User Rating: 8.4 | NASCAR Thunder 2004 PS2
Nascar Thunder 04 plays great but is not the best looking game around. I love racing games. I remember sticking endless quarters in Atari's arcade racer Pole Position back in the good old days. Its come a long way since then. NasT 04 was one of the top 5 games I was waiting for this fall. First off the game play's well. Although the cars seem to handle a tad loose, if you just tweak the wedge up thow, you can rid this pretty easy. It has everything you would expect from a EA game. All the drives all the tracks, plus tuns and tuns of bonus stuff. Most tracks have a night or road counterpart that can be unlocked, And their are several fantasy courses, which work pretty well actually. The new draft meter and lever (R2),, which allows you to draft behind a car and not run into the back of it. It works well at the 2.5 mile restrictor plate tracks. But is not that useful on small tracks, unless your trying to build up your allies. Im sure you have all hear of the allies of rival thing. And it works good. One reason why is the race become way less monotone "I guess would sorta be the word" and becomes more of a wild extravaganza. Pushing a more movie like Days of Thunder feel to the racing. But without taken away from the simulation feel, or a real Nascar series feel. All the drives seem to drive different. Some computer AI drivers "for the first time ever"" will actually block you vary well. And make it vary tough to get around. Of course depending also on the AI strength you play on. And the racing is always pretty intense. The game does have some sad bad points. I don't know if I got spoiled playing Dirt to Daytona on my other machine "Gamcube." But the graphics in Lascar Thunder to me just seemed way to scratchy looking. No real slow down, but some major skips and just a bad overall fuzzy grainy look. The wrecks are good. But once again with the assistance on, The car stops to soon and does not take crazy half mile rides down the infields. This also takes away any 20 car pile ups at Talladega or Daytona