a major advantage for developers, in that it encouraged the community to get invested in the title. This is surely a key reason why NR2003 continues to be a relevant oval racer to this day and, in almost every respect, is superior to Nascar Heat Evolution from a sim/gameplay perspective.

Rather than charging extra for these color schemes, the developer might have considered adding these into the game to bolster its wafer-thin feature set.

 

[Keith Joyce]

I saw an extensive car setup screen in one of the YouTube vids which the presenter had found by chance buried elsewhere in the navigation...

 

[Lars Hansen]

I saw an extensive car setup screen in one of the YouTube vids which the presenter had found by chance buried elsewhere in the navigation...

It's hardly buried.
Once you start the race-session it clearly tells you what buttons to push to change the set-up.
Granted, it's not the sleekest menu design but as long as you actually read what is on the screen, it works fine.

 

[Lars Hansen]

Well, back in the day we used to get something called a paintkit with titles like this. This had a major advantage for developers, in that it encouraged the community to get invested in the title. This is surely a key reason why NR2003 continues to be a relevant oval racer to this day and, in almost every respect, is superior to Nascar Heat Evolution from a sim/gameplay perspective.

Rather than charging extra for these color schemes, the developer might have considered adding these into the game to bolster its wafer-thin feature set.

Sure, it would've been nice of them.
Which brings me back to my earlier point. Game-companies prefer to make money.
So why would they give away for free what they expect they can earn extra money on?
Even better, assuming that DMR have acquired the license for a few years (I don't know, but it seems plausible) why would they add in paint-schemes that allows people to do next years liveries, when they will presumably be trying to sell the 2017 game as well?

Like it or not, things have changed quite a bit since 2003, and it's a much more cut-throat gaming world out there.

 

[Andy_J]

I cannot believe any of you actually think this is going to be any good? But if I'm wrong I'll let you know.

Well reading some reviews around the net make me think I was right @Lars Hansen I'm not often right as you know but in this case it looks like I was right. So now I know I was right I'll not bother getting this right piece of doggy doo.

 

[aowzone]

I expected that triples do work technically, but without FOV adjustment triples on landscape mode is just horrendous looking because of the large default FOV value. I think this is the final nail in the coffin for me not to get this game.

Totally agree. It's something they definitely need to add. Or maybe at least just give the ability to move the driver forward in the seat a bit would be a semi-decent solution.

Even in PLP the FOV is a bit off for my tastes.

 

[Ensi Ferrum]

After reading this: https://pretendracecars.net/2016/09/12/its-not-very-good-the-review-of-nascar-heat-evolu I decided not to buy!

 

[LilSki]

Being that it isn't a super serious sim (which I kind of expected) I think I'll go for Forza Horizon 3 instead. Neither game will use my wheel/pedal setup it seems. So If I'm going to have to use a game pad I think FH3 is the way to go for a more relaxed experience.

 

[Lars Hansen]

Lars -- are you seeing the "stutters" (for lack of a better term) somewhere around the start of a new lap that clear up by about half way through the lap and then return again around the SF line?

Nope, I have no problems in-game.
The only small stutters I get is in TV mode in the replays as it follows the field down a straight and in the process pans over the entire stadium. That's pushing my GPU a bit.

But I agree on the draw-distance thing, it looks weird.
Then again, I'm not that pedantic about the graphics.
I usually look for immersion in a game, and if I get that I can live with less graphical goodies.

 

[Boby Kim]

Console clones should be forbidden

 

[aowzone]

Interesting. I'll try and get a video of what I'm experiencing.

There is no way with a brand new top of the line GPU and one of the best CPU's in recent years I'm seeing what I'm seeing.