Even though I consume just about everything possible related to racing, the NHRA series has always been a series that has been off my radar. That’s not a slight against the series at all, but the fact remains that it has never really drawn my interest. I mention that because GameMill Entertainment has released NHRA Championship Drag Racing: Speed For All, a title that includes all five series, career mode, online racing, and a customization suite.
NHRA Championship Drag Racing: Speed For All Review
The game also boasts 38 real NHRA drivers, an extensive collection of real-world tracks, and physics-based racing that, in their words, promises to deliver authentic speeds, depth, and the feel of real NHRA drag racing. With limited knowledge of the sport, I was hoping for NHRA to deliver a racing experience that gave me a reason to delve into the real-life world of NHRA drag racing. Does NHRA Championship Drag Racing: Speed For All deliver on entertaining and educating me on a level that I was hoping for, or does it DQ out of the box? Let’s find out in this NHRA Championship Drag Racing: Speed For All review.
What I Like
Career Mode
The career mode in NHRA Championship Drag Racing: Speed For All is where I spent most of my time, and rightfully so. The game started me out as a rookie contender with minimal experience, low-end equipment, and even less financial ability to change the circumstances in an expedited fashion.
As I stated earlier, my knowledge of NHRA drag racing is limited, so the career mode begins with a solid set of tutorials explaining the sport and its nuances, and then it allowed me to apply my new knowledge on the track without major consequences.
What I found interesting is that I was even told that I should be aware that winning early in career mode is most likely not going to happen. That building up an understanding of the sport and the ability to upgrade my equipment will take time. These things ended up being true.
A typical race weekend in NHRA plays out in a three-day weekend. Starting with the test race phase on Friday, a full day of qualifying races on Saturday, and culminating with a full race day on Sunday to find out who had the best equipment, the best reflexes, and the ability to combine the two. Put it all together, and there is a chance you will walk away with the coveted Wally Trophy, the award handed out to the winner of every weekend.
Initially, in NHRA there was a decent level of frustration that even the solid tutorial couldn’t help overcome. I struggled juggling running the team, utilizing the crew chief effectively, and delivering when it counted once I nudged my dragster up to the starting line. The season calendar in an NHRA is 24 weeks long. It took me until week four to earn a single win in a weekend, and then it took me until week 11 to take home the trophy for the entire weekend.
The most significant turning point in career mode was gaining knowledge and experience and understanding how to apply both to each race session. As I slowly gained an understanding of how and when to repair my dragster, and more importantly how to get the perfect jump off the starting line and hit my shifts on a consistent basis, the game as a whole started to make sense to me, and the results on the track began to improve.
By week 14 of season one, I entered each race session on each weekend day with confidence and losing now felt like a missed opportunity instead of being expected. With newfound confidence in the game on the racing side, I could now switch my focus to the team, which meant making sure sponsorship requirements were being met, my team and driver were gaining development points to increase their ability and skills, and making sure the research and development group was hard at work in improving the components of my vehicle.
As I started in the lowest level of drag racing, the goal was to reach the apex, which comes in the form of Top Fuel Drag racing, and to the game’s credit, the path to get there was a slow and arduous one. Career mode in NHRA Championship Drag Racing: Speed For All was a much deeper experience than I expected, and although the sport itself has a decent factor of “wash, rinse, repeat” already applied to it, career mode did an excellent job of keeping my interest and creating an addictive quality to it that kept me coming back for more.
“Just One More Race”
I hit on it above, but NHRA Championship Drag Racing: Speed For All did an excellent job creating enough fun and excitement to keep me coming back for more. The deeper I dove into the game and gained understanding, the more I wanted to play it, which goes for career mode and exhibitions. The game features a large ensemble of real-life NHRA drivers, so it was also fun taking different drivers to a race weekend and seeing what each offered.
A game with a limited scope can struggle to create this sort of gameplay loop, but NHRA did just that.
What I Didn’t Like
Presentation
While NHRA did a solid job on the track and in the garage, the presentation aspect was lacking — and that’s being kind. As I always do with fringe titles, I keep an open mind and understand that most development teams have budgets. I’d rather they spend that budget on gameplay, options, and customization rather than presentation.
Even with that in mind, the lack of a proper presentation package starts to add up and detract from the overall quality over time. Issues like a single splash screen to introduce the weekend, minimal crowd and venue exposure, no driver celebrations after wins, and zero celebratory post-race award presentation all hurt here.
As I spent more time with the game, my mindset went from wanting a full display of the weekend chaos at an NHRA event to, “please, give me at least a screen showing me holding the trophy.” Winning a Wally in NHRA is hard, especially early on, and the smallest amount of visual recognition could have gone a long way.
Depth
A lack of depth will be an issue for some here, especially those who don’t follow the sport and lack a deep understanding of it. Each race weekend feels the same. The venues feel the same to a minor degree, and besides career mode, online racing, and leaderboards, there isn’t much more to the title.
Even in career mode, there isn’t much volume to it. The title lacks any off-track presentation and driver promotion. You will have no pre- or post-race interviews, garage walks, crowd or venue flyovers, and the game lacks seasonal stats options. When creating a driver for career mode, there isn’t really anything to it. You are handed a pre-made driver of the game’s choice, and the oddly handled situation plays out like you’re the team owner but lets you suit up and race the car as the driver.
While the game does offer up customization, the options are thin. They range from picking different paint schemes for each vehicle in each class and choosing only pre-made in-game liveries. Again, the lack of depth never detracted from the fun of running the research and development department or the racing on any given weekend, but it impacted the experience enough to annoy me.
Bottom Line
With a title like NHRA Championship Drag Racing: Speed For All, you need to understand what type of experience you are about to have. The game offers fun in the garage, on the track in career mode, and decent options for those who want to go online, but there isn’t much more depth to the title besides that. NHRA Championship Drag Racing: Speed For All is fun to play and offers an immersive career mode and solid customization suite.
Still, it lacks depth, game modes, presentation, and the visual fidelity of even a PS4/Xbox One high-end game. If you’re accepting of that, and career mode can hold your attention, then adding NHRA Championship Drag Racing: Speed For All to the rotation is a simple choice. It will not be a game I consistently play, but it will be something that occasionally fills a void.
Published: Aug 29, 2022 10:05 am