LADYDRAGON>COM - 3D Nascar Pinball

With the computer industry being revolutionized on a day-to-day basis, and with new products, capabilities and graphics quality growing by leaps and bounds every second, game developers have had to reach into their bag of tricks to keep gamers interested in such classic gameplay as pinball. One of the best ways they've managed this is to incorporate big names into the game - thus came star trek pinball and now, 3D Nascar Pinball.

The concept in pinball is the same now as it was in the old days of Pinball Wizard: score points. But the similarity ends there. In NP, you'll be competing in a NASCAR race against others and how you control the ball will decide whether you win or lose. And rather than playing multiple tables one after another, in NP, you'll play on three tables at once. The first is the garage table. Here you'll tune up your car and get it ready for the ultimate race by plunking part targets and hitting the qualifying light. Then you'll move on to the Race table where you'll (doh) race a lap and collect points that will determine your starting position.

Next, is my favorite part - still on the race table - the actual race. Here you'll test your skill, scoring points and racing laps. When your car breaks down or needs maintenance, you'll have to visit the pit table for a pit stop and then hurry back to the race table to continue. Throughout the race, you can collect good driving bonuses like Catch the flag, collect the steering wheels or tires, etc. You'll have to watch out for accident events that will take away your points like collecting oil drums, avoiding the black flag, etc.

You get a nice selection of drivers and tracks too.

Watch for the Pit Stop!

The race begins!

You can be Dale Earnhardt in the Goodwrench Chevrolet, Bill Elliott in the McDonald's Ford, Terry Labonte in the Kellogg's Chevy or Bobby Labonte in the Interstate Batteries Pontiac. There are four kinds of tracks too: the Bristol Motor Speedway, the Atlanta Motor Speedway, the Watkins Glen International Road course and the Talladega Superspeedway. another cool feature is the NASCAR Vault, which is chock full of information about the tracks and drivers, as well as even more detailed information about the sport of NASCAR racing.

The graphics are adequate but not great. They're clear enough, but nowhere near the standards of action/adventure games of today. It's supported by keyboard, joystick, gamepad and mouse but I liked the Microsoft sidewinder best. It allowed the best control and could be customized easily for quicker reflect time. The sound was a mixed bag. The sound effects were awesome with cool motors reving in the background and even the announcer did a good job. However, the actual musical soundtrack was wimpy and didn't fit the game at all. It was also disappointing that the game didn't support multiplayer. It would have been more fun to play against a friend or two.

All-in-all, though, 3D NASCAR Pinball was an excellent Pinball game that kept my attention for quite a while. It's definitely a worthwhile contender for your money if you're into Pinball games, and for the newbies out there, you can adjust the settings so that it's easy enough to be fun and yet still hard enough to be challenging.

Company:
Sierra
www.sierra.com

Category:
PinBall

NOTES:

Interest: 80%
Maniability : 85%
Graphics: 94%
Sound : 85%
Originality : 80%

TOTAL : 85%

Requirements:

Operating System:
Windows 95/98

Processor:
Pentium 90 MHz processor

Memory:
16 MG RAM

Hard Drive:
65MB

Sound Card:
100% Sound Blaster
-compatible sound card

Video:
3d Accelerator Highly Recommended

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