NASCAR Heat 5 | Xbox One Review
NASCAR Heat 5 is the latest edition of the fully NASCAR licensed racing franchise. It contains the real cars, teams, and drivers from NASCAR, as well as 30+ real tracks. Is this game worth your hard-earned money? Let’s find out.
Game Modes
There are a number of game modes to choose from, all of which you would expect to see. There is a “Race Now” that lets you jump right into a race and start playing. “Career” has some depth to it, where you can choose to be a company driver or start your own race team and manage it. “Online Play” has both lobbies where you can race with others, as well as an online challenge mode where you are presented with a chance to take part in changing the outcome of a real race. There are 3 difficulty settings and a leaderboard for the “Challenge Mode.” There is also a “Test Mode” where you can test out your custom car setups and make small adjustments to your build. This is a pretty big deal as the previous games did not have this mode and its inclusion here is very welcome.
Game Play
Despite NASCAR Heat 5 using an engine from 2016, the graphics look good and the game does a great job of making you feel the sense of speed. Whether it’s the lines on the track or the crowd rushing by, it all feels right. The AI drivers do not feel like random computer opponents, and race much more like a human than the previous versions. At no point did I feel like they were cheating to increase the difficulty; they simply raced better. You can adjust them for as much or as little challenge as you would like.
In fact, there are a TON of things to adjust in this game. From your car’s setup to the RPGish way in which you can create your driver avatar. Even vehicle damage can be adjusted. The tracks do a good job of feeling different from one another and each plays differently with different lines and in the more realistic game modes a totally different car setup.
Negatives
I did notice some stuttering at some points while racing and it’s not clear why. It happened once while I was in the middle of the pack, but again happened during a solo test run. It’s enough that it will break the immersion, and in the case of it happening in the middle of the pack it caused me to slightly lose control and fall back a few places. In addition, the game is clearly not running at 60 FPS and feels much closer to 30 FPS, which is a real shame given the capabilities of the Xbox One X that I was running on.
There is also zero help for those that have no idea about racing other than go fast and turn left. Some kind of tutorial would have been nice to see, and its absence really stands out. This is even true within the game’s menu system. It’s not clear how you create and load custom car setups, and requires some poking around and possibly searching online. The lack of polish really shows here.
Final Thoughts
The game is fun, but lacks the polished features of other sports games that you would expect to see in an officially sanctioned game. If you are a big NASCAR fan, NASCAR Heat 5 will be worth checking out, but if all you want is a racing game you may want to look elsewhere. You’ll want something that is more of a complete package and has the tools to help you learn what to do differently and improve.
To hear me talk more about NASCAR Heat 5, be sure to listen to Episode 305 of The Gaming Outsider Podcast around the 1:12:04 time stamp.
This review is based on an Xbox One copy of NASCAR Heat 5 provided by Sandbox Strategies for coverage purposes. It is also available on PlayStation 4 and PC via Steam.
NASCAR Heat 5
$49.99
Pros
- Crisp Controls
- Real NASCAR Drivers/Sponsors
- Smooth Online Play
Cons
- Lack of New User Tutorial
