The Legacy of NASCAR Heat (ft. Idk Player)

What do you think the overall legacy of the NASCAR Heat Series is?
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Thumbnail Image Credits:
NASCAR Heat 5

[@DavidLand91]

Its jaw dropping to see the same exact physics as Heat 5 used in 2002

[@fabiangreen9724]

Hi David Land!

[@danielwest9955]

They took the "we want NASCAR like it was in the 2000's" sentiment a little too literally.

[@GardenStateDiecast]

Hi David, big fan! Please respond 🙈

[@hacksawjimthuggin7411]

Nah its jaw dropping how big of cry babies some of you all are. Heat 5 isnt any worse than the original Dirt to Daytona was. Nascar games have never been fantastic

[@NewscasterNews4]

@@hacksawjimthuggin7411 you do realize these games dropped 18 years apart on two different console generations right….things are kinda supposed to mature get better over time, not stay the same or get worse. So yeah people have every right to be mad they’re paying $60 for a game with 2002 physics on a PS4

[@lorddrac_dontaskmetodance]

Infogrames was such a dope video game holder. NASCAR Heat, NASCAR Dirt To Daytona, World Of Outlaws: Sprint Cars 2002 and the Backyard Sports games. Childhood completed.

[@NoSignal_stream]

Just looked up World Of Outlaws: Sprint Cars 2002, can't believe I missed this, thank you.

[@DupontandLowesWarrior]

Bugs Bunny Lost in Time Bugs Bunny and Taz Time Busters Space Race Looney Tunes Racing Sheep Raider Taz Wanted

[@forrestrobbins8074]

Driver 2, test drive off road

[@ddvshow6473]

Not to mention Dirt Track Racing 2 with Ratbag such an awesome time to be a racing game fan.

[@AlphaRex07]

The thing is nascar heat evolution cars sounded like lawn mowers

[@PMillPlayz]

Lawn mowers that are driving over and destroying the legacy of the old legendary games 😂

[@bramabull111]

The new cars still sound like lawn mowers to me, but then again, they sound better than the modern f1 engines so I can't complain

[@DennyDeliversYT]

_The Legacy of NASCAR Heat…_ Well… *it sure was **_heated_** among some of us fans…*

[@RUSTEZERacing95]

Got Em

[@infcookiemonster1381]

You said among us

[@quagmire1273]

@@infcookiemonster1381 among some giggity

[@evanj2400]

A M O G U S

[@DennyDeliversYT]

_ _ _ _ _ | _ _ _ _ | | | | |

[@porto_bowls2807]

"From long tracks like Daytona and short tracks like Martinsville!" Nascar heat: shows Bristol

[@cringefootball2020]

I was just going to comment this 😂

[@chardab8824]

Dale teasing Richard is amazing and I wish had 4 more hours of it

[@Dummyahhselfmustdie]

The classic era Nascar Heat, even though I haven't played it yet, that is a game that I hope to play.

[@chrisliberty1773]

Dont bother, unless dramatic disappointment is your thing...🤮

[@Mike4k_]

I usually don’t rage on video games but heat 3 actually made me rage

[@yourlocalmexicandog]

heat 3 for me was difficult at first, getting on the apron and spinning out would be annoying, but after i got my wheel, i managed to do alot better, from time to time make mistakes, but i got better, heat 4 was better since they fixed that, never had it since.

[@Riggsfan99]

5:35 THE LEGEND MICHAEL COSEY JR.

[@PyroBun_2844]

That flip at 8:31 is the best flip I’ve ever seen.

[@jc1424]

I think the Heat was getting better little by little, despite having to start from scratch in its return. They did a great job getting DLC out every year, and fixing things that bugged out. Having Heat 5 be a tweaked copy/paste cashgrab was their best idea, so they could end the series healthily and use the funding from the five years of games to afford more to work with. And they've turned Motorsport Games into a monopoly. But what really hurts to look at, is all the simple things they left out or never fixed in the Heat series. Some things just don't have to do with money, and it's more about not having idiots behind the computer.

