Publisher: Microsoft Games
Developer: Turn 10
Release Date: 17 May 2016
ESRB Rating: E (for Everyone)
MSRP: $19.99 US
Genre: Racing / Sports / Simulation
Platforms: Xbox One
Developer: Turn 10
Release Date: 17 May 2016
ESRB Rating: E (for Everyone)
MSRP: $19.99 US
Genre: Racing / Sports / Simulation
Platforms: Xbox One
Average Admission Price: $1.33 per hour.
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My Rating: 9 out of 10 – near perfect stock-car racing!
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In the world of auto racing, NASCAR is arguably the most popular form of motorsport in America. In fact it is particularly American – because only the United States can legitimately claim it as its own thanks to its unique and entertaining origin story – that happens to be a true story, bro.
The origins of NASCAR are found as the natural competitive outlet of the prohibition-era bootleggers who created the sport. Souping-up their street cars, they then gathered together on beaches and sand flats (when they were not racing along county highways in cars loaded with cases of untaxed moonshine whiskey) to see whose car was better, and which driver had the finest skills?
The NASCAR Expansion for Forza Motorsport 6 thrusts NASCAR onto the world racing stage in what we can only describe as an in-your-face go-big-or-go-home style typical to that stock car racing community.
All things being equal, no other game could pull this off. Only Forza Motorsport has the reach and the chutzpah to deliver a video game treatment that honestly presents the big picture – from its illegal origins to the highly regimented and properly managed sport that it is today.
If you require some profound quote to solidify the sport in your mind, consider the words of veteran NASCAR racer Junior Johnson, whose racing career spanned 1953 thru 1966 and who won 50 of his 313 races.
“According to my grandpa when prohibition became the law of the land the preacher at our church declared that crime would all but disappear; that the prisons and jails would empty out and no longer be needed, and the country would be better off for it. . . I reckon the only good thing to come out of prohibition was NASCAR.”
That pretty much sums up the origins and in some ways the justification for this well-organized structure and the community of racers that gathered around it. What it doesn’t explain though is the often theatrical appearance of the sport.
NASCAR itself is not only aware of those theatrical elements, but it actually celebrates them – its Hall of Fame is officially and unofficially called The High Octane Theater!
Generally speaking, gamers from the West (and when we say “West” we mean anyplace OTHER than Asia) who are at all aware of theatre in Japan will know that Kabuki — perhaps the best known form of traditional Japanese theatre — combines music, dance, and drama to tell a story.
To phrase this in terms that are instantly recognizable for most gamers, the play and movie The Book of Mormon would perfectly qualify as Kabuki theatre.
Less well-known but gaining popularity since its wider introduction in the mid-1980s is the Sho-Gekijo Theatre movement — which when it is literally translated means “little theatre” in English.
Generally this sort of play is made up of amateur theatrical troupes who are making plays designed to be seen by anyone and everyone — telling stories or shaping moral lessons with intentionally less impact or drama — the idea being to simply entertain the audience with concepts and environments well known to them.
For NASCAR when you are sitting in the stands at a race, you are viewing a Sho-Gekijo – but when you are sitting in your front room on your comfie couch watching NASCAR on television, what you are experiencing is clearly Kabuki.
At its very foundation the NASCAR expansion for Forza Motorsports 6 is typical a fusion of Kabuki and Sho-Gekijo Theatre – a collection of familiar objects — the stock cars — paired with accessible heroes — the drivers — presenting epic struggle — the race — as its theme.
Add in a roaring country tune and scantily-clad pretty girls dancing in the stands in their Daisy Dukes and halter tops with the odd cowboy hat thrown into the mix, and buddy you got NASCAR!
Because while there are legitimate strategies and a requirement for epic levels of skill — after all these men and women are driving massive heavy stock-cars at very close range to each other on complex and restrictive courses at speeds often exceeding 200 MPH – so damn fine skills are called for in that incredibly dangerous and death-defying sport!
The NASCAR Expansion to FM6 brings all of the thrills of stock-car racing to the world stage – but it does this in a way that is right out of left-field and certainly encompasses a rather original question — that being WHAT IF?
