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NASCAR Revolution PC Publisher: EA Sports Developer: Stormfront Studios Players: 1-8 Difficulty: Medium Camera: Far Chase, Farther Chase, Close Chase, Cockpit, Hood Download The NASCAR Revolution Demo Recommended System Configuration For Demo And Final 266 MHz Pentium II processor or faster 64 MB RAM 24x or faster CD-ROM drive using 32-bit Windows 95 or 98 CD-ROM driver 370 MB free hard disk space plus space for saved games (additional space required for DirectX 6 installation) DirectX 6 compatible sound card with DirectSoundTM support Voodoo2TM accelerator card DirectSound3DTM and Environmental AudioTM supported audio card Racing wheel or game controller Required for Multiplayer Games Network (2-8 players) IPX compliant network Modem (2 player) 100% Hayes-compatible 28.8 BPS or faster modem High speed serial port (16550 UART) Required for Serial play (2 player) Null modem cable High speed serial port (16550 UART) Additional Pictures Screen 1 Screen 2 Screen 3 Screen 4 Screen 5 Screen 6 Screen 7 Screen 8 Screen 9 Screen 10 Screen 11 Additional Movies Movie 1(830k) Movie 2(952k) Movie 3(2.2mb) Movie 4(1.7mb)

Here Is Dale Crusing Along With A Beautiful Looking Car Crashes Just Do Not Look Natural To Me NASCAR Revolution's Presentation Is Great TACH- O -METER Control: (3) Graphics: (4) Sound: (2) Replay Value: (2) Overall: (2)

NASCAR is one of the most popular racing organizations in the world. It is to nobody's surprise that a gaming company would create a game based on the series. But what is not to my surprise, though, is how EA Sports was able to create a game like NASCAR Revolution and end up with happy gamers that have purchased the game. NASCAR Revolution seems to be rushed in the gameplay department but well thought out in the graphics department. Again it is relevent that the gaming industry is going to the hogs when some of the most renound gaming publishers, like EA Sports, let a game that has great graphics but poor gameplay get through to the public.

Revolution is like many of the NASCAR games on the market. Plenty of options like number of laps, computer artificial intelligence, and details like these litter the game all over the place. This is great for those of us who would not dare actually race a full NASCAR race with over 200 laps. But if there is a handful of you all out there be ready for hours of racing at your fingertips. Revolution has some great menus that are full of color and easy to navigate. There are no load times in between menus as well; this helps me out considering I am the most impatient person in the world.

After getting all the settings the way you like them to be (sounds, details, controls) you can then begin selecting the driver, track, and race options. Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, the whole crew is here. Ever wanted to see what they have to go through, oh you can with Revolution. Right off the bat you can tell that the graphics are very nice. You are greeted with a nice 3D view of the select driver's vehicle. Everything on the car is very legible. I could make out all those little decals of the different sponsors for each of the drivers. These graphics and roster of actual drivers made me incredibly excited and wanting more; I could not wait to see these bad boys in action! After selecting the car it is easy as cake to select the track. All your favorite NASCAR tracks are there but do not ask me why Daytona is not included in this list. Some of the races on the tracks can also be at night which adds a nice atmosphere to the race. Below are the lists of selectable racers and tracks.

DRIVERS AVAILABLE
John Andretti Johnny Benson Geoff Bodine Jeff Burton Ward Burton Ricky Craven Dale Earnhardt Bill Elliot Jeff Gordon David Green Bobby Hamilton Ernie Irvan Kenny Irwin Jr. Dale Jarrett Bobby Labonte Terry Labonte	Randy LaJoie Sterling Marlin Mark Martin Jeremy Mayfield Ted Musgrave Steve Park Kyle Petty Ricky Rudd Ken Shrader Mike Skinner Hut Stricklin Dick Trickle Kenny Wallace Rusty Wallace Darrel Waltrip Michael Waltrip
TRACKS AVAILABLE
Atlanta Motor Speedway Bristol Motor Speedway California Speedway Charlotte Motor Speedway Darlingtion Raceway Indianapolis Motor Speedway Las Vegas Motor Speedway Martinsville Speedway Michigan Speedway	North Carolina Speedway Phoenix International Raceway Pocono Raceway Richmond International Raceway Sears Point Raceway Talladega Superspeedway Texas Motor Speedway Watkins Glen

