Papyrus Racing Games and Sierra Entertainment have once again raised the bar in sim-racing with this latest edition of their award-winning NASCAR Racing series.

What's New For 2002

For the first time ever, Papyrus has included all 23 tracks from the 2002 NASCAR Winston Cup schedule in the box. There is also one special bonus, Coca-Cola® Superspeedway, a three-mile fantasy track with 36 degrees of banking and no restrictor plates! I can tell you one thing from personal experience, if you make a mistake at the end of the straightaway while doing 235 MPH in a tight pack of cars, your roof flaps aren't going to save you. You are in for one heck of a ride.

One other exciting new addition is the "Driving Lessons" section. If you are new to racing on your PC the ten general driving lessons will give you a head start. Although the lessons are intended to help a new racer get up to speed more quickly there are tips and tricks in there for the veteran racers as well. Also in that section are twenty-four track tours which are narrated by Darrell Waltrip. Darrell will show you your braking points, help you find the proper racing line and give you some specific tips to help you get around each track. Everybody should take the time to go through this section in detail as there is a bunch of great information here.

If you are already familiar with NASCAR Racing 4 (N4) then you will be comfortable slipping behind the wheel in NASCAR Racing 2002 Season (N2K2). Many of the menu options, setup options and in-game controls are the same. But that doesn't mean that this new release isn't for you too. While this isn't as big of an upgrade as NASCAR 4 was from NASCAR 3 it is certainly more than NASCAR 99 was from NASCAR 2. Better graphics, better sound (more on this later), more tracks and improved artificial intelligence make NASCAR Racing 2002 Season a must-have upgrade for all sim-racing fans.

How Does It Race?

The incredible physics engine from NASCAR Racing 4 is back and better than ever. In N2K2 the car feels more attached to the track and, for me anyway, I was much more comfortable racing on the short tracks and in heavy traffic than I was in the previous version. N2K2 just feels better to me and I was able to run with the leaders at Bristol using the default "fast" setup.

One item in previous Papyrus simulations that has drawn some fire is the computer-controlled drivers' artificial intelligence (AI). In NASCAR Racing 2002 Season Papyrus has continued the tweaking process and the AI has been improved to make them more stable under caution and even more aggressive under green-flag racing. They seem to make better pit decisions now too.

If you are not prepared for it, one of the biggest shocks that you will get when you move up to NASCAR Racing 2002 Season are the sounds. Papyrus has greatly improved their engine noise to make it sound just like the in-car cameras on Sunday. The sounds aren't just ear-candy either, the improved tire-screech sounds actually give you more feedback as to just what, exactly, the car is doing. The new range of tire noises really will help you become a better driver.

The Drawbacks

One word of caution, the game does seem to require a little bit more hardware than N4 did, however just a little bit more. I believe that I lost about 5-6 frames per second in comparison to the same settings in the previous version. In general, if your machine could handle N4 then you'll be ok with N2K2. If you were on the border racing in N4 then you might need to consider upgrading your hardware before you make the move up to N2K2.

The box specs for the game say that it runs on a Pentium II 450 with 64 MB of ram and a 16 MB video card but I would think that you'll enjoy your racing experience much more with a Pentium III 800 and any of the recent 64 MB video cards.

The Summary

If you've been a fan of Papyrus' NASCAR simulations in the past then NASCAR Racing 2002 Season is well worth your upgrade, If you've never raced on your computer before then there is no better time to start. Papyrus has truly turned out a winner with NASCAR Racing 2002 Season.