[@fishproductions22]

Thank god NASCAR 21 already looks miles better than NASCAR heat 5

[@thebestkdbfan8295]

True though

[@dadshirt6681]

Lol? Y’all say this shit every year

[@NASCARFAN93100]

@@dadshirt6681 He ain't wrong Considering that they're no longer using the Unity Engine

[@anynonymous1585]

Kinda looks like WreckFest

[@NASCARFAN93100]

@@anynonymous1585 I LOVE WRECKFEST

[@110_Octane]

Damn Good thing I got Heat 4 around christmas time back in 2019. I say it was money well spent.

[@Vixen1525]

I got it in this year for 10Euros and I like it.

[@NASCARFAN93100]

Awesome collaboration with Idk Player

[@f1fan112]

NASCAR Heat Evolution was essentially NASCAR Heat 2002 with some new paint... literally they copied and pasted a game that was 15 or so years old...

[@IvyLeather13]

Its cool that the drivers were willing to do those promos and had so much fun with it

[@ThunderMS34]

Dirt to Daytona literally outbeats Heat Evolution, Heat 2, Heat 3, Heat 4 and Heat 5 all together

[@GasFaceProductions]

7:56 iracing in a nutshell 😂

[@leifopstad2972]

"It's nice to see [Nascar 21] learn from Heat's mistakes" Yeah...about that

[@zacbaker2696]

I remember playing that game on PC back in 2003. At the time, I was SO excited to play it every time.

[@darrindrones5304]

Not to be all “PC Master Race”, but it was the best version. It was the first game I ever bought with my own money.

[@BlueJimmie48Fan]

I used to be all over the Heat but after itsyourbrochase told me to kill myself because he accused me of giving a setup away during the Pro League qualifiers, I knew it was a sign to get out of Heat for good. iRacing is one of the best investments I made and I will rest my case on that. You will have to force feed me to get back on the console gaming train.

[@Jeff.3]

The iracing community isn't that much better, the people on there tell you to go fuck off if you simply bump them outta the way

[@BlueJimmie48Fan]

@@Jeff.3 oh of course, i'm just saying its worth the investment with the right people around you

[@fishproductions22]

Oh thats who it was

[@paulcerrezin2498]

My childhood was spent playing dirt to daytona it was awesome.

[@RACINGUS95]

8:31 That double backflip tho.

[@SakaGames]

I remember my first time playing Heat. PC demo, Bobby Labonte at Richmond. Switching to suspension cam and giving Gordon a tap in 2 and watching him hospital wobble all the way down the back straight sold it to me. Fond memories of my crew chief telling me I had "happy meal" damage and Ward Burton's challenge at Darlington where "my tiwes were won to a twed".

[@NASCARFAN93100]

I really thought the revival of the NASCAR Heat would be fairly decent But unfortunately it was a shell of its former self But nevertheless I enjoyed them all

[@jasonstraight1320]

I can't count how many times I fell asleep to the soothing southern rock tune in the NASCAR Dirt to Daytona menu as a young man.

[@Levo_159]

The first NASCAR game I ever played was a 2001 NAPA sponsored demo of NASCAR Heat where you could only drive as Michael Waltrip at Atlanta or California. I played it for countless hours at my grandparents house as a kid, and I still have it on my laptop.

[@TheUltimateScottz]

nascar heat 2002 on the ps2 is such a classic. GOAT

[@osurocks24]

My first game on the PS2 and still love it. Soundtrack in that game is amazing!

[@jeffreyrussell8165]

You always have some of the best content. This was one of your best.

[@dadshirt6681]

huge NASCAR and gaming fan here I’ve refused to purchase any recent NASCAR heat games the gameplay is absolutely horrid

[@bramabull111]

Yeah, I got one recently just to relive some nostalgia and the game itself is barely a game lol dumbest upgrade system. If you sim like 6 seasons and play on expert once you have a car worth driving it's fine but there's nowhere to go from there.