What if we took NASCAR stock cars and thrust them into environments that were both never contemplated during the stock car engineering and design process, competing with cars from completely different but similar racing styles, on courses that never considered having such vehicles raced on them?
The Forza-NASCAR expansion features 24 new cars from the 2016 NASCAR Season, adding in an all-new and original career mode, updated game play mechanics, and new circuits and destinations, all while challenging the player to not simply experience the massive power of NASCAR but, to experience it in ways and in circumstances that only Forza Motorsport 6 can deliver.
Now add to that mixture of new and unusual propositions a cadre of professional NASCAR drivers – no, not just pro’s but the cream of the crop of the pro’s if you will – who guide the players by offering up nuggets of wisdom and observations that they are uniquely qualified to share (you have to believe that the concept in this expansion is certainly one that those drivers have at least day-dreamed about, come on!).
A selection from this epic roster includes:
Chip Ganassi and Jamie McMurray of Chip Ganassi Racing
Veterans of CART, NASCAR Sprint Cup, NASCAR Xfinity Series, IndyCar Series, WeatherTech United SportsCar Championship, World Endurance Championship, and two Global Rallycross’ culminating in 18 championships and more than 160 wins racing Chevy SS stock cars.
Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin, and Matt Kenseth of Joe Gibbs Racing
In addition to being founder/owner/manager of his winning racing team, Joe Gibbs has an established rep as a three-time Super Bowl winning coach for Washington’s NFL team. Gibbs and his drivers also happen to have an established Championships record that includes four Sprint Cup Series (2000, 2002, 2005, 2015) and 1 Xfinity Series (2009) and 264 wins racing their Toyota Camry stock cars.
Kasey Kahne, Chase Elliott, Jimmie Johnson, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. of Hendrick Motorsports
Established in 1984, Hendrick Motorsports has earned a record 11 car-owner championships in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series. Winning 294 races, their Championships record includes 11 Sprint Cup Series (1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013), 1 Xfinity Series (2003), and 3 Camping World Truck Series victories. Their NASCAR Team races the Chevy SS.
Other teams present include Stewart-Haas Racing (Tony Stewart, Danica Patrick, Kevin Harvick, and Kurt Busch) and Team Penske (Roger Penske, Joey Logano, and Brad Keselowski), who combined share their hundreds of years of combined driving experience and wisdom with the players in unique introductions and voice-over lessons in the game.
http://youtu.be/Saite7sy_dg
Essentially what the wizards behind the game did was to ask the question: What would it be like if you took the classic NASCAR cars and treated them like the typical race car for the world racing circuit?
As you probably imagined the NASCAR Expansion for Forza Motorsport 6 involves driving a variety of NASCAR model cars on highly diverse tracks and courses across pretty much the entire racing world.
If you are any sort of fan of the world of auto racing the names of these iconic courses will be very familiar to you – but the notion of letting loose a score of drivers in modern NASCAR cars? That will probably strike you the same as it did is — as a jaw-dropping concept whose execution leaves you feeling warm and fuzzy.
In terms of game play structure, the basic design for this expansion couldn’t be any more exciting and really, when you stop and consider this as a concept, any more frightening.
After all we are talking about taking what are arguably the fastest and most nimble designs in the world that only barely DON’T qualify as a production car, and pitting them against both each other AND some of the wildest courses ever created by man?
Now add to this the fact that the answer to the question is being played out on what is arguably the most popular professional auto racing simulation game in the world, and what you get is the perfect excuse to ring-in sick on Monday morning. We’re just saying, we have access to what are easily the most addictive hardware in the world and we get to race it on what are a network of sound, tight, and very immersible racing courses.
Considering the fact that we are basically taking some of the most popular auto racing models and ripping them out of the environment that they are designed for — the we have placed them among some of the most beautiful and challenging driving environments to be found on good old Terra Firma?
That is a priceless idea indeed. Clearly this is NOT going to be a day of all-left-turns. Just saying.
Remember the question that this section opened with? “What would it be like if you took the classic NASCAR cars and treated them like the typical race car for the world racing circuit?”
The wizards behind Forza proceeded to answer that question by taking the most famous cars from historic racing teams like Chip Ganassi Racing, Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, Stewart-Haas Racing, and Team Penske to name just a few — and run them through what should have been a meat-grinder to find out.
