NASCAR Rumble

by Scary Larry
January 01, 2000 00:00 AM PST

Let's get ready to rumble with EA's newest racing title, NASCAR Rumble. Now you get to mix it up wild-style with over 30 NASCAR racers as you bump and grind through some seriously twisted tracks. It's Destruction Derby meets Crash Team Racing in NASCAR Rumble!

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As NASCAR As You Like It
Fans of traditional NASCAR racing better hold on to their steering wheels, because NASCAR Rumble turns racing on its head and drives straight on through into insanity with no pit stops. In NASCAR Rumble, you pilot one of 30 "modified" NASCAR cars or one of seven NASCAR trucks. You then proceed to rip and tear your way through six tracks (including Daytona Beach, the Sierra Nevada mountains, and more), most of them with awesome time-shaving shortcuts and axle-bending road obstacles. As if that wasn't enough, there are some seriously twisted power ups like track-clearing Tornadoes, vision-blurring personal Storm Fronts (that just affect the target car and no one else), battering rams, and more. You can set the level of power ups, the number of cars on the tracks, and you can even power up your car through experience.

NASCAR Rumble also piles on the replay value with five different game modes, 30 real cup drivers, hidden drivers, and hidden cars. There are even some funny special cars like a chicken truck, RV, tow truck, and more. For an added challenge, you can elect to race special legendary drivers like Richard Petty and Davey Allison, or unlock hidden tracks (one hidden track in each of the six courses)

Hear In My Car
The graphics don't add the muscle that that the cars do, with very pixelated details and one-dimensional effects (the tornadoes are a joke), but there is surprisingly little draw in. The graphics do pick up some speed with the spectacular and death-defying crashes, flips, and spinouts.

The sound, which is another of the game's drawbacks, features original voice commentary by Jess Harnell, famed for work on Animaniacs and The Tick. If you feel like racing with the voice of the Tick coursing through your eardrums, then you're braver than most. The sayings get repetitive, though there are few funny spots along the way.

Control is nothing like a real racing sim, so don't expect Gran Turismo 2 coming out of the gate. You steer, brake, launch power ups, and powerslide into hairpins with ease. But just in case you find the car's mechanics too cheap, there's a handy reset button that puts you in the right direction.

Welcome to the Wheel World
So as mediocre as the game looks and plays, it's still a lot of fun. Where else can you watch Jeff Gordon ram Kyle Petty off the road just to see them both swallowed up by a tornado? The game's stylish crashes and stomach-churning metal crunching is worth the price of admission. In the long list of impressive PlayStation racing games, NASCAR Rumble is definitely in the funny car competition.