I really wanted to like this game, and I do, but I can't play it anymore because of the little game-breaking bugs and "features" this game offers. I've put a good amount of time into it and have done multiple seasons in the career mode. The last race I did actually gave me one of the worst experiences I have ever had from a video game. Before I go into that I just want to say where this game is most successful...



Pros

- AI is fun to race against and gives a decent challenge (when up to speed). They could be a bit harder. 105 is fairly easy on some tracks to be honest. But the AI is also the weakest point which I will highlight in the Cons section.

- Lots of good tracks. I can feel every little bump and they are very nicely captured. I've been to many of the circuits and can say most of them are not far off.

- Graphics are fine. I don't really care about people who argue over graphics. It's a waste of breath. The overall style is simple and clean. Would definitely like to see some anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering options though.

- Plenty o paint schemes and most drivers are in the game. Having the 3 series structure is nice, with each series feeling like has its own driving style.

- Physics and controls are manageable. They have some options to customize all of that. Overall, it fells like I'm driving a racecar. Enough said. Though I would like to see a bit more wheel support. A buddy of mine can't get his wheels to work. Force feedback is actually surprisingly good, so I am happy with that.



Cons

- The engine sounds like an 8-bit soundbyte from the 80's. Seriously? It's 2017.

- The driving physics were fine, but when i slam into another car with my 3,300 pound car, i expect some sort of reaction from them. The AI is unwreckable. They must be made of solid adamantium or something because they will not budge when they wreck you or when you try to wreck them. You'll always end up wrecking yourself so there's no point.

- AI is oblivious to you if you go about 5 mph slower than them. If they see a wreck, they will go plowing into it, head first, without even thinking about letting go of the gas. This makes it impossible to just have a simple spinout. I guess yellow means 'go faster' for the AI. Or maybe they wanted to make it more action packed. They might as well add explosions at this point.

- Freight Training is back from everyone's favorite nascar game: Nascar '15 (sarcasm). The AI gets some magic banana rocket boost when they take the low line behind you. If you even give them an inch, they will hit the nitrous button and plow through you. It is toned back from the other games, but I can feel it kick in, especially when I see that I'm catching the AI in front of me, yet I'm getting freight trained by AI that is going at least 10-20 mph faster than me. It's fairly difficult to run the low line because of this "feature".

- The Rival system is trash and has always been trash. I remember when they first announced it and I genuinely considered not buying this game. My experiences with rival systems in past nascar games were not pleasant. Even after the update that was supposed to fix it, I couldn't even race the AI because all they wanted to do was wreck me. I only wrecked one or two people in about half a season on accident and I managed to make the entire nascar roster hate me. They are just programmed to leave you no room on the track and even sacrifice a win just to be annoying to you. It's the laziest programming I've ever seen. Also, don't bump draft them because that really pisses them off. Hell, just being in their vicinity pisses them off. If I had known how bad this rival system was gonna be, I would have saved my $50. It ruins career mode for me. I mean c'mon, rubbin is racin.

- The cautions are my least favorite part about this game. They don't seem to come out when you need them to, even the strict yellows. The last race I did, I ended up going from 2nd to 40th on the last lap because the flag twirler was picking his nose for 20 seconds before he heard explosions in the distance as I was getting gang banged by 3 different rivals at the same time. Normally, it takes anywhere from 3-5 seconds for the caution to come out, but it actually took around 17 seconds from the time I was sideways (I timed the game footage after I watched the replay). So the game waited for me to be in last to call the race. It almost brought tears to my eyes because of how beautifly choreographed it was. It was almost as good as real nascar. The best part was that i plowed into everyone in the field and I was thinking "Oh this is the Big One". But whoops, I was the only one wrecking while the AI kept it straight at full speed.



I really don't want to hate on the devs but there's so many little problems that add up to be game breaking. Some of them are simple fixes, like the draft cutting out randomly at Daytona/Talladega. There's plenty of other things that i reframed from saying in the cons section which I did because I really don't want to talk about this game anymore. Unless there's a massive overhaul of the AI and Career mode in this game, I won't be playing it anytime soon. So, for now, it's a thumbs down.

Game was great until 10/3 patch #2. I cannot configure throttle on my Logitech Driving Force GT, which was working perfectly before the update. I have cleared all mappings before trying to reconfigure and for some reason it just won't map the throttle. Everything else maps correctly. I can still use my wheel elsewhere(NHE, iRacing, F1) so the issue isn't on my end. Customer support has only tried to tell me to clear all mappings first. I did that, it didn't work, no further help other than "I've passed your issue to the developers."

Best career mode since 2007, but the game is unplayable at the moment. I can't recommend a game that I can't play.

I want to say I like this game, but I know it will just become another game that gets lost in my library.

The issues I have:
- "Full Damage" means your car takes mostly cosmetic damage. You are affected by some aerodynamic debuffs, but not as much as real life. Also, all damage can be quickly fixed by a pit stop, and if you are under caution, then the car is completely fixed without going a lap down or any performance drop. There has been some serious crashes, without any DNFs.
- No fuel loss during caution laps. Think you are going to be short a lap or 2 on fuel? Just cause a wreck and you will be fine without pitting. So will the AI. 3-4 laps pass under the yellow, without losing a single lap of fuel. Rinse and repeat to go the entire race without having to pit.
- Career mode can be summed up as cause enough cautions to set yourself up to go the rest of the race without pitting, but before the AI pits under yellow, then you win the race so long as the race stays green.

