NASCAR Heat Preview

An officially licensed product of NASCAR, NASCAR Heat will feature the cars, sponsors, and tracks of the 2000 season. The game will feature various modes of play, including single race, full championship season, and a take-on-the-pro mode. The take-on-the-pro feature is simply a time-attack mode that lets you pick the track of your choice and try to beat the fastest recorded time.

The team developing the game is dedicated to bring not only the most realistic interpretation of the sport of NASCAR to the PlayStation, but also the most fun to play. This dedication is demonstrated by the team's choice for the game's chief technical advisor, Bobby Labonte - NASCAR's current points leader. With Labonte's advice and help, the team is attempting to create a game with a scalable AI that has two main settings, normal and expert. In normal mode, you will get a chance to simply start a race and play competitively regardless of your skill level. In expert mode, the game will test even the most veteran NASCAR video game players.

The control and physics in NASCAR Heat, even in its current stage of development, are really quite impressive. The cars accurately rock back and forth, accelerate, decelerate, and even react to collisions properly. In addition, the art of drafting seems to be coming together quite well, as demonstrated by the game's draft meter, which is similar to the one featured in Electronic Arts' NASCAR 2000.

Visually, NASCAR Heat still has a way to go. The game in its current state has graphical problems that still need some work. The models and textures used for the cars and tracks are far below the standards set by EA's PlayStation NASCAR series. The frame rate dips quite low at times as well, although Hasbro assured us that most, if not all, of the game's graphical imperfections would be corrected before the game would ship.

While we'll have to reserve judgement until we get a complete version of NASCAR Heat, its apparent from the early version of the game that NASCAR Heat has all the fundamentals needed to compete with Electronic Arts' NASCAR series.