NASCAR 21: Ignition Review

NASCAR 21: Ignition, the new officially-licensed game from Motorsport Games, was released last week for PlayStation, Xbox and Windows.  I unfortunately purchased it and played it, and now it's time to tear it to shreds.

This game was once again built from the ground-up using Unreal Engine, and the graphics do offer a slight upgrade over the NASCAR Heat series.  Unfortunately that's where the upside to this game ends.

No rearview mirror: another questionable choice by the developers

The car-handling is extremely rough, with the car constantly drifting to the left.  With this constant drift, you need to keep hitting the stick to the right, but any slight over-correct will send your car careening towards the wall and no amount of steering will stop your car from avoiding a collision.

The overall physics are also terrible throughout the game.  Any sort of contact between you and another driver immediately spins you out with no chance to save your car.  Those wrecks collect the rest of the field, with cars flying through the air and massive pile-ups blocking the track for multiple laps.

The car also has, what I assume, are the same brakes as a Smart Car.  Even with the racing line on, I could not figure out when to brake to avoid contact with the wall or blow through a road course corner.  Another problem is that it is so inconsistent as to when the braking will actually stop the car that it's nearly impossible to use braking points on the track.

The game was built from scratch, but it took a step back in features.  The Xfinity and Truck Series are nowhere to be found.  Split-screen was also not carried over from the Heat series, so I guess I'll keep NASCAR Heat 5 around to play with friends (and also in general because it's a passable game).

Online might be the strongest racing the game has to offer, mainly due to the fact that every race starts with a massive pile-up that strings the field out.  The races don't start with the customary "coming to green" graphic; instead it drops you from a black screen straight into a split-second after you've gained control of your car. 

The game does finally bring back an actual paint booth to customize your own ride, but even that seems half-assed.  You can only place sponsor logos on the car one side at a time, which ruins any real chance of your car being symmetrical.

I've also gone in to see if I can mess with the settings at all to make it playable, and it seems like Motorsport Games thinks that "difficulty" is the same as "assists," as the customary easy/medium/hard settings for the AI are not there.  The AI also does not understand where you race on the track, and will stick to their line regardless of how much of your car is currently there.

"Do you think if we put an iPad in the car, they'll
think this is F1?"
- Someone on the development team, probably.

Overall, the game is a laggy, buggy mess.  I'm convinced the developers watched the FOX broadcasts of iRacing to figure out what made racing games realistic and then spent none of the time required to make it work.  Someone on the development team definitely had the job of playing the F1 games to see what makes them great, and apparently only thought it was the dashboard computer you have before driving onto the track.

As someone who has been playing NASCAR games since NASCAR Thunder 2002 and has gotten the Platinum trophy on PS4 for every game in the NASCAR Heat series, I feel like I have a grasp of what makes a NASCAR game great.  This game fails at every turn, and I can say, without a doubt, this is the worst NASCAR game I've ever played.

To be honest, I'm legitimately upset I bought the more expensive "Champions Edition" of the game, and I don't think I will be playing much of it again until they fix the numerous issues plaguing the experience.  If it's anything like the Heat series, we may be waiting for awhile.

Final verdict: 3/10 

A Look Back at My Top 10 Movies of 2017

At the beginning of the year, I wrote a post about the 10 movies I was most looking forward to during 2017.  And now at the end of the year, I'll look back at those movies and see if I really liked them as much as I thought I would.  I always rate movies I watch on IMDb, so my rating will be in parenthesis next to the movie title.

And it should go without saying, but beware of spoilers!

10. Logan (8/10)
This movie was the perfect way to end Logan's story.  I really enjoyed the take on an aging Wolverine, and Hugh Jackman once again delivered a wonderful performance for what may be the final time.  I ended up waiting until December to see this movie, but I am glad I finally watched it.

9. Annabelle Creation (9/10)
I really enjoyed this movie.  I thought the filmmakers did a good job at taking care of some of the crappy stuff from Annabelle, and I liked the vibe from the isolated house.  I felt like this was a pretty good entry into the Conjuring universe.

8. Thor Ragnarok (10/10)
I'll be honest: I think Thor Ragnarok may be my favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe film to date.  I loved everything about it.  The comedy was great, the characters were great; everything about it was great.  I'm excited to see where Thor goes in Avengers: Infinity War.

7. Insidious Chapter 4
This movie didn't actually come out this year, but it'll be out in January.  Check back later, because this movie will definitely be on my list of movies for 2018.

6. The Dark Tower (9/10)
Was this movie true to the books? No.  But it was fun, and that's all I really look for in a movie.  And technically it was a sequel to the books by Stephen King, so that's how they got around making something that wasn't really a Dark Tower movie.

5. Power Rangers (10/10)
I loved this movie.  I enjoyed the new take on the Rangers, but it still had nods to the original series.  The original Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers theme song was a nice touch, and it was cool to see original Rangers Kimberly and Jason with cameos in the film.  I'll also look past the whole "Megazord is built by love and friendship while burning up in a fire thing" too.

4. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (9/10)
I loved The Last Jedi.  I don't know what all the hate is about online, but I really enjoyed another trip to a galaxy far, far away.  The ending of the movie was perfect, and I believe it will set up for a very interesting finale to this new trilogy.

3. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (9/10)
I had such a great time watching this movie.  Baby Groot's antics throughout the whole movie put a huge smile on my face that stayed there the whole time.  I thought it would be hard to follow up the original, but Chris Pratt and company proved they could pull it off.

2. IT (10/10)
This was my favorite movie of the year, hands-down.  I loved it.  I've been a fan of the book and the TV miniseries from the 90s ever since I was a kid, and this movie was true to the source material.  The Loser's Club was perfect, as was Bill Skarsgard's portrayal of Pennywise.  He was equal parts creepy and funny and weird.  I loved every minute, and I can't wait to see the sequel.

1. Spider-Man Homecoming (10/10)
I loved this movie, but I didn't love it as much as I thought I would.  I just felt like something was missing, and I still can't quite put my finger on what was missing from Spider-Man's first solo entry into the MCU.  It was still a better movie than any of the Tobey Maguire films (I still love Andrew Garfield's Amazing Spider-Man films).  I'm interested to see where they take the character in Infinity War and beyond.

That's my list! What movie was your favorite of 2017?  Let me know in the comments below!