I would love a simulation NASCAR game, like the old ones. NASCAR hasn't had a good game in at least a decade. I wish Codemasters made the NASCAR games, because they do a great job with the F1 games.

The wheel support is so bad it feels like you're playing on a gamepad and no amount of settings was able to fix it.

Its good, just not worth the price, massive imporvement over '15, but still not a full sim like NR2003 w/ gen 6 mod.

That said, its never advertised as a full sim, but I still cant justify the price at the moment

some other issues
- lack of car number choice (theres only like 4 possibilities for MES)
- lack of native AA leaves jagged lines all over the place (although you could probably force this in GPU drivers)
- why won't the mirror stay active between races instead of having to turn it on every time (MP)
- would like the ability to set what gear you start the race in when in manual transmission mode
- lack of a start button in MP, instead you have to wait for a timer to countdown
- sometimes the first person view will glitch out and become lower then normal
- AI will literally run you into the wall at homestead
- lack of control rebinding
- no fov slider
- lack of a playerbase, on launch day, not a good thing (242 player peak)

in a perfect world i would want the following for nascar heat 3
- randomized weather simulation
- proper simulation mode/a better game engine
- fov slider
- customizable dashboards
- ability to import TGA car skins (a la NR2003)


this is a huge step in the right direction compared to nascar games released in the past decade or so, but still has its problems, and although I thought the price would be higher, even at $55 i feel that it is too expencive, considering you don't get the race ticket with the purchase of the pc version

this feels a lot like a port of a console game rather than a dedicated PC build of the game, although it runs at a perfect 60 fps.

refunded until a sub-$30 dollar sale

Im coming from NASCAR 15 which is already not considered the best NASCAR game in history, but this is terrible. The cars have terrible handling and its like the AI are on rails and cannot be turned or gotten aero loose... AND THIS IS COMPARED TO NASCAR 15!!!!! The plate racing is boring and the spotter might as well not be there because if you play in cockpit you know nothing about your surroundings. and don't even get me started on car customisation, which like the spotter might as well not be there! Compared to the older NASCAR games and modern titles such as iracing this game is a shambles and isn't worth your time. I recommend working on more realistic handling for both player and AI cars along with a decent spotter. As for customisation, add a 'paintbooth' like NASCAR 15 or remove the feature and add accessible game files so programs like photoshop can be used. From a title as hyped as the NASCAR heat games I expected better. The vast majority of NASCAR players don't want a child freindly arcade game. We want more realistic and immersive experience.

The physics are very weird and the contact with the other drivers is terrible, there's no bump draft in Xfinity and Trucks, if you try, at the end of the race you get yelled at and then you can't even win a place.
This physics is terrible, especially in truck and Xfinity, but in Sprint Cup it's a bit more playable.
That's why this game isn't as good as NASCAR 2015. They've added Xfinity and the Truck Series, but if that's what it's all about, you're better off doing nothing.
The 2015 physics are much better and there's a lot more content in the 2015 game.


It's stuck, nothing's added, nothing's improved.
The graphics have even regressed.
There's no damage management, no wreckage, smoke doesn't fly very high, so crashes are just part of the scenery.

Game crashes more then the race cars do in real life.

Buyer Beware!!!!! Once you buy this game. If the game quit's working for me it is starting and then crashing and I have found no workaround. I have tried re-installing the game doesn't work still crashes. Tried contacting 704 games I get nothing back. So I tried to get a refund because the game didn't work anymore. Steam refuses because the game was played more than 2 hours. I think people who buy this should get a refund despite the number of hours played. I paid for this game to work forever not work a little under a year and then just quit working. In my case I feel I should get a expection and get my money back or at least stream credit so I can buy another steam game.

I honestly don't know if I would recommend this game. If you're like me and building up your steam library, so there are no other officially licensed NASCAR games for sale at least on Steam, then fine get it because it's not terrible. However, its not great. My one favorite thing about this whole game, is Eldora. That is fun, even if it still has a super arcade-y feel.

Issues I have with this game:
- It has that arcade feel, and not the good kind
- Braking sucks
- No paint booth
- Forget passing on the high side unless it's a restart and even then it depends on the track. There
is just no momentum
- Cars seem to just float around, you don't get that sensation of the car sliding around on the
pavement. It's just kinda there.
- It doesn't look super great
- Any race on the road course
- Bump drafting is non-existent
- Setups and Race settings

What I like about the game:
- It is still a racing game
- It is easy to just jump into a race and get going
- Eldora is great
- Works with controller
- Depending on the track, the racing can be fun and can be competitive
- Customization of the driver, and can still race your own car/truck in career

Overall, it's not terrible, but it's not going to be a classic. If it's on sale, sure. But I woudn't and didn't pay full price. A lot of the hours I have logged on this game was not actually me, but my brother. He likes it if that helps. I wouldn't say I like it, but if I want a bit of a nascar fix, it's there, and it's not terrible.