I’m a big NASCAR fan. I’ve been to Kentucky Speedway a few times, and watch the Winston Cup races every weekend. About three years ago, I got to go to the Indianapolis 500 with my Dad and his partner from work, and got my first taste of Indy racing. I was blown away by the cars zipping around at speeds over 220MPH, and immediately went on a search to find a decent IRL game for PS2. Well, Midway had done one earlier which was a little too arcade style for me, but finally someone has decided to put out an Indy game which tries to capture all of the speed and thrills of actual IRL racing.

The concept to the game is simple. You can select from a couple of different options up front to play, either in a single quick race, an Indy Championship season, or a multiplayer game with up to two players for a few left turns around the track. You can also select to race a set amount of laps, like 10, or you can run a quarter race (50 laps), half race (100), or a full race if you have a lot of time on your hands to do so with up to 33 cars on the track at once on any of the 14 tracks from the IRL circuit. You can also modify your skill level to make it a little easier or a little more realistic and challenging depending on your abilities. Winning races and doing other things like qualifying in a certain place will also unlock some neat bonuses too, like movies and pictures of IRL’s history and that of the drivers themselves.

IndyCar Series also adds in a feature called the Masterclass that you can select up front. This allows you to go in and get some tips and pointers from none other than Eddie Cheever Jr. to help you understand everything from controlling and switching gears properly to fine tuning multiple aspects of your car like, ride height, engine, and so on. This is a really good thing too since there is a pretty good level of tweaking that you can do, and I had a lot of fun messing with dampers, toe – in, and other stuff to try and get the car going exactly as I wanted it to go. 

The first thing that I really liked about the game is the fact that it can actually fluctuate between more of an arcade style of play or realistic style as I mentioned above. The more arcade style allows you to witness all of the speed and excitement of IRL without having to worry about your tires snapping off since you hit the wall in turn 3. In addition, you also don’t have to worry about pit stops and fuel, since it just allows you to race. The more realistic mode of course brings the full challenge of the IRL, complete with wrecks and realistic damage and having to pit in to avoid a blown tire or engine. As an added bonus, if you don’t really know what you want to do, there is a moderate difficulty setting that kind of mixes both of these together and a customizable option in single races to set it up however you want to.

Another impressive thing that I found with IndyCar Series is that they really did a decent job in capturing the speed and style of Indy racing overall. The cars will fire around the track at high speeds of over 220MPH with the landscape whirring by in a blur, and running two or three deep down the track can be really exciting since one wrong jerk of the wheel can send you into a wall or out of the race (if your playing under the realistic mode anyways). The replays also get a good feel of the sense of speed as well when you watch them, complete with multiple camera angles and the ability to check out crashes or situations that you may have seen or got into in slow frames or from different perspectives.

Lastly, let’s talk physics for a moment here. I have to say that the biggest thing that I found really good about IndyCar was the fact that the physics weren’t perfect, but pretty darned close. When you get into a draft for example, you almost feel like you are getting pulled into the person in front of you and that it really is making a difference. A few other games that I have played in the past didn’t feel this smooth with it, and it helps to capture the overall feel. In addition, little modifications that are made to the car like fuel amount and weight reduction feel like they play into the overall feel as well, so you really do feel like you are getting more of a sim than an arcade game. On a little more of a down note though, sometimes they seemed a little too harsh when you went for a full blown sim game, and things like rubbing the wall will mess up springs, etc. and it won’t seem right until after you pit. I know that it’s open wheel racing, but I’ve seen drivers scrape the wall and keep going before.

The biggest factor that I can see which may cause people to not like it much is the fact that it’s straight Indy racing … plain and simple. Every track is an oval track, and while fans of NASCAR may feel at home even if they aren’t too knowledgeable about the IRL, people who are more into F1 racing or LeMans style circuits may not find that there is enough here to keep them interested for long, even with some unlockable extras and high speeds.

Graphically, IndyCar Series looks really good in the car modeling and movement department. The cars have some really nice detail to them, especially when you get up close or watch the replay, and some neat little extras like smoky tires and what not were thrown in for added effect. The tracks and backgrounds look a tad washed out or rough in some spots though, and while there are some neat scenery additions and billboard signs the overall feeling that I had from it was that it was more of an early PS2 title than a more recent one. That’s not a bad thing, but comparing it to something like a recent NASCAR title it was just a little off from great.

The sound in IndyCar Series wasn’t too bad from a sound effects standpoint either. The cars of course have their usual whining and high pitched droning sound that we always hear with them or F1 cars, and you can hear the crowd cheer as you go running past them and towards the finish line. There is music that plays and fortunately can be turned off, since it consists of a mixture of rock and more relaxing musical pieces and really tends to be more annoying and forgetful than to help out. You also have your pit chief who comes over the radio to help you determine who is in front or next to you and when you need to drop in for a tire change, fuel, or a repair.

Overall, IndyCar Series is a fun title and is something that will bring you Indy fans a lot of fun and racing joy for a while. Thank goodness that someone not only did an IRL game, but did it well and added in enough to try and appeal to arcade and sim racers alike. If you aren’t much into oval track racing, this one probably won’t change your mind. For you NASCAR fans and Indy lovers looking for a good title though … here it is.  

Gameplay: 8.2
This game does a good job in balancing arcade style high speed racing with more realistic racing to try and offer a little something to anyone that happens to be a fan of the sport. The physics feel very good and you can do a lot of tweaking and fooling around with multiple aspects of the car that add to the overall impression that the developers really did want to make this as close to the real thing as possible (if that’s how you want to play). The damage can feel a little unforgiving when you go full blown at times though, which can be a little frustrating, but you can also do some mixing and matching depending upon what works for you.

Graphics: 8.0
The backgrounds and the people in the pits look like an older game on the system which isn’t terrible, but it just feels a little outdated. The cars themselves though look fantastic, especially when you’re rocketing up behind them or watching on the replay mode. You can also do some messing around on the replays and the camera angles, and it allows you to do slow downs to watch wrecks or tough spots and whatnot after the race. You can’t watch the full race though, which would have been nice especially if you wanted to pay attention to something that happened early on.

Sound: 7.5
What else would you expect from an IRL game than loud, high pitched, whirring engines of super fast cars? Well, it’s in there alright. Your crew chief will also pop in to let you know about what’s going on around you to help make decisions and figure out when you can merge in with traffic or when you need to stay put. There is music in the game, but I personally thought that they didn’t really seem well placed for this kind of game and either were forgotten easily or just turned off.

Difficulty: Medium
I’m going to go middle of the road here since it really all depends on what your favorite style of racing is. Regardless, there is a neat tutorial in there called the Masterclass which gives some really good tips and practice runs, and the AI of your opponents also wasn’t bad either. They weren’t too hard, but weren’t pushovers. They would make mistakes just like you are apt to do from time to time that helped with the overall experience.

Concept: 8.0
It’s about time that someone put out an actual Indy car racing game, and did it well at that. IndyCar series also included 14 IRL tracks (including the Indy 500) and the actual drivers in the game which was really neat, and finally I get to take a few laps with Helio Castroneves to boot!

Multiplayer: 7.9
The multiplayer game is a lot of fun, but there just isn’t really a whole lot that’s different about playing it single player other than the fact that you are racing with someone else … which is fun in it’s own right.

Overall: 8.3
Well, I was recently made into an Indy fan a couple of years ago, and I also love NASCAR which made this game really fun for me overall. If you like either of the above and oval track racing, you’ll have fun with this game and it does the IRL justice. If you don’t like oval track racing, it probably won’t do much to turn you into a fan, but I would recommend at least renting it and giving it a run for a weekend.