NASCAR The Game: Inside Line

[Jason]

Santa Monica, CA â€" May 17, 2012 â€" Hop in the driver’s seat, buckle up and start your engines because Activision Publishing, Inc, a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard Inc. and leading independent game developer Eutechnyx are pleased to announce NASCAR® The Game: Inside Line. Bringing the true NASCAR experience to consoles, the game will allow players to race with the top NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers, teams and cars, as well as feature all 23 officially licensed racetracks.  NASCAR® The Game: Inside Line is planned to launch Fall 2012 for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and the Wiiâ,,¢ system from Nintendo.

[Jason]

I wish they'd drop "The Game" from the title. Is it really necessary?

[Ted]

This is a sequel right?

[Jason]

Yes. At least they're not rushing it out this year.

[Jason]

First gameplay video:

NASCAR The Game: Inside Line

[Jason]

Some more videos:

NASCAR The Game: Inside Line Talladega

NASCAR The Game: Inside Line Xbox 360 gameplay - Daytona International Speedway

[Jason]

I'm gonna give this game a shot. Toys R Us is offering $30 off the price of any two games priced $59.99. My son is going to buy Assassin's Creed 3 and I'm going to buy this. With the sale, the games only cost us $45 each.

[Jason]

Via Twitter

Dave Thompson ‏@davet_etx

Will be testing another round of fixes to #NTGIL tomorrow. A couple of feature enhancements thrown in for good measure! #NearlyThere

[Jason]

Below is a list of bugs and feature enhancements that have been fixed / added to the soon to be released update. Sorry it's taken longer than we would have liked but as you can see from the details below, we've addressed the majority of issues that have really been affecting the user experience. Subject to final Q/A sign off, we expect this to go to Sony and MS week beginning the 10th December. Once it's approved, which could take a couple of weeks, it will be deployed.

Online:

   
• Xbox, a player can be put into a lobby where NATs conflict meaning they will be kicked when the counter reaches zero.
• If someone is dropped when in the Infield Garage, the rolling starts are broken.
• Matchmaking puts the player into a lobby when a game is already in progress.
• After a caution / quick caution, players can be dropped from the game.
• If a player DNF’s and then a caution is called, players separate into different lobbies.
• Infrequently the player appears to have hit a car in front even though they are not touching.
• Sometimes laps go out of sync when compared with other players in the game.
• On the Caution Summary, the number plate becomes mixed up if a player leaves the game.
• On the Garage Overview screens, the number plates are not listed correctly.
• If the host is in any position other than first, they will take off and leave the pack in both SF and DF rolling starts after a caution.
• When the Quick Caution screen appears, all players seem to have 80% “health”.
• When the Quick Caution screen appears for the second time, wedge cannot be adjusted.
• When reviewing the online race results, players who DNF’d aren't displayed.
• When joining a race in progress, only the host’s progress i.e. Racing Lap X is displayed.
• Sometimes cautions don’t appear to be called.
• Often 3 laps are run in a GWC.
• At the end of a practice session, the Overview appears different on numerous players consoles.
• A player car number doesn't show up in the lobby interface when joining a game in progress until that player finishes racing and returns to the lobby.
• When joining a session in progress and once the race is completed, a Race Over counter begins. This sequence breaks with around 10 seconds left.
• During the rolling start sequence a car can appeared ghosted.
• The session over times aren't in sync.
• Invalid laps from the Road Courses can be seen by others even though dashes are seen by the offending player on their overview screen (Qualifying).
• The overview screen can remain on during gameplay.

Offline / Possibly Online:

