NHRA CHAMPIONSHIP DRAG RACING
By Ian Hawthorne
9/8/05
When
you hear the words "drag racing" I'm sure that
a good console videogame is the last thing that comes to
mind. That is about to change with the release of NHRA
Championship Drag Racing, a brand new game from VSE
games and Lucky Chicken.
There have been a few other drag racing exclusive
games, such as IHRA Drag Racing 1 and 2, but in
my opinion none of them have been this realistic. In this
new NHRA game you can smoke the tires or blow the engine
if you don't tune your car properly. You can drift out of
the groove and get sucked into the wall and you can even
have spectacular crashes (made better by the Crash Cam in
the game).
The
moment you make that first run or the first time you crash,
you will agree with me that it is important to set your
car up right and do everything you can to save the money
you have left. Whether you have to make one good qualifying
run with your $80,000 crew chief and hang it up until eliminations
or you can learn to tune that car yourself and keep your
not-so-great $5000 a race crew chief.
Unlike the IHRA games there is real qualifying,
four runs each just like the pros. If you run in Pro Stock
you don't have to worry about being taken out by a Funny
Car in the next round because one class can't run against
the others.
There are some things missing and some that
could be better, such as the lack of any Sportsman class.
The fact that you can't customize your own racecar other
than the setup, the graphics could be tighter and money
flies out the window way too fast, however spending $3000
per run on fuel and such does add to the realism.
A nice little feature in this game is that
you don't have to be Dick LaHaie to have a good tune up
on your car, just hire a good crew chief and let the game
do the rest or hire a crew chief who is good in the areas
where you aren't.
This game is rated E for Everyone, so for
all of the parents out there who are worried about their
children being influenced by the tobacco and alcohol sponsors;
there aren't any, so rest easy.
If I had to give NHRA Championship Drag
Racing a score with the bar being a 5, I would give
it a 3.5 to 4 because it has the feel of running your own
professional drag racing team, but could be made better
in the sequel with smoother graphics, a better soundtrack,
and the introduction of Sportsman or Pro Stock Bike classes.
NHRA Championship Drag Racing for
PLAYSTATION®2 is available now and retails for a suggested
retail price of $14.99. 
Ian
Hawthorne is a 16 year-old SoCal high school student who
has been an avid gamer for about 8 years who also happens
to like drag racing. So who better to test drive the new
NHRA Drag Racing video game for the PlayStation®2 computer
entertainment system.
