Mechanical Dilemma

The only real downside to NASCAR Racing? Players absolutely needed the latest and greatest computers in order to experience a definitive visual and functional spectacle. Anything less than a top-of-the-line 486-66 processor and the texture-mapped 640x480 high-res version of NASCAR would crawl, particularly in instances of heavy traffic, or God forbid, a multiple car pileup. Furthermore, the high-res version of the game shipped only on compact disc, thus compelling race fans nationwide to purchase a newfangled CD-ROM gadget if they wanted to see the game at its best. Indeed, many critics and gamers took Papyrus to task for concocting a product that so precariously rode the top of the technology wave and undoubtedly compelled hundreds of PC owners countrywide to upgrade their machines.

IndyCar II box

Nevertheless, riding the monstrous critical and financial success of the original NASCAR, Papyrus was now able to pump out its games at a faster clip and call even more of its own shots. IndyCar Racing II arrived one year later in 1995 and immediately proved that Papyrus wasn't going to rest comfortably on its throne. With the IndyCar sequel, Kaemmer and his growing team improved substantially on the first IndyCar and transferred much of what it had learned from its first NASCAR effort to an open-wheeled format. The game was definitely more difficult--and therefore rewarding--than the original, with far more complex car models and a much greater sense of danger.

In IndyCar II, Papyrus showed just how intricate and versatile its open-wheeled games could be. No longer could drivers use the same approach on Michigan as they did on Talladega, lest they experience one of a variety of serious repercussions. Now, the degree of banking, or lack thereof, at any given point on the track mightily impacted the handling. And if you swung down low to the relatively empty and certainly flatter apron to enact one of the carte blanche passing maneuvers that seemed so easy in the original IndyCar, your car would likely react violently to the change in orientation and careen back up to the wall or spin completely out. While much of this new physics sophistication was already on display in NASCAR Racing, IndyCar Racing II simply featured faster and more nimble cars and was therefore a pure joy to drive.

A crowded field

Yet the game was greeted with less than fantastic sales figures (180,000 units to date). There were a couple of key reasons behind the disappointing numbers. For starters, IndyCar II was once more plagued by the very same game quality versus computer capability issue that beset NASCAR Racing, and it is what would ultimately dog Papyrus through the next few years. Yet again, Papyrus was riding that knife-edge of technology.

IndyCar Racing II landed at a time when computer speeds were escalating at a sharp pace and just as the term "3D graphic acceleration" was beginning to infiltrate the market. The 3D add-on cards were in those final months and years of complete confusion before gaining acceptance and finding uniform standards. In the end, Papyrus elected to support its publisher's own Rendition 3D standard, knowing that few of its customers even owned the necessary equipment to take advantage of it, but fully unaware that the standard would be as short lived as it was. Moreover, the initial retail release of IndyCar II sported no graphic acceleration support at all; that support would come through a downloadable patch. Looking back, it's easy to see why many of the Papyrus faithful were befuddled at the situation, as they didn't really know whether or not they should spring for a 3D card.

Tons of cars on-screen

Kaemmer remembers the circumstances well. "I don't know if we were the first [racing game to adopt 3D], but we certainly were out on the bleeding edge. The Rendition card was our favorite in those days, since it had a 4-bit texture format that worked perfectly for our racetrack environments. We could have high-resolution textures with a fairly small amount of texture RAM. It looked great, and was less filling. Everyone had their own API (protocol for communicating with graphics hardware). The APIs were changing all the time, and DirectX was nothing more than a promise."

However, once IndyCar II's "Rendition" patch was downloaded and installed on a machine running a Rendition chipset-based graphics accelerator card, the results were quite simply stunning. This was the first taste of accelerated graphics many race fans had ever witnessed, and it was an impressive spectacle. Suddenly, the pixel-strewn world of prior Papyrus games--even the "high-resolution" 640x480 NASCAR Racing--seemed rudimentary in comparison. Cars looked rounded and smooth, the track surfaces gritty but not blocky, and the peripheral world (in particular the gorgeous sky and trackside scenery of courses such as Elkhart Lake) rich and lustrous. Yet even if you were lucky enough to have a Rendition card, an Internet connection to download the patch, and a machine capable of running the game smoothly, only a sprinkling of the courses were able to take advantage of the technology. That would later change when the game was rereleased with complete Rendition support more than a year later as "CART Racing." But more on that in a moment.

Yet timing is often the most important element of all, and in many ways, IndyCar II missed its mark. Kaemmer acknowledges that IndyCar II, unlike earlier Papyrus games, didn't exactly strike when the iron was hot. "[The original] IndyCar Racing was the natural follow-on to Indy 500, and as luck would have it, we shipped it at the perfect time--Nigel Mansell, just crowned World Driving Champion, had left Formula 1 to drive in Indy cars in 1993, so there was a lot of interest from around the world in Indy car racing--and it sold pretty well, even overseas. But we followed it up with NASCAR Racing, which sold several times as many units. Shortly thereafter, the CART/IRL split occurred, which pretty well defused any growing interest here or abroad (in what was formerly known as IndyCar)."

With comparatively sluggish IndyCar II sales figures and a slow disintegration of the real-life league, Papyrus' new parent company, Sierra, had little interest in revisiting this particular brand of auto racing in the future. Thusly, IndyCar Racing II--renamed CART Racing after the now-infamous CART/IRL disagreement--would be Papyrus' parting nod to modern-day, open-wheeled automotive competition.

NASCAR Racing 2 followed in 1996. Riding the coattails of the original, it sold quickly right out of the chute and continued racking up big numbers for several years. Today it remains as the second highest-selling Papyrus game of all time at 800,000 units worldwide.

NASCAR 2 was an upgraded sequel in every aspect but its physics engine. Yes, there were modeling tweaks and new perks to better exemplify the power under the hood and the subtle nuances of each track, but the nucleus of the physics engine that had been so true to Papyrus for so long, remained essentially unchanged. That didn't matter to the Papyrus masses, which embraced such innovative amenities as completely redesigned interfaces, upgraded garage facilities, and a talking crew chief/spotter. The latter in particular was a wonderful idea that aided immeasurably during instances of tight traffic. Papyrus even went so far as to add a substantially simplified "arcade" mode, thus going against its previous philosophy of designing games only for the hardcore simulation crowd.

NASCAR 2 added some polish to the series.

By now, Kaemmer's crew was a well-oiled machine. Rumors abounded that real-life drivers used Papyrus products to brush up on their techniques for tracks with which they were not overly familiar. To many virtual racers, Papyrus had become the final word in realism.

In 1997, it released the NASCAR Grand National Series Expansion Pack, an add-on for NASCAR Racing 2 that featured 10 new official tracks, two fantasy courses, and several new drivers and cars, but no serious, anticipated upgrades such as 3D acceleration support or pit crew animations. That was OK with most Papyrus fans, as they rightly felt NASCAR 2 was already pretty darn good. But some were now questioning just when the next big technological quantum leap would occur.

They wouldn't wait long.

Thanks to Velocity Motorsports for IndyCar II pictures