   
• Cautions are called when the player is on the apron around the start of the pit road zone.
• The CSR wheel depresses both the accelerator and clutch at the same time.
• Setups do not save correctly.
• One of the player cars disappear during the split screen rolling start and reappears when crossing the start line.
• The player can get inaccurate lap times, normally very small.
• A.I. cause cautions when leaving pit road under green flag conditions.
• The player position indicator is missing on the single file caution sequence.
• A.I. appear to have problems with pit strategy, pitting the lap after a Caution or most of the field coming in on the same lap under green.
• A.I. general over taking and passing of lapped cars has been improved.
• A.I. "brake checking" on certain tracks has been improved.
• During a pit stop changing the wedge, returning to do another stop, the wedge has changed.
• Richmond and possibly other tracks, some AI drivers change their paint scheme between practice and the race.
• DNF’ing because of damage or fuel doesn't update the race stats, it should.
• Adding a splash of gas would add a full can.
• The positions made / lost on the Caution Summary screen is often wrong even though the players are in the correct position.
• Roof flaps don’t deploy during replays.
• When receiving an message that a sponsor is interested, qualify 10th or better in the next 2 races, doesn't work.
• If the car is fatally damaged and on fire and rolls across the finish line in 1st place, it the burnout sequence and Victory Road the car remains on fire.
• If you run out of gas but win the race, you can’t go forwards during the burn out but you can reverse?
• During the single file caution state when others are pitting but not the player, the wrong way text or the ahead / behind indicator can appear under the text.
• Paint Booth, colors are added to the recent colors list even if they are in there already.
• The spotter stops talking when turning off the proximity indicator.
• Only the first 4 photo’s show up on the loading screen.

Re-Balance / Enhancement:

   
• Added black flags (only) to the flag rules in Choose a Race and Private Race.
• Increase the chance of a new primary sponsor offer being made.
• In Season mode, change the paint scheme of the player car to the scheme that ran at the appropriate race if we have it, otherwise default to the one the player chose at the start.
• The tire temp indicator shows blue at too high a temp.
• Change the tire wear indicator to a non linear scale to match the drop off.
• Re-balanced the road course penalty system.
• When creating a new setup the default values should be based on the preset race set up for that track.
• Re-balance how much the tires wear on various tracks.
• The car now overheats quicker.
• During the single file caution state, the player can use all camera functions.
• Right stick can be defined to accelerate / brake.
• Time to give a position back on the plate tracks increased to 10 seconds.
• Default Dead Zone setting for wheels should be 5%.
• When using a wheel, the steer assist should be used so that when full the wheel doesn't have any stagger effect.
• Mechanical damage has been made more consistent.
• A.I. cars can be turned easier by the player.
• Reviewed performance of wheels in the game and enhanced.
• Improved the stagger between cars during riling starts.

[webdanzer]

Jason, are you enjoying the game "as-is" right now, or is it pretty much broken until the patch comes out?

Thanks!

[Jason]

I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit as is. Most of the complaints seem to be about online issues, which don't matter to me now. The two biggest offline issues are the CPU drivers brake-checking on certain tracks (which I haven't seen yet) and the CPU AI shooting right up into traffic after pit stops, which I have seen a few times - but it's not a game killer. Both of these issues are listed as being corrected in the patch notes, so I'm pretty happy about that. I had suspicions about the "splash of gas" adding a full can of gas and it appears that is a bug which will be addressed by the patch too.

I will say that this game is a HUGE improvement over last year's game and looks to be even better once this patch is released. The racing is much more natural and unlike last year, the CPU drivers break in packs during the race instead of just forming one big conga line for the entire race.

[Jason]

Posted today:

Since late last week, the patch has been with Activision Q/A for extensive testing to ensure that it not only meets with the requirements of Sony and Microsoft but that all of the fixes have been validated and no new issues have been introduced.

Yesterday, around 6 issues we're flagged as been present varying for new problems to a couple of bugs which would have meant Sony and Microsoft wouldn't have approved the patch. We expect to have the issues resolved today and then a full test sweep will begin again over at Activision.

We know this news if far from ideal, however I'm sure you'll appreciated the lengths we are going to to ensure that all the above fixes work and no new issues are introduced. As soon as the patch is submitted, I'll publish an update here.

We really appreciate your patience, thank you.

Link: NASCAR Forum

[Jason]

Patch has been submitted to Microsoft.

Via Twitter:

Xbox 360 patch for #NTGIL has been submitted to MS. Not sure about the release timing. A PS3 update will follow. Thanks for your patience

https://twitter.com/NASCARTheGame/status/282201777758171136

[Jason]

The patch is planned to be released on January 18th for the Xbox. No word on a PS3 release date yet.

[Brad Company]

Wow