While this amazing title is fun when played alone, it's WAY better with a friend.
Nascar gets a bad reputation from the ignorant, but the joke is on them, they don't know what they are missing! Nascar is actually pretty fun the watch on TV. but ya know what's better? PLAYING it, and this game is one complete package that delivers on all fronts.
Graphics in this game are stunning! everything from the cars themselves, to the tracks, even the little nuances looks great. So much detail is pumped into this! And when you go smashing into something expect to see one HELL of a display as sparks, and bits of metal go flying onto the track, and sometimes your car even becomes a projectile.
The controls vary. You can adjust them of course, but the handling is neat, because you can customize the crap out of it until your car feels PERFECT, speaking of the cars, you can customize your own, and you're not limited to just the Nextel cup! You have the Busch series as well as truck and funny car racing! the game play modes are spectacular, you have single races which with a friend are even more fun, you can be rivals OR friends, and watch eachother's butts, you can set the races up for LONG endurance runs that make feel SO intense, you'll be sweating by the end and letting out a HUGE sigh of relief as you cross that finish line first, and nothing beats watching a big multi-car wreck, speaking of, as long as your car can still move, if you can make it to the pit you'll be back in the race as soon as your crew can patch things back together, if you're a little wuss you can make the game less realistic but where is the fun in that?!
Now two things have been sacrificed on split screen to keep the action running smoothly and the framerate constant, the pit crews and inside of the car are invisible in this mode, this is NOT a drawback because you are gonna be too focused on the white hot action, a nice touch is that when you have a flat you can feel it in the controller vibration.
Now the career mode is pretty awesome, you start on the bottom, doing funny car races for a team, eventually if you make enough cash, you can buy a team, make money off that you can buy teams in other classes like truck and stock car racing.
The sound is AMAZING on this game, even on a plain old TV with stereo speakers, you jack the volume up and fairly close, and you will FEEL the sound! The music is great too!
Replay wise there is so much to unlock that you'll be at this for months before you start to get bored.
Bravo EA, Bravo!