Papyrus' and Sierra's NASCAR series is coming to an end with their latest release, NASCAR Racing 2003 Season. I'm going to take a look at some of the new features, and tell you what's been changed since the last release, 2002 season. The documentation included in this demo mentions that this version is about 80% complete, so some things can still be added or changed for the final release. After playing the demo for only a few days, it's still hard to get a good view on some aspects of it, but I'll try to explain what I like or don't like about it so far.

When launching the demo the first time, you get the familiar configuration options. You can choose between the DirectX and OpenGL renderers and choose the graphics resolution and colour depth. All this is familiar for all those who have played N2002. I have to mention one difference I found out compared to N2002, though. In N2002 I used to get a better frame rate using OpenGL. However, in N2003 I get about 5 fps more with Direct3D. I'm sure this depends on lot of different things, as I've heard reports that other people are getting better results with OpenGL. The image quality also seems slightly better in D3D for me. Another advantage of D3D is that you can switch between Windows desktop and the game. Right, let's move on to the game itself!

The first thing you'll notice is that the menu layout is the same as in earlier versions. This is a good thing, because I've always liked the menus in Papyrus games. They're clear, easy to use, and quick. Just what they need to be, without any extra gimmicks. The colour scheme is changed from N2002, and I like it. Maybe it's just that it looks different, but I like as it's more colourful, but not too much so. All the menu pages also have animated images on the background. After a while you get used to it and don't really pay any attention to it, but this is how it should be. It's another nice touch. Like I mentioned before, the menus are the same as in N2002, with a couple of new options. In controls there's an advanced menu, where you have a couple of new options for keyboard and gamepad drivers. The graphics menu has probably the most new options. There are new settings for the track lighting and shadows, but the most important one for me personally, and finally we have a chance to adjust it, is the field of view (FOV) setting. You can change the FOV between 65 and 78 degrees. I believe 78 was the default in previous Papyrus sims. This gives more visibility to both sides of the car, but makes things look smaller and gives that back seat feel. Changing the FOV to 65 degrees (default in N2003) takes away visibility to the sides, but increases the front view and makes everything look a bit bigger, and in my opinion, more realistic.

In this demo you have the choice of two tracks, Michigan and Talladega. I would've liked to see either one (preferably Talladega as I'm no SS fan) replaced with a shorter track to get a better feel for the new physics. You can choose between a training session or a single race against maximum of 11 AI cars and a race length of 5 or 10%. There are a few new options here, too. First of all you can choose “pit stop frequency” from 1x to 4x. This basically multiplies the fuel and tyre wear by the chosen value and it's available both in training and single race. When racing the AI you can set their strenght to “auto” mode. This was also used in Papy's 'Grand Prix Legends' and means that the AI speed changes depending on your speed and results in races; they get faster when you get faster. You can of course also change the AI strength manually from 70% to 110%. There's also a new option for “adaptive speed control” - if this is checked the AI adapt to your speed during the race. It seems to work as planned, as in a race I did at Michigan I had set the AI to 70% strength. I built a 3 second lead on one lap, but then the AI cars sped up and closed down my lead in just a couple of laps. This is a good feature if you want to have close racing all the time, but it's a bit unrealistic for my liking. But it's nice to have as an option. Let's head to Michigan for a training session to see what kind of changes there are in the garage and if the new physics really are as good as the hype would suggest.