E3 06: NASCAR Hands-On

LOS ANGELES--While EA Sports has been successful in bringing the majority of their sports brands to Sony's PlayStation Portable, there has been one notable omission from the EA Sports stable: the long-running NASCAR series. That's about to be remedied with the release of NASCAR for the PSP, a playable demo version of which we got a chance to check out the EA Sports booth at E3.

One of the things that struck us immediately about this rather limited demo version of the game, which is being released in tandem with the Xbox and PlayStation 2 versions of the next NASCAR game later this year, was the fact that a full 43-car field was running during the race. That's a pretty impressive feat for the little black handheld, and even game producers admitted they weren't exactly certain they could pull it off at first. Better yet, the game was running at a pretty decent frame rate, and actually boasted some fairly sharp detail on the PSP screen.

Those impressive aspects aside, the demo only featured a race now mode. You could choose between the Nextel series or the Whelan modified series, and producers told us that players would also be able to race the Busch and Craftsman Truck series in the final version of the game. Four tracks were available as well--two speedways, California and Talladega; one short track, Richmond; and one road course, the famed Watkins Glen. We started out at the granddaddy of them all, Talladega, to get a feel for the game's sense of speed, and were pleased to find out it didn't disappoint there at all.

Dropped directly into the race (no practice or qualifying needed in a demo, thank you very much), we quickly got a handle for how the controls have been altered for the handheld version of the game. Accelerate and braking controls are tied to buttons and the steering is pulled off with the analog stick. In an effort to deal with the PSP's sometimes overly sensitive analog stick, the steering model in the game seems to have a good deal of forgiveness to it. In other words, in speedy corners, it was very difficult to oversteer and wrap the car in the inside part of the track. Instead, the steering model seemed designed to help you make your way through the turn, while still giving you just enough leeway to screw up if you weren't careful. Honestly though, we spent more time rubbing the outside wall, after attacking corners too tentatively, than we parked on the infield grass, which is a promising sign.

The demo featured four real-life NASCAR drivers: Kasey Kahne, Kevin Harvick, Elliot Sadler, and Jimmie Johnson. One new aspect of this year's NASCAR game is that each driver will be graded according to a number of aspects usually revolving around their skill on different types of tracks. Kahne, for example was rated in the following manner: Road courses: B-; Speedways: B-; Short track – A; Overall – B. This means when you race other NASCAR fans online, you'll want to make sure you're choosing the right driver for the job, or else you might find yourself at a distinct disadvantage. We suspect this will cause quite a furor among the hardcore NASCAR contingent, who will spend lots of time arguing over the ratings their favorite driver received in the game.

While the team commands feature featured in last year's console NASCAR game won't be part of the PSP NASCAR game, there are some holdovers from the previous game--namely in the form of the on-track rivalries. In the races themselves, you'll be dynamically making both friends and enemies lap after lap based on your actions on the track. Bump a car too many times, and the red rival icon will pop up over their car, indicating they're in a cranky mood and ready to trade some paint with you. Conversely, you can share drafts with cars on the track and you'll form an impromptu alliance that you can use to your advantage to gain positions on the track. As an added bonus, you can use the left and right triggers on the PSP to either intimidate foes or request drafts from friendly drivers.

Sooner or later in a NASCAR race, though, something's going to go real wrong on the track; you'll get loose in the corner or, worse yet, get flipped by an especially intense rival. That's where NASCAR's strangest new features comes into play--a rewind feature that will let you back up the action on the track in order to rectify mistakes. To execute the rewind, you simply press the select button; you can then rewind a few seconds back and set things right on the track again. The demo version of the game featured the ability to use the rewind feature more or less at will; in the final build of the game, you'll be earning rewind time by finding success on the track. Passing cars will earn you points, while crashing into opponents or scraping a wall will subtract from your total.

Beyond these new features, NASCAR will feature many of the same modes found in previous versions of the game--including a career mode, challenge races (featuring real-life scenarios from the 2005 Nextel Cup series). The PSP game will also let you race with up to three other stock car fanatics via the PSP's wireless connection. Finally an in-game save system will let you save your progress at any point in a race--you don't even have to pull into the pits first--an especially cool feature for those who like to run the full race distances but don't always have three hours to devote to a single sitting of gameplay.

NASCAR for PSP is set to debut in September 2006, in conjunction with the next versions of the PS2 and Xbox game. We'll be bringing you more on the game in the coming months.