[@johnrosenberg3982]

Ah you put my man cosey in here your a legend!

[@pirate772009]

I'll still load up some Dirt to Daytona if the mood catches me right. Go to the Bristol night race, turn the damage off, run the full race, and have myself a 500 lap demolition derby lol. The last NASCAR game I picked up was NASCAR 2011 and it was ok. I thought the cars took damage a little too easily and while I appreciated how in depth its custom car program was, it was also way too tedious. I probably just didn't put enough effort into it but I think they could've just gone more off of what EA's car creator was like and it would've been better. I also didn't like how you could check out by yourself at Daytona and Talladega.

[@shadowguy128]

From hot laps around Daytona to short tracks of martinsville *shows bristol*

[@TheEpicPlayer_90]

darren ur so right, i got heat 5 thinking that wow my first new heat since heat 2 and im like what, other than the graphics, its basically the same, but when I got NASCAR Heat 2002, i just became addicted to that

[@Thewhisperingcrow]

6:53 I lost it 😂😂😂

[@ryanharp8287]

“And you know what? I forgot what I was gonna say.” XD

[@rynogt4]

Dirt to Daytona is the GOAT to me. It's a shame that Monster weren't able to recapture that magic in the modern Heat series but respect them for trying after over a decade removed from the sport. It still amazes me how they went full circle from the original Heat series, to assisting with Nintendo projects like Donkey Kong Country, back to NASCAR. And nowadays with the Tony Stewart series and the SRX game I kind of view them as a modern Ratbag Games/Big Ant Studios with how they are pumping out decent-to-good dirt oval games.

[@GeorgeOfAIITrades]

Honestly wish EA would just take us back already. Every company after EA takes steps backwards from what EA built up with '05 to '09. The fact alone that in '09 you could upload a scheme from your computer was ground breaking. You had full customization of your car down to every pixel (but of course, some people did the bad things with it...)

[@officalblitzykxleyt]

So much Info A very good video you deserve the likes and vewis

[@bramabull111]

I got heat 5 on sale, I bought it just to learn a track in my hometown! Definitely the safest way to practise before I take my baby for a track day!

[@PMillPlayz]

I played NASCAR Dirt to Daytona way more than I ever did any of the Nascar Heat original and reboot games. I thought that the older ones were way better and I haven’t played a new heat game since the 3rd one came out as I wasn’t impressed at all. However, it seems like Nascar 21 is hopefully going to be a banger, but we will just have to wait to see. Also, I played Nascar Rumble so much as it was just good quality fun on the PS1 since it is one of the first games I ever played and my father got me into it. I wish NASCAR Rumble and Dirt to Daytona would both get remastered, but that dream is unfortunately dead for Rumble, however if NASCAR 21 can be like DTD then that will be good enough for me! P.S. Great video! I always love reminiscing about the past as it has good and bad things, but here’s to looking towards the future of NASCAR Games!

[@RedlineVelocity24]

Nascar heat 2002 will always have a special place in my heart because I always had fun wrecking the field driving backwards or racing hard against my friends or my brother ever since I was literally 5 years old. I had that game on the Xbox and would always play as Jeff Gordon in his flaming DuPont #24 vs my brother or against the ever so competitive AI. I really hate to see the series take a sharp dip like that but you can’t blame them since game developers have their own chaos going on with letting go or bringing in new team members and because the eutechnyx games provided a great experience although the AI sometimes developed levels of retardation we’ve never seen before. So at the end of the day we could only say what were we expecting? These guys weren’t the same dudes before and they might’ve had no idea how to make a proper nascar game( kinda like how Ghost games didn’t know how to make a proper NFS game). I’m just glad that the quality didn’t drop and I was pretty happy with nascar heat 2 and their revamped career mode with more ambitious AI. I think the overall legacy of the Heat games is a blur because the old Heat games were top notch in delivering some quality gameplay, but the new games just couldn’t hit the marks that we expected them to.

