Core games

Arcade and manager

Presentation

In all iterations of the game, the Main Menu is presented as the interior of a team's home garage, with crew members working on cars, and fans observing from an upper balcony.^[4][7] Beginning with NTG: Inside Line, the race day menu was presented as the infield garage of each racetrack.^[4] The Loading Screen is presented as a bulletin board, featuring decals of NASCAR contingency sponsors, advertisements for Sprint wireless products, and photos of in-race action from the current game and prior games, and photos the player captures during gameplay. It features a V.I.P or press pass-style lanyard showing the track specifications and the player's stats at the track. This lanyard was shared with NASCAR on Fox's race coverage graphics.^[4]

The series features Cautions (and occasional Red Flags due to excessive wrecks), free pass and wave-arounds, double-file restarts, and Green–white–checker finishes. Beginning with NASCAR '14, group qualifying was integrated. Also in NASCAR '14, starts and restarts were upgraded, allowing the player to take control of the car within the "restart zone", as opposed to when the car crosses the start-finish line. This is improved over prior console games, though not as in-depth as simulators in-which the player controls the car during pace laps and pit-stops.^[16]

The series' first installment, NASCAR The Game: 2011, features pre-race commentary from Performance Racing Network radio announcers Doug Rice and Mark Garrow.^[14] Later editions of the game feature commentary from NASCAR on Fox lead announcers Mike Joy and Darrell Waltrip (with Larry McReynolds absent).^[4] The pre-race presentation features military aircraft flyovers, fireworks, and the 43-car grid on pit road. In-car audio features former Dale Earnhardt, Inc. and current Michael Waltrip Racing executive Ty Norris as spotter. Ray Evernham is featured as crew chief in NTG: Inside Line, replaced by Jeff Hammond in later games. NASCAR race director David Hoots is also featured.^[4]

Physics and damage model

Contrary to the initial promotional trailer for NTG: 2011, which features a dramatic crash scene with highly realistic damage,^[17] Nascar The Game uses a "scaled back" damage model. This model is less realistic than pure simulators, but more rigid and less forgiving than prior console games. Some damage is visually realistic, with debris falling off cars having the ability to puncture tires. Colliding with outside walls does have the effect of damaging the chassis, altering the handling of the car. The overall effects on performance, however are gradual, with heavy impacts only creating minor or moderate visual damage and performance effects. Additionally, any effects on performance can be fixed with a pit stop.^[7][14][15] For NASCAR '14, Eutechnyx partnered with Nvidia to enhance smoke and debris effects.^[18][19]

A.I. and animations

For the game-controlled cars in single-player mode, the developers sought to replicate the real-life racing styles of the drivers, including differences in aggression and performance. Beginning with NASCAR The Game: Inside Line, the developers used positional and telemetry data recorded by NASCAR during races and driver performance statistics to construct each computer-controlled driver. This includes bump drafting initiated by the A.I. cars. Like in other NASCAR games, pit stops were replicated using motion capture of real-life pit crew members.^{[4][7][20][21][22][23]}

Paint Booth

NASCAR The Game features an in-depth 3-D Paint Booth, allowing players to create custom paint schemes. Individual car parts can be painted, and several decals from geometric shapes to patterns can be enlarged, skewed, and pasted to create custom designs. Sponsor logos, including contingency sponsors and primary team sponsors such as Bass Pro Shops, and custom text can be added. The Paint Booth is expanded from most other NASCAR games, except for NASCAR Racing 2003 Season, NASCAR 09, and IRacing which allow for outside creation in computer paint programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Paint.NET.^{[7][16][19][21]}

Game modes

NASCAR The Game includes several races modes, including Quick Race (or Single Race or Race Now), Single Season, Track Testing, and offline Split-Screen.^[4]

Car liveries and drivers

Like its predecessors, the NASCAR The Game installments feature part-time drivers, Xfinity Series (formerly Nationwide Series) and Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series (formerly Camping World) drivers as field fillers. The exclusion of certain teams is due to licensing deadlines or lack of interest from certain teams. NASCAR The Game: Inside Line is the only game in the series to feature 43 licensed Sprint Cup Series entries upon release.^[4][20][25]

The series features several "special" or associate sponsor paint schemes in addition to primary schemes. Beginning with NASCAR The Game: Inside Line, each scheme was designed to replicate its real-life counterpart in a specific race, as opposed to schemes designed in conjunction with team and sponsor input. For example, David Ragan's 2012 Al's Liners/Scorpion Window Film scheme, which had minor changes over the course of the season, was designed in the game to replicate the version run in the Daytona 500.^[4] While NTG: Inside Line included over 120 schemes,^[4] additional schemes in later games required the purchase of DLC.^[26][27]