The National Hot Rod Association has another official video game thanks to GameMill Entertainment with its new release, NHRA Speed For All. But for the most part, it’s far from the mark.
The National Hot Rod Association has another official video game on store shelves, physical and virtual. America’s sanctioning body for championship and sports-level drag racing, the NHRA is usually referred to when we talk about Funny Car, Pro Stock and Top Fuel at the highest level.
It feels like it could take forever, but most races only last a few seconds. Pull to the line, wait for the lights to turn green, lay the floor and hope to be the first to reach the other side – that’s the drag racing lifestyle. Historically, NHRA races have taken place on a quarter-mile stretch, but in recent years that length has been shortened from 1,320 to 1,000 feet. Not so much a quarter of a mile more, but it’s close enough.
NHRA Speed For All offers a piece of that race day feeling to the casual drag racing fans in the game world. While it’s most likely not something that would be used by a pro drag racer like John Force or Ron Capps, it could lend itself as more of a game to sit back and celebrate the series with.
There are five different cars to get started with, starting with the Super Modified and then moving on to the Pro Mod. If you’ve seen NHRA on TV or traveled to an NHRA event, you probably know the Pro Stocks, Funny Cars, and Top Fuel dragsters as the most common championship-level series. There are also Pro Stock Motorcycles, but unfortunately they are not included in this title. Sorry, cycling enthusiasts.
To get from point A to point B, different classes will react differently under the nuances between vehicles, race tracks, weather and other variable conditions. The control scheme is quite simple, even if it cannot be modified or changed in the game. While it may seem easy to pull the trigger and let it eat, you often need the right setup, right temps and perfect shift points.
When starting a career, players in the amateur ranks begin with the Super Mod, learning how to properly lead a team competing in the NHRA ranks. From the people, such as the driver and the crew chief, to the parts, parts and research and development, there is much more than just letting it rip.
It can be a bit overwhelming at first, but almost everything to do with setups, upgrades and even the aspect of racing comes with short tutorials or descriptions that can point you in the right direction.
The actual racing aspect is simple, but at least it rewards those who fine-tune their settings, have the right tire condition and can react well when the car comes off the line and gets up to speed. It may be a viable option in the smaller cars, but even then players will have to learn to control the throttle.
Before you even react to the Christmas tree with lights, engage in a common practice: the burnout. This exercise gets the tires up to the right temperature and puts down rubber for out-of-line grip. If the tires get too hot, they will fail, and too little heat can lead to loss of grip.
Some car classes have manual shifting – similar to Street Outlaws 2 (developed by the same Team6 Game Studios team), there’s a light indicating when to shift, if you do it right you’ll get a better overall time while missing out sooner or later will slow you down. Do not cross the center line, hit the barrier or go too early, this will lead to disqualifications.
In career mode, every racing event is a derivative. There are three racing days: the first day is practice, the second day is qualifying and the third and final day is the elimination race. Players must qualify to be placed in the bracket. If you win four brackets, you get a Wally and quite a few points.
After each passage across the strip, players have to work on their cars. Repair or replace parts to get everything back to top condition, but some things can only be replaced for a fee and players are only given a limited amount of “time” to make the repairs or replacements.
Parts can also break completely. You don’t see it much on the other side of the lanes, in fact I haven’t come across an instance where an opponent was full of broken parts. Repairing, replacing or directly upgrading these parts will take place both during and between events.
Be careful though, because if you spend too much money, bankruptcy is real and your season will end early. It won’t close the team forever, but it won’t be a healthy game for your team’s growth progress.
There’s a lot to look forward to in this title, but if you keep digging, you’re sure to find some shortcomings as well. While the Career and Quick Race options work well, the rest of the main menu options leave a lot to be desired.
A big missed opportunity has to be online multiplayer. While there is a multiplayer section, it is asynchronous, meaning you fight against others online, but not at the same time. For example, I could go ahead and set a time, another player could find me later and race against what I was doing before. This is a common practice in many mobile games, but for a console release, that’s definitely a disappointment.
Local split screen multiplayer is fortunately something that works, at least I was able to get that on my PlayStation 5. The split is vertical and no functions are lost in the moment. Not sure why something like this can’t be implemented online, seems like this would be a perfect complement.
I was able to try things out on both the PS5 and my regular home PC. While I fully admit that my PC isn’t great, it should be able to handle the title somehow. Unfortunately, there’s no way to fine-tune that, as the PC version has a complete lack of visual options to customize.
The inability to change graphics settings on the PC meant that my particular hardware constantly overheated during my play-through, which is a shame. For me, that’s not unusual, but with several games, such as GRID Legends, I could make it work with graphical tweaks.
On PS5 I was able to switch the graphics between performance and quality which I understand as it is a 4K gaming system. Another seemingly quick fix that would have been welcome for PC users.
No matter how the graphics were configured or the platform I played on, it felt like there were times when I played two different games. I’d get beautiful, stunning NHRA scenes in one go, like pre-race on the strip, and next time it’s like playing it on a PlayStation 2.
Control is another aspect that is not customizable. Even if you want to hook up your handlebars and pedals for drag racing, the NHRA Speed For All UI only tells you what each controller does and offers no way to change it.
I can personally overlook some of the shaky prompts that occur. The announcers just spew something, and often it doesn’t match what’s actually happening. One particular problem I had was when an announcer announced I had won, but actually I crossed the line and picked up the other car.
It kills some of the immersion. I’ve also noticed that if you’re playing split screen, the announcer has something to say about both the left and right screened driver…at the same time.
One final complaint about the title should relate to the lack of support from the manufacturer. Brands such as Toyota, Chevrolet, Ford and Dodge are important parts of each team’s brand and identity. Some top drivers and teams also fall on the sidelines of the official NHRA game, not even included or playable.
Not only is the entire Pro Stock Motorcycle division forgotten, but top-level riders such as Top Fuel’s Leah Pruett and Mike Salinas, Funny Cars’ Matt Hagan and Aaron Stanfield are all missing from the title.
Not every location on the 2022 calendar is also included. Namely, places associated with some real tracks like Sonoma and World Wide Technology Raceway are left out.
I’m sure some diehards can read this and disagree with a lot of feelings I have about the title. For casual fans, it’s a good base and can provide quite a few hours of entertainment.
However, there are certainly many things that just seem rushed, or missing, or just plain wrong. Why record the Four Wide National tracks if you can’t compete in Four Wide drag racing? Why are the graphics locked to maximum settings and still only look good half the time?
If you’re open to it, it can be a lot of fun for NHRA fans and casual racing game enthusiasts.
While the NHRA Speed For All incidents are pretty spectacular, we’ve seen some recent US racing game titles… *cough*… crash and burn even worse. While I wouldn’t say NHRA is an overall failure, it just lacks a lot of areas, and most unforgivable is the lack of multiplayer support.
I don’t think it’s a bad game per se, as it offers a great amount of single-player playability for someone who likes the real sport. It just could use a little more finesse to get it where it needs to be.
| Developer | Team6 Game Studios |
| Publication date | August 26, 2022 |
| Available platforms | PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S |
| Versions tested | PC and PlayStation 5 |
| Best played with | controller |
Full disclosure: The publisher has provided a code to the game for review purposes. Here is our review policy.
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