[@guitarman2134568]

That OG NASCAR heat intro video gave me crippling nostalgia

[@nejisgentlefist42]

Cosey’s OG dirt 2 Daytona was legendary

[@Jegggw]

What do you mean og? He's still doing the series

[@christianrobertsracing1]

I personally had fun with this series, and I’ll miss it, but I’m excited for the new game!

[@MCscarfacematt]

the calander is what i miss the most about the older NASCAR games

[@trippylights2736]

Some of my fondest memories from my childhood were watching my dad league race on nascar 2003. Truly, truly, ahead of it's time

[@OrbitTheChameleon11]

I like nascar heat, it's a nice game to watch/play

[@UncannyEXP]

Saw Heat 5 for 15 bucks at Walmart the other day and passed it up. Patiently waiting for NASCAR 21 to come through and deliver on the authentic racing experience the series has been lacking for a while.

[@landonw78]

Still play Dirt to Daytona to this day. That and Thunder 2004 are my favorite 2 with 2005 Chase for the cup coming in right behind them. Had really low expectations for 21 but now I hope it blows us out of the water.

[@j9vlikz683]

0:31 "The king here to do it better"

[@legacyofthe243]

I just remember in NASCAR Heat 2, you could jump the hill at Sonoma and cut off the entire field if you landed it lol

[@jakethetacoguy5536]

a friend of mine worked at game stop during Nascar heat 3. people would buy the game take the ticket voucher out then resell the game all in one day

[@hamlinman1170]

The first nascar head drove me insane because the roof numbers were always the wrong way lol

[@billymccallister447]

I think the most fun I've ever had in a game was when heat evolution first came out I was doing career mode and the adaptive ai at darlington made it to where I was side by side for the lead almost the entire race, my hands were sweating so bad and that's about the only fond memory I have of the franchise. I was real glad they added trucks and xfinity and those were fun to play to. But my go to racing game is still tony Stewart's sprint car game. Have over 1000 races and still am not ready to put it down yet. I'm excited to try the srx games new asphalt late models they put in the game this week too.

[@irrelevant9023]

I played this when i was like 5 or 6 years old.. and got me into nascar oh man...

[@Jesseface94]

"Short laps at Martinsville!" *shows Bristol*

[@OutcastGrim2424]

5:56 Is that a micheal Cosey Jr I see 👀 one of the best KZbinrs for classic nascar games to watch

[@r_moore20]

Darian just won't quit swinging on Heat Evolution 😂😂😂

[@JeffLMB]

Oh man!! Dirt to Daytona!! I absolutely loved this game!!

[@23simmon]

Dirt to daytona i remember that tires can fly off depending on the angle of crash. It also had horn mortar cheat which was my favorite. Overall the retro versions are my favorite.

[@celestialchaos2024]

I absolutely love Nascar Heat 2002 on PS2, I wish console games nowadays were more like it

[@HardlineRcnLg]

I got to visit with 704Games and give ideas back to the game for NASCAR Heat 2. They had so many good ideas and things they wanted in the game. It was like they was restricted in a room and was like make a game with this space. Very sad cause a lot of talented people was let go.

[@TomLehockySVK]

It is a sad, sad time to be a Nascar player, since not a single game since 2007 did it right, except for the expensive iRacing. If only Codemasters would have gotten the license. I mean their F1 series is one of THE best racing games out there.

[@Jmisaprodriver]

Hopefully this new nascar game will be really good so I can hold off on buying iRacing.

[@Ricky-101]

Sure the NASCAR Heat series wasn't nothing compare to the ones EA made back in the day, but at least they had their identity and knew what they were. To bad it wasn't like that these days but sure, they did but to be know as everytime you play it, it break, isn't something to be proud of however, at least we can agree that they're better than the games Eutechnyx made, so at least they had that going for themselves.