The NASCAR models that players can choose from includes:
- 2016 Chevrolet Super Sport
- 2016 Ford Fusion
- 2016 Toyota Camry
Each of the cars sports the unique and often startling livery and paint schemes for which NASCAR is so well known – for example the #1 Chip Ganassi Racing McDonald’s 2016 Chevy Super Sport features a red, yellow, and black base paint scheme that makes perfect sense it having McDonald’s as its primary sponsor – but a closer look at the car reveals it has some secondary sponsors that include aircraft manufacturer Cessna, tire maker Goodyear, and Credit One.
Around the sponsor flash painted on the car (well no, not painted – they use computer-cut vinyls but it LOOKS like paint) every NASCAR ride sports the small flash decals for the equipment manufacturers whose kit are part of the vehicle – like Mahle, 3M, Flowmaster, adn Edelbrock.
To make the issue crystal clear to any fan looking on, the fuel cap is circled by a bright green disc that declares that McDonald’s #1 is powered by American Ethanol! That’s right, we don’t need no stinking Middle East oil for NASCAR mates – even when the fuel comes in 1’s and 0’s – just saying.
That meat-grinder takes the form of five primary race series’ (some feature secondary series’ under them) that take the driver (that’s you) on a journey across the world. The series’ are:
- Expedition 1: NASCAR Icons Tour (x5 Racing Events)
- Expedition 2: Passport to the World (x2 Series’ each having x5 Racing Events)
- Expedition 3: A Lap of America (x2 Series’ each having x5 Racing Events)
- Expedition 4: The Road to LeMans (x2 Series’ each having x5 Racing Events)
- Expedition 5: The Road to the Ring (x2 Series’ the first having x5 Racing Events the second x6)
It turns out thought that in spite of their nature (they really ARE a meat-grinder when you take them all in a big-picture sort of way) those courses are simply not tough enough to offer any sort of serious challenge to NASCAR!
Actually that’s not fair. In the interest of full disclosure what we should have lead with is the fact that despite the fragile appearance for the typical NASCAR design, it turns out that they are way more robust and capable than anyone could have predicted when they are taken out of the comfort zone that is smooth and well-engineered formal race tracks and set out on a mixture of informal and formal race courses.
There really is a major difference between a Race Track and a Race Course. There is also a pretty significant difference between an Informal and a Formal racing environment as well mind you.
A Formal Course and Track are environments that were created expressly for racing and as such do not tend to feature major imperfections like pot holes, speed bumps and the like, whereas an Informal Course and Track are essentially regular streets (often with short man-made turns or connections that help to link it all together) onto which these stallions of the automobile concept are let loose. Big difference mates. BIG.
To spice it all up and make it even MORE interesting, throw in some extras like x10 Showcase Special Events (think Auto-Bowling, brand focused rally driving, and endurance racing like 300 miles of non-stop racing at Florida’s Homestead-Miami International Speedway.)
If that is too tame for you then add to the established world circuit that comprises the “story mode” here and the Showcase Races, and add a robust Multi-Player program with a strong focus upon endurance racing (which means you will really start to appreciate what happens when a NASCAR driver pulls into the pits) and Multi-Player League Events as well as Rival Events that will keep your eyes wide open!
Speaking of Pit Stops
The racing for the NASCAR expansion – as you might expect – offers its own unique challenges what with the fact that high-performance highly-engineered racing cars are thrust onto courses that were not particularly designed for or friendly towards such cars. But every now and then we land on a track or course that WAS designed for NASCAR racing – this is particularly true for endurance racing.
When that happenstance crops up – especially for the longer races – you can almost certainly expect that race to have a number of forced “Quick Stops” – which are pit stops that the player must complete in order to qualify to finish the race. A race might only require one – but some races require more than one – leaving the player to work out their own personal strategy for when to make those stops so as to not lose too many slots in their relative position in a race.
Another difference is the Rolling Start option for certain races, with the pack being guided by a pace car and in motion when the flag goes down to star the race.
