Game Review : Nascar 26

Having not played a Nascar type game since likely the PS2 era, and not being a fan of watching Nascar at all, I was genuinely excited and eager to jump into Nascar 26. Boy was I wrong though.

Kicking into it just jumping into a quick race my first though was ‘this looks really nice’, then the race started. For all the great dynamic lighting and shadows here, the rest of the game is so ugly. Cars themselves most look good but get choppy especially when many are close together. The tracks themselves though and crowds are just blurbs and lines that at times had me question if they did pull some PS2 graphics to go with into this. At times it was almost as if all the high end visuals were put into some of the cars and the rest of the track and game was kept in 720p.

After that race though you’ll experience menu-palooza. Visually, this games menu system is horrendous and outdated. White backgrounds with endless amounts of slides, tabs, and more to go though. Not very user friendly especially for newer fans into the series.

Career mode is the same too. Endless menus that feel way too complicated for seemingly doing nothing really at all. No matter what you have it all boils down to fixing two cars and then just alot of scrolling that doesn’t feel like it does much. Instead of dealing with it I expect most will just do the modes like Quick Race, Chase, or Championship as its the same thing just without endless screens between races.

The best part here is the racing itself. Its smooth overall, complex for those veteran players but simple enough for newbies to not feel left out in. Little things break the experience at times like seeing cars go through you at times as if you are a ghost car.

Multiplayer will break the casual fan though. Looking like a menu out of 2008, the online is entirely picking a lobby. Each one is custom set with rules by the host and the games on a timer system so don’t get use to playing a with a full lobby.

By the end of my time trying Nascar 26 I was just tired. For how fun the actual racing can be the rest of the game feels like outdated or overly complex with nothing changing of substance that I just stopped caring. If the series is only for diehards they might love this but I genuinely can’t see why.

Score : 1.5 / 5

Review code provided by the publisher