Heat Hot Rods at the Sears Point TrackEver fancied a drive in a Formula 1,Formula 2 Stock car or any other short circuit formula? Stupid question really, but the logistics and money involved is enough to stop all but the lucky few. If you’re lucky enough to have a copy of NASCAR Heat there is an alternative, BriSCA Heat for your average home PC, the best bit is the BriSCA Heat bit is free. There is a thing called "Essentials" out there which is free and means you can run all the games without the Nascar heat program, I suggest the UK Dirt forum as a good starting point, but a Google should produce the information you need.
The cars are excellent replicas of the real thing in both shape and paint jobs, and there are most of the big names to choose from, and if you have the time and know how you can download a car "template" and paint it up yourself. For followers of Formula 2, Bangers, Hot Rods, Legends and New Zealand stocks there are versions for you to, in fact it’s possible have all of them on your PC at once should the mood take you.
One other option is the BriSCA Legends which gives you the classic cars and tracks of days gone by. For the "Heritage" fans this is a bit of a must and with names like,199 Mike Close , 391 Stu Smith, 53 John Lund, 154 Brian Powles, 396 Doug Cronshaw, 212 Frankie Wainman , 304 Dave Mellor, 260 Dave Berresford, 2 Willie Harrison, 229 John Hillam to name but a few and with sadly “no longer with us tracks” like Belle Vue and Long Eaton you can easily spend rather more time than you planned on this.
You'll need a good paint package like Paint Shop Pro™ or Photoshop™ as the files are .TGA file and not commonly used, there is a converter which comes with the downloaded templates and this needs to be used to convert the files but you do get instructions it’ll still take a fair bit of time and patience. Setting up your own car also means you have to edit files and match them to your new car, it's fiddly and murder if you get it wrong.
Game play is good, two settings NOVICE and EXPERT. Start with Novice, you can't over steer and everything is well, easy. EXPERT, you can set up EVERYTHING and I mean that, suspension settings, gear ratios and wedge. When you get the hang of it you'll be putting in lap times that will make Frankie JNR shudder, but you'll also spend loads of time on the fence and if you don't go easy for the 1st few laps till the tires get warm you'll just be looking the wrong way, which from the cab make you wonder if the real thing is worth it!!!!!
If you really get in to one of the games there is an option to race against others “on line” with the help of UK Dirt, having read up a bit about this I didn’t bother as it costs about £30 a year and looking at the number of drivers getting “banned” put me off a bit as I’m not that great, but it’s worth having a look if that appeals to you. For more information on the game, set up, painting your own car, tracks to downloads and well everything really check out the links listed below.
Uk Dirt
BriSCA Heat 2005
Legends Heat
New Zealand Heat
Kev149.com
Hot Rods
If you do decide to race "on line" here is a taste of what you can expect.
