NASCAR Heat 5 Review: Steady, Consistent And Safe

The NASCAR Heat series from 704 and Motorsport Games has been a fairly strong contributor to the virtual racing universe–though last year’s game had some gaffes.

Each year, the series seemingly makes small steps toward improving the gameplay, eSports support, but if it lacks from a progression standpoint, it’s in the area of presentation and video-game-world fun.

For better and worse, NASCAR Heat 5 gives us more of the same.

The Racing Feels Fantastic

When it comes to participating in an intense battle against other drivers (both CPU and human-controlled–online and offline) there may not be another game that provides a better pure racing-duel experience. From an eSports racing standpoint, NASCAR has the most attractive vehicle.

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NH5 gives me the feeling of speed that I covet in a racing game, and without getting over-complicated, it allows me to build a strategy for defeating and overtaking opponents. The on-track experience is addictive. Here’s a video that breaks down every driver, car and paint scheme in the game:

Career Mode Offers a Strong Experience, But it’s Still Missing Flavor

I love the length and journey the NH5 career mode presents. You begin in an unlicensed extreme dirt racing series, and can progress to the NASCAR Gander RV and Outdoor Truck Series, through the NASCAR Infinity Series and finally into the NASCAR Cup Series.

There’s so much racing and battling for points and standings, that you’ll almost certainly remain interested. It doesn’t hurt that the racing is so much fun.

My gripes are complaints I’ve been repeating for a few years, and it centers around presentation. There are almost no broadcast elements present. There’s no weekly This Week in NASCAR sort of programming to add some immersion into the experience.

Also, it would be nice if there was some sort of standalone story mode similar to what EA did with Madden and Fight Night Champion, that charged players with playing through a fictional or created driver’s career. That would be an excellent addition to the career mode. As it is, it’s fun, but you’re left alone a little too much in my opinion.

Perhaps if that were in play, there would be more incentive to expand on the rather simplistic create-a-driver suite.

Test Mode Welcomed Addition

There aren’t a lot of new modes added to the game this year. The new Test mode is something that comes in handy if you’re a novice, and don’t want to consistently finish at the back end of the standings, or if you’re a little more experienced and still trying to find which settings and camera views work best for you.

This is especially helpful if you’re transitioning from using a controller to a wheel for gameplay.

Where’s the Wreckage?

I know this isn’t Burnout Paradise, but a little more wreckage would be cool–in a video game environment of course. That kind of thing is anything but cool when real lives are at stake.

As it is, cars only get minor dents and damage no matter how impacting the collisions cam be.

Bottom Line

Gameplay was a strength of NASCAR Heat 4, and that has been augmented for NH5. The play is so much fun, it helps to compensate for some of the presentation issues, and what I’d describe as a lack of creativity in other areas. Those issues prevent the game from being great. That said, I’d still consider it the strongest release in the series’ history, and a solid get for NASCAR and racing fans.

• Platform: PlayStation 4
• Developer: 704 Games
• Publisher: Motorsport Games
• Released: July 7th, 2020
• Price: $49.99 for the standard edition and $69.99 for the Gold Edition
• Review Score: 7.5 out of 10