This is the only NASCAR game that Sierra ever made that's themost realistic stuff ever! EASports is worse than this.
In NR2003 Papyrus has tried to improve this. The gameplay modes have seen little change. You still have your basic options of Testing Session, Single Race, Championship, and Multiplayer modes. Testing is just that, you and the track, tweak a setup, fine tune your calibration controls, and so on. Single Race allows you to go to any track and run a race with up to 42 AI cars. Championship mode allows you two options. One to race for the NASCAR Championship using the actual 36 race, NASCAR 2003 schedule, or by racing once on each track in the game (the tracks that have day and night races are considered two separate tracks in this option) for a total of 27 races. There is still not any type of career mode option in NR2003. Multiplayer gives you the ability to race against other humans either by having them connect directly to you, you to them, or everyone connecting through the Sierra servers and racing there. All of these have the ability for you to have a total of 42 human racers including yourself on the track for a race. If you want others to connect to you for a race be prepared to host a lot fewer than the 42 max you may see on the Sierra servers, unless you have a very fast connection. Those that really want to get serious with NR2003 can search and look for the numerous leagues that currently use NR2003. I have been affiliated with "NTR Plus" for almost a year now. The knowledge I have received from them not only has made me a better overall racer, but it also allowed me to meet and talk to other drivers from a vast variety of age groups from young to young at heart. In addition to these modes there is a new one called Driving School. Driving School's purpose is to give the new racer the chance to see how the game works and how to do everything from controlling the car, to setting up your graphics, to working with setups. Sadly there are not any track tours this year. The only option in learning your way around the track is to just take slow solo laps so you can find braking points, or better routes around each track. Once you determine what mode you are going to race in, you will need to decide if you are going to race in Simulation or Arcade mode. The difference being Simulation is as close to realistic as possible, and Arcade is extremely forgiving and more like a console racer, where just moving fast is your only worry. Than you will need to decide how long the race will be (5-100%), how long the pre-qualify practice session will be, and than if there will be a Happy Hour (NASCAR name for warm-ups) and how long it will be. New this year is the Pit Stop Frequency setting. With it you can set how fast the fuel consumption and tire wear will be. This will allow even a short 10% race setting to have a pit stop figure into the race strategy. Damage can be set to None, Moderate, and Realistic. Weather has some new changes in that when set to a realistic setting the wind speed will constantly change throughout each session. Temperature does not change during a session, but it may change when going from one session to another session. Lastly, you can set how many AI drivers you will be racing against and how well they may be able to perform, also know as their overall strength. With a Manual setting you decide ahead of time how fast the AI will be on a scale of 70-110% strength. With the Auto setting you run a race and at the end of the race the game decides how strong a racer you were. Than the next time you race on the same track (again day and night tracks are considered different) the AI will automatically be adjusted to be at your current skill level. This is an excellent option for learning each track. This can give you an opportunity to race towards the front since the default Auto setting is 70% while allowing you to make mistakes and still have a chance to finish towards the front.
In addition to manual and automatic there is a new option called Adaptive Speed Control. With this the AI will adjust to your performance, always leaving you with direct competition. If you get a large lead the game will give the AI a massive speed boost to catch up to you. If you fall behind, the AI will than slow down to allow you to get back into the race. Once you and the AI drivers are back together the settings will default back to the strength percentage that was set prior to the race start. The downside to the Adaptive Speed Control is that the AI will get speeds and lap times that are totally impossible for the human driver to achieve.
Once out on the track you start to realize really what you have gotten yourself into. If you go immediately on the track and press the gas pedal to the floor with no aids turned on (or button depending on what you are racing with) you will notice that this isn't an EA game. For the veteran they have come to expect this. The new user at this point may not be sure what to expect next. The power of the car is well replicated on the track. Slam the gas expect to squeal the tires as well as possibly spinning out. First thing that needs to be realized is finesse is key to NR2003. Every action has a reaction. Once you determine the reactions, the actions become much more rewarding.
