NASCAR Heat Evolution
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 Cover athlete Carl Edwards actually retired at the end of 2016 NASCAR Cup Series season after losing the championship spectacularly in the final race, by the way...
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NASCAR Heat Evolution is a racing video game developed by Monster Games (who developed the original NASCAR Heat and NASCAR: Dirt to Daytona game) and published by Dusenberry Martin Racing (later renamed 704Games). The game was released in North America on September 13, 2016 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows.
NASCAR Heat Evolution features content from the 2016 NASCAR Cup Series season (then named Sprint Cup Series), with a DLC featuring content from the succeeding season, renamed Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series that year.
Why It Sucks
- The graphics are bad by the generation's standards. Additionally, frame rate drops are prevalent during large crashes.
- No lower series content (except for NASCAR Next drivers, which are only available in quick race and treated like Cup Series drivers), an issue that plagued the Eutechnyx era of NASCAR games; this was rectified in the sequel.
- Many sounds, including engine, tire effects, and the spotter, are exactly recycled from NASCAR: Dirt to Daytona.
- The spotter behavior is abysmal. For instance, the spotter can clear you to overtake even if the player is not in situation to do so.
- There is no track map or current lap time information during races.
- There is no way to look around your car. Coupled with the spotter issue above, this can lead to confusing gameplay/racing.
- AI physics are generally on-rails.
- Various bugs and glitches exist, including one glitch that allows the player to gain speed by pausing and un-pausing repeatedly.
- Clint Bowyer's 5 Hour Energy sponsor is censored for some reason. Ironically, rival energy drink brand Monster Energy (who, coincidentally, became NASCAR Cup Series' title sponsor in 2017) is not censored at all in Kurt Busch's car in the 2017 season DLC.
- Not all tracks in the NASCAR calendar are playable from start (only six are unlocked at start), an oddity for an annual motorsport game. The remaining has to be unlocked by collecting Speed Points, which is ridiculously easy to get.
- The PC version of the game cannot be played using a keyboard, which is still an issue in later NASCAR Heat games.
Redeeming Qualities
- For most part, the game is playable by racing game standards, and is stable code-wise.
- For the second time in the series (the first being NASCAR '15: Victory Edition), alcohol sponsors (such as Brad Keselowski's Miller Lite) can be uncensored if the player has been verified (by entering their date of birth) to be at least 21 years old.
- The 2017 DLC means there are two seasons to play.
Reception
Critical reviews ranged from average to negative, with Forbes giving the game a 5.8, Cheat Code Central giving a 5.6, PlayStation LifeStyle a 4.5, contributing to MetaScore of 66. AppTrigger (a FanSided blog) gave the game 4/10, describing it as "coming in dead last".
NASCAR Heat Evolution is also considered as the worst NASCAR game by the fans of the sport.
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