There are delayed or staged starts, and some of the races in the series include mixed classes – so you not only race a high-performance car on courses for which such racing was never contemplated when they were laid out, but you can end up sharing those courses with much slower types of car which adds its own dangers and difficulties as you can surely imagine.
When you combine all of the various options available – many of which were added by this expansion – you end up with lots of variety in race planning beyond simply choosing a challenging course or weather condition, which makes the NASCAR expansion all the more valuable to the base game.
http://youtu.be/0CXqEHMgiFg
If the NASCAR Expansion to FM6 was just about adding a stable of iconic NASCAR stock-cars to the game, it would actually be worth the download and the price. But that is not what this is – it is a challenge and a question wrapped up in its own proof.
This romp through the world’s greatest and most iconic courses pitting the 2016 NASCAR model lineup against some of the most technologically advanced racing cars from the other circuits and series’ is all about the pure fun in driving.
There is also some learning involved. In fact there is a LOT of learning involved here because you don’t just get behind the wheel of one of these petrol-swilling fire-breathing monsters and hit the go-button and expect everything to sort itself out. Yeah, no.
Fortunately between the advice and observations that are provided by the professional drivers who serve to narrate this expansion – and through trial and error – you quickly learn what not to do – and that’s the first step towards learning what you should be doing!
I have to admit that I really enjoyed this expansion DLC. I enjoyed it as much as the Porsche expansion but for different reasons – and I suspect that if you are already a fan of the Forza series, you will too.
After playing the heck out of it I found that the NASCAR Expansion earned an overall score of 9 out of 10, making it a DLC Expansion for FM6 that I would not hesitate to recommend to every owner of the base game.
The NASCAR Expansion very nearly achieved a perfect score – but lost a point for two very good reasons: Multi-Player play issues and Online League Play issues.
On the Multi-Player side, performance issues really ate into our enjoyment of the game. In the simplest of terms, frame drops and inexplicable lag caused things to happen on the screen that are hard to explain. Cars that seem to float in the air above the track while keeping pace with you and cars that appear and disappear out of nowhere. But the worse of it was when you would win a race – crossing the finish line first – but when the tally screen appeared you actually finished 3rd or deeper in the pack – the explanation being that while your view made it appear that you had won, due to lag you simply didn’t see the winners ahead of you!
The second issue is the League Races – about which we don’t have a lot to say simply because over the course of an entire month, trying at different times of day, we simply were never able to find a League Race and sufficient racers to actually have it start!
For those reasons – those very good reasons – the NASCAR Expansion lost an entire point in its rating score.
With respect to its Replay Score, FM6 NASCAR World Tour actually did surprisingly well. You probably would not expect or anticipate the desire to replay races or entire series, but yeah, there it is. In fact I found myself replaying races before I had even completed the content just because I felt like I could have raced it cleaner or better.
For races that have required pit stops, there was the question of whether or not I picked the best lap to make them. The only way to find out? Race again!
With that noted, NASCAR gets a medium-to-medium-high Replay Score, which means if you are a racing fan chances are better than good that you will want to replay some of the races in this expansion.
The NASCAR Expansion offers up a conservative 15 hours of game play – 10 hours for the core racing in the career mode, and another 5 hours or more to complete the Showcase Events and some of the Achievements. We did not factor in the Multi-Player time estimates in determining the 15 Hours of Average Play Time simply because there is no way to do that which will address the general gamer.
Some gamers live MP play, others hate it. A reasonable estimate for gamers who simply wish to unlock the MP-based Achievements might add another 2 to 3 hours to game play – but for gamers who live online MP racing the time is practically limitless.
With the 15-Hours Average Game Time being our conservative estimate, this title gets an Average Admission Price of $1.33 per hour – which while it does make it a bit pricey, quickly moderates when the player participates in online racing.
Parents: This game has been properly rated by the ESRB and there is nothing here to be concerned about. Just great clean racing fun. One caveat though – if your gamer chooses to race online against other racers and uses the voice chat feature for the console, there is no way to rate possible adult language in that environment. In that case we suggest supervision for younger gamers because smack-talk is to be expected.
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A review code of this DLC for the XBox One was provided by Turn 10
Copyright © 2016 CM Boots-Faubert