If you have played NR2002 you will be very familiar with the actual driving. The driving model is about the same except a little more refined. Setups have changed just a tad in that the cars are generally faster this year. The sense of speed also has improved. When drafting at 200mph at Talladega you definitely feel like you are moving just that fast (granted most of us have never even physically witnessed 200mph, but if you have ever driven over 120mph you will understand what I am saying). Those that are not familiar with the driving model will have a steep learning curve if you decide to go that route. For the most satisfaction out of NR2003, hands on with the simulation setting is the best way to go.
One of the biggest changes with driving is that now the cockpit view is adjustable. One of the largest complaints in NR2002 was that some thought it was difficult to judge the car from the cockpit view; I was one of those that complained. The complaints were heard and now the cockpit view is adjustable. There is a large range of adjustability, but only forward and backwards. There is not any up or down adjustment. Now before you complain, the cockpit view this year is the best I've used so far. The trade off to the adjustable seat is the view out the side is reduced as you move closer to the dash. Problems with the spotter delay still create unneeded situations, but as I said before, once you learn the spotter tendencies, you than only need to learn about those who drive around you.
This leads me to the offline racing. The AI in the past has always been very robotic like with its performance. The AI would stick to a very close line and there was little variation in the line that they ran. It was at times so bad that an AI driver that could have had an easy pass for a win, but they just stayed in line and finished the race. Not so this year. Yes there are still some robotic like qualities to the AI, but now they will jump out of line, take more risks, and most off all will on occasion try to give you push past other cars if there looks to be a benefit in doing so. I still do not see many cautions caused by the AI however. As in the past the AI can be completely customizable down to the individual drivers. There you can adjust their aggressiveness, speed, and overall performance. I did not make and adjustments with any of the AI so some of this could be changed with minor edits.
The biggest draw for me over the past two plus years has been the online play. Online play is still here and is still as big as always. There is a unique thrill to running with other humans and this has not changed. Don't believe that this is just a guy thing either. There are many women racing online. Granted the percentage isn't very big, but I think its great. There are a few women that can flat out race you into the ground and make you look very inferior. Races during prime hours are usually easy to find through the Sierra servers. Papyrus has numerous servers with their namesake on them as well. Normally you can find at least ten Papyrus servers for racing. If you don't want to race those check out some of the other public servers hosted by private individuals. All of the users, as they race, get ratings for how they perform. Most servers have a rating or an LPI (laps per incident) requirement to race on their server. When you start online racing you are a 0 rating in the four categories. The categories are Road Course (RC), Short Track (ST), Speedway (SW), and Super Speedway (SS). LPI is a factor that shows just what kind of racer you may be. Those with a low LPI tend to have numerous accidents, wrecks, or just plain problems during races. Those that are higher are usually more cautious, and respectful of the other racers around them. The average is about 20 LPI for the majority of users. You will still be able to find a lot of races if you are brand new to online play, so do not let not have any ratings deter your efforts.
There are options to run fixed setups where everyone is equal; with the only thing that can be changed is the controller response. Running open setups (user created) can have a steep learning curve. Though there is almost always someone of your equal online. On the track if your racing connection is good you should have little problems, but if others around have a slower connection, or even yours, you may see some jerky racing (called warp) on the track. The cars do still have this invisible force field around them to account for lag, latency, and warp issues. Where offline you can bump and grind with the AI, online this can get tricky. A slight tap in the corners may cause you or the other race to careen in the other direction. Papyrus said this was their only option in being able to account for these types of issues during online racing.
While the racing online can be very fun, it also can get very frustrating. There are still numerous users out there who try to enjoy making your fun, miserable. They are termed "wreckers". Flipside to this is the first time a new person makes an honest mistake they too sometimes get termed as a wrecker. This can be from something as simple as tapping a person in a corner or not realizing they were there. My advice is, ignore the chat, ignore the whiners, and just go out there and race and learn. Offline racing can teach you a lot but racing online is another game altogether and if you really enjoy online racing search for one of the many leagues online to join. There are a lot of them out there who are looking for the new, but dedicated user to run with. All previously ratings were reset with NR2003. So everyone has to start at the bottom of the rankings before having an opportunity to race some of the better races. Be patient and you could be surprised at how much and quick you can learn just by racing with these so-called wreckers as well as the veteran racers.