There are plenty of views to choose from including third-person, two dash views, a hood view and a bumper view. Trackside detail is a little lacking but since your focus is generally on the track ahead it is a minor issue at best. Car damage is good and parts completely loosened from cars persist on the track. The cars themselves aren’t on par with Forza but don’t look bad by any means. There’s both good and bad in terms of how Inside Line presents itself visually. Online games offer a good amount of customization as well. Yellow flags can pop up a lot and hurt the flow of online races but I suspect this won’t be much of an issue since this game will likely attract the more passionate NASCAR fans.
With support for up to 16 players online, multiplayer can be a real blast if you’ve got a room full of people prepared to play the game the right way. Casual players would be well served to watch some of the tutorial videos you can find online that outline techniques as bump drafting and such.
This isn’t a criticism of the game as much as it is an observation. As I mentioned earlier, you might be turning left a lot but there is so much more going on when racing in close quarters where you will have your hands full. However, put me amongst the field and my inexperience with NASCAR shows. In fact, even in the early career races on medium difficulty I was able to easily put my car on pole and create insurmountable leads in just a 20 lap race. When racing on an open track or against just a few cars I’m just fine. That is where my biggest challenge came from in playing Inside Line. There is little room for error when racing in a pack. To be fast and safe in a pack you need to be precise but in a more gradual way than say than being an accurate shot in a shooter like Halo or Call of Duty. The controls are good though and I hit a good sweet spot between being responsive but not overly twitchy. In a game like this where you are doing 180+ MPH with multiple grooves through turns control is key even without the other cars in close proximity. Racing two and three wide in a pack of over forty other cars on tracks with banking’s of over 30 degrees presents an entirely unique challenge compared to other racing games. There’s so much more depth to the sport than that. This mode is certainly built for fans of the NASCAR history and offers a nice diversion from Career play.Ī lot of people think that NASCAR is nothing more than a bunch of left turns. You can race weekends with full practice and qualifying sessions or you can skip the parts you want for a quicker overall experience.įurther to the Career mode there is a Challenge mode where players can recreate notable moments in NASCAR history or race in head-to-head challenges against NASCAR drivers. All 23 tracks from the 2012 NASCAR season are in the game and I like the fact that you can dig as deep as you want.
You begin your career as an up and coming driver and through races and seasons you build up credibility and sponsorship until you are number one. It is pretty typical sports game stuff in this mode. Hard core fans are likely to spend the bulk of their time in Career mode. It is a pretty standard set of choices compared to other yearly sports game releases but it is always nice to have a choice. You can jump into a race, play a single season, play just the Chase for the Sprint Cup (essentially NASCAR’s playoffs), various challenges including head-to-head races, time trials and the core career experience. Inside Line has the typical range of game modes you would expect from a sports game. While I did find the game challenging, NASCAR The Game: Inside Line is certainly a fun little racing experience. Over the past week, I had a chance to sit down with the latest NASCAR game to hit the Xbox 360. That’s not to say that I’m an expert at all of the techniques employed in NASCAR but I’m fan enough to appreciate what the sport has to offer.
I love the character that many of the drivers bring to the series and I appreciate the nuances of running a not-so-stock car around a track at over 180 MPH. That said, I do follow the Sprint Cup series but I just don’t sit down to watch full races like I might do with Ind圜ar and F1. Despite being a racing fan, NASCAR is the series that I follow the least.