NASCAR Racing

The Good
This is Papyrus' first entry to the NASCAR Racing series for the Macintosh. Two more versions were released in 2002 and 2003 offering OS X native compatibility. I will be talking about the first entry to this series because it is the only one featuring Classic Mac OS compatibility.

What sets the green flag off in this game is that it's slightly different over its DOS counterpart. It features menu screens that are controlled with a mouse rather than a keyboard. It's often a pain in the DOS version to make a few selections, and the Macintosh version simplifies that using the menu bar provided in the Classic Mac OS, which I really prefer to this version just for that.

The physics are really the best part in the NASCAR Racing series, as their IndyCar Racing games handled the physics already! It also supports a variety of controllers (specifically ADB at the time) for use with the game. (Believe me! I only use a keyboard, but sadly, my iMac G3 only supports USB!)

You need to have enough processing power and memory to play this game at its best! I'm talking about a 350 MHz iMac G3 with 1 GB RAM. I have one of those listed here in this review's paragraph!

Finally, Most of the Macintosh version's portions are linked to the 1996 DOS version of NASCAR Racing 2 (That game is not available on the Macintosh unfortunately, but I'm providing that as a reference).

The Bad
The 3D graphics look a bit pixelated. Believe me, this is 90s stuff after all!

The Bottom Line
This is the earliest NASCAR Racing game out there for PowerPC Mac OS Classic. If you are a NASCAR fan who has an old Classic PowerPC Mac (Wait, your Mac is not ready for the NASCAR Racing 2003 Season? That game needs to have a 1 GHz G4 minimum (my suggestion) and Mac OS X.) then I highly recommend it! Even non-fans will enjoy it too! Papyrus went on to make a few more sequels until 2003 when Electronic Arts acquired the exclusive license for a few more years! But still, it's a fun game to play, even if you are a big NASCAR fan!