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NASCAR console gaming is in a state of limbo right now, but a silver lining could be on the horizon with a “substantial announcement” reportedly incoming soon. When that game is finally released, what types of features need to be included?
NASCAR gaming’s multiplayer experience is frustrating, to say the least. If you want to play a NASCAR game online, you are oftentimes stuck with finding a lobby and just sitting and waiting for a race to end before you can finally play. With the next game, there needs to be some sort of a “Quick Play” Multiplayer option. Instead of sitting in a lobby, just jump right into a race similar to other modern video games.
Of course, there should still be a private lobby option if you want to race privately just with friends or with a specific rule set. However, for those who just want to race, it should not take 10-15 minutes or longer before you even get on the race track. There also needs to be good matchmaking in this mode so that newer players are not stuck being crushed by more experienced players and vice versa.
It’s very surprising how many NASCAR games over the last decade have featured either no paint booth at all or a severely limited paint booth. In NASCAR 21: Ignition, you cannot take your custom paint scheme into career mode, and there is no option to create custom logos. Why would you take the paint booth out of the mode that you would want to use it in the most?
The next NASCAR game needs to have a paint booth with as many customization options as possible for use in both offline “Race Now” and online races. A paint booth should also be available in the career mode, but, with some limitations. Particularly, only being able to use the logos of your sponsors in the career is a completely understandable limitation in the career mode. If people don’t want to create custom schemes in career mode, then they can choose presets based on whatever their primary sponsor is.
One of NASCAR 21: Ignition’s most bewildering omissions was local split-screen multiplayer. It is a single-player game only offline, and that is just not right for racing games. Most racing games out there have an option to play split-screen multiplayer, and so do many NASCAR games.
Even if it’s not something that is used as often as other modes in the game, it has to be at the very least an option for players on consoles. A console game is not like iRacing, and there needs to be a split-screen option offline to play with friends locally.
NASCAR 21: Ignition does not include a challenge mode. Games just previous to it do include a challenge mode, but there is no real incentive for some of those modes. The next game should include some sort of a challenge mode with rewards ranging from items for the paint booth, to extra paint schemes, to maybe even extra tracks or drivers.
Including a way to allow players to buy some of these aesthetic things is okay too. However, challenges allow players to play for those things as well, which can be taken in both the single-player modes and online modes.
If there is a new developer, it is way too much to ask for a complete career mode similar to the EA Sports NASCAR games or even the later NASCAR Heat games in the first game. If it is the same developer, there are bigger issues to solve than the career mode. Regardless the career mode is the selling point for the single-player portion of the game.
It needs to be fun and entertaining, even if it does not have the depth of other games. As long as it serves as a good baseline for upcoming games, that would be acceptable. Including things like a decent owner mode and realistic driver contracts/expectations would go a long way even if it is just a Cup Series mode.
The next NASCAR console video game is a big one for NASCAR gaming as a whole. It needs to be a success, or there is no telling how much farther down NASCAR gaming could go.