[@2429208]

Oh shit, this actually was my first nascar game on PS. I just got into nascar in 2001, so I got it like in 02. Great game

[@Team7channel]

Hopefully NASCAR 21 will come sooner than later. I about just broke my controller in NASCAR Heat 5 getting pissed after my car having no handling and being an unrealistic game. Led almost 120 laps and blew it with 35 to go

[@icebergmaysjr]

The first nascar heat came out exactly 7 years before i was born

[@moondodger5952]

I’ve only played one modern Heat game which is 4 and I think it’s decent with some glimmers of being pretty good, but I can’t help feel that it tends to be incomplete at times, such as the lack of a caution replay or AI using drafting speeds in super speedway qualifying. Hell, I don’t even touch the Dirt series since it doesn’t really feel that great. I like the game but it definitely still had a ways to go.

[@fearlessguinn]

I haven't played a nascar game since inside line. Playing heat 5 (just got the gold edition recently), it was comforting to play something that felt like nascar 2005 chase for the cup. Only downside is they have 5 music tracks in the menu and it was very repetitive. Other than that, I liked it!

[@tj_the_sloth]

It's an good game people are blind but 21 changed everyone's mind

[@CORONITAMANGAMES]

Heat evolution was the first game I’ve ever preordered; never making that mistake ever again

[@ryandesain5090]

The new Heat games brought me back to Nascar. They might be awful but I'm grateful for them and they got me to Iracing.

[@nascarnational]

NASCAR Heat was a tale of two tails. The initial iteration of releases were innovative and decent enough to drum up serious interest and positive feedback. Those titles are still regarded as some of the best in the history of NASCAR's console entities. Meanwhile, the modern-day twist became a tire-fire of just everything going wrong at the absolute worst time possible. Starting out with the worse game ever immediately told the community that this series was going to be unlike any other. What sucks is that this came after what people though was the worst, in the Eutechnyx series. Unfortunately for the Heat releases, those ended up like the COT, as those titles aren't nearly as frowned upon today as they were when they were prominently around. NASCAR Heat is for all intents and purposes, a display of what NASCAR's growth and decline was. You had a booming line of products that were top-notch and were being sold when the sport was growing massively. Years later, you have a revamp that eventually blew up in everyone's faces when the sport was at its absolute lowest in interest in decades. The pandemic hurt NASCAR Heat as well, as it was honestly the absolute worst-case scenario for everyone involved in making those titles, mainly because iRacing got priority during quarantine and took a lot of its hardcore fans with them in the process. The legacy of the entire series will be one of promise and tarnish; where the best and worst of NASCAR console gaming blend together into this polar dynamic that no other NASCAR title has before and likely ever will.

[@BeautifulAngelBlossom]

I love older Nascar Heat game them seem have better damage models

[@Mister_Matt_X]

NASCAR Heat 2002 and NASCAR Dirt to Daytona both don’t have Indianapolis, Chicagoland Speedway or even Pocono... I wished they did though they would’ve probably be the challenging tracks to race at the time in the cup series... Heck Dirt to Daytona didn’t have the Busch series either!!! I still play Dirt to Daytona to this day trying the hardcore physics on the remote control on each track to test the physics...

[@FMecha]

Neither game has branded manufacturers in the time EA and Papyrus already doing it either.

[@thebestkdbfan8295]

Interesting

[@Princess_Aurora]

I own NASCAR heat 2 and it’s alright, but I wish we had in career mode were when you wreck our hard your done and they sim the rest of the race rather then keeping us in the race.

[@dalejr183]

Dirt to Daytona was more realistic for all us dreamers about starting your way from the bottom to the big leagues which is the way it really was in the 70’s and 80’s

[@RazerHolic]

I saw this video right after playing heat 5

[@markdemars7648]

I'm pretty sure that these Nascar games bring back the days when I would watch Nascar KZbinrs do these kind of vgs. Who was my inspiration for watching these kind of videos? Joseph Lombard also known as N2SC4R. Speaking of him have you spoken about what he did? Cause it is just as the same as Jason Jacoby did a while back.