With all these tracks, all my favorite racers, great graphics so far, how could this game go wrong? Oh but it can. First of all this game requires a 3D Accelerator card. What it should actually read is "At Least A 16MB 3D Accelerator Card". In my system I have a Matrox Millennium G400 32MB AGP card and even with this card that is able to handle other games like Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament had a pretty noticable slowdown around the turns. On top of that, I did not even have a full field of racers. There were 15 cars that I was racing against and it still had a slowdown. Either the developement team is blind or just wanted to sabotage the game, you need a really good 3D Accelerator card in order to play at a decent speed. Another noticable sign is the sense of speed. When on straightaways I barely thought I was moving. The speed finally caught up with me when I reached the turn.

Sound. Oh man I feel bad for the weak, unimaginable writers for the commentary in the game. First of all the sound effects are alright. Engines sound good, bumps sound good, and the pit crew help is pretty good. But the sounds are so monotonous it is rediculous. If I have to hear the same fact about Mark Martin again I will punch a hole through the computer screen. Throughout the race there are a few facts that the commentary will throw out at your and they get so annoying later in the game it is better just to turn the commentary off. The only good reason to even think about leaving it on is that they tell you the race standings throughout the race which is actually helpful. But then there are the stupid facts, about three per track that are repeated the whole time. One of the facts is about the driver, another one about the track, and another one about NASCAR racing in general. It was a good idea to include these facts to liven up the race but a wider range of facts would have been a lot better. Everyone knows the type of music that relates the most to NASCAR. I cannot really describe it but it is kind of country but then a little rock mixed in. Well that type of music is prominent in the game. It is also pretty good. Fast, adrenaline pumping tunes mixed with crap commentary? Not a good combination but hey, you can turn the commentary off.

I am used to playing many racing games on the PC with the keyboard. Sorry, I just never had a thing with those steering wheels. Just guessing here but I feel that I have more control with a keyboard. You never know I might use a steering wheel one of these days. Anyway, using the keyboard I had really good control over the car. Very responsive and it did not take a long time to get used to the controls. If you are even a mediocre racer you will be able to pick this game right up and play.

Aside the regular single race mode there are also Championship Season and a Multiplayer Mode. Championship Season is pretty much the most useless mode to me. All it is is just racing around all the tracks in the game. There really is nothing to accomplish. It is just as easy just to race all the tracks in single race mode but EA had to throw a few new modes into the mix. Then I get to Multiplayer. Before I begin to bash this mode too hard let me remind you that this is just my opinion and you do not have to believe everything I say. Now back to Multiplayer Mode. OHHHHH Serenity now! I should start by just saying this,"I tried to play the multiplayer mode in Revolution but I ran into a bit of trouble". What was that trouble you might ask? Well...There were NOBODY to race against! As I was trying to play a game over the Internet nobody was on that wanted to race. Options for Multiplayer Mode are IPX, Internet, and LAN connections. Also there is a Multiplayer League available to mess around with but I was unable to acquire enough time using this feature to discuss it here. If you are able to hook up eight people in an office over a LAN then go for it but do not expect to get a multiplayer game going over the Internet or IPX.

NASCAR Revolution has a life span of about 5 weeks at the most, after that the game will become yesterday's news and you will definately run away from it. It is hard to believe that this happened to a game that looked to have promise but it just goes to show everyone, !!Attention Developers!!, there has to be great gameplay to be a good game. An example is the very first Nintendo system that was released way back in the mid 1980's. Theres a system that will never die. Some of the greatest games came out for that system and the graphics were not near today's standards but there needs to be more games like the ones for the original Nintendo.

****Just to save space I did not mention any of the glitches that were found in this game. It would take a long time to list them all. EA Sports has released a patch for the game that cleaned up a lot of the crap found throughout the game. Also, I would like to congratulate EA on having some of the best Technical Support I have had to deal with. No joke. They helped me fix some of the problems I had and I commend them for that!

-Nick Steinhauer