[@owly4126]

We don't speak his name anymore.

[@markdemars7648]

@@owly4126 I know. I was only wondering if he made a video that was just as the same as Jason Jacoby from last year.

[@sprinterofblack8186]

Never played the 2000s Heat games, but when I do get the chance, screw caution flags, I play by no one's rules.

[@BrokenGamerX]

7:49 me who is a diehard Daytona USA fan only to see the third game is a reskin of the first:

[@ElFrankElTank]

You know what really annoyed me with NH5, when the cars went to Bristol Dirt and the devs didn’t even bother to allow you to drive the cars on a track that was already in the game 😂

[@RUSTEZERacing95]

1:37 Predicted The Future Daytona 500 2/20

[@SuperNASCARrocks]

On one hand you have the all time classics like NASCAR Heat, NASCAR Heat 2002, and NASCAR Dirt to Daytona. Great games that we grew up with and played the hell out of. Fast forward to now however and it’s just a dumpster fire. I haven’t bought a NASCAR game in 2 years. Hopefully NASCAR 21 will be worth it.

[@g_men2121]

Heat 5 is awesome. I race online once in a while. But im mainly career or quick racin

[@quagmire1273]

Giggity

[@theDENIMMAN]

I just badly want a nascar game to include the whelen modifieds again

[@Acemoneymaker]

I saw the sprint cup logo at New Hampshire

[@cudaman340]

My experiences with the first NH was on the PC. Fun times on my old rig, using a Act Labs Force RS and RS Shifter. I still have it installed, with the many mods made for it. My first league experiences were on NH. I enjoyed the Xbox versions, and I still play D2D from time to time through emulation (I still have my original game). D2D was the pinnacle in the series. I tried playing a couple of the recent versions, and a few were fun, but the oldness of the game engine showed. The same physics, AI, and steering nuances from the original PC NH (steering could be fixed by editing a file in Notepad in the first NH) were there, despite attempts to update it to modern cars. I could never really get into the later releasss.

[@oompalee267]

I remember the first game for console after EA stopped. I ran a Daytona 500 in "career mode" and realized there was no stats or anything. I actually returned the game that day and have never before or since returned a game the day I bought it, that was the last console nascar game I ever wasted money on. Thank god iracing exists now and a good PC ain't too expensive.

[@FMecha]

- NASCAR 2001 was more of a hybrid-type game (often called "simcade", although the term is seen as derogatory nowadays") - you may be referring to NASCAR Racing 3. - For some reason, Heat/Heat '02/Dirt to Daytona didn't bother with manufacturer licenses. - NASCAR '21 using rFactor 2 physics may be a sign of the series embracing itself as more sim-related product.

[@jaygreentree4394]

I kinda miss this verion. I do have 2 and 3 for pc now days.

[@turbokart3776]

Seeing Richard Petty wearing black right next to Dale Earnhardt Sr. wearing blue just feels wrong.

[@TheNewChevyRoll48]

*The Legacy of NASCAR Heat…* Weregonnalose's trolling vids (I know he also trolled on the Eutechnyx games, but nothing tops the one with the Bubba Wallace poem). Also I'd say the more Arcadey-leaning Simcade feel.

[@PsychoDon904]

I stopped once I figured Heat 2 isn't gonna get better and watching various NASCAR KZbinrs LP 3 - 5. It was a good decision since seeing how bad it is, pretty much saved me money. Let's see if 21 turns out to be worth buying.

[@Simpler_Times]

The Nascar Heat name will forever be tarnished.

[@KairuLateNightUpload]

I find it funny that nr2003 has shadow in it and a 2020 game with great graphics Can't even have shadow in replay mode

[@eaglesmmiv6386]

NASCAR Heat 5 still has the messed up Daytona night infield

[@nate567987]

god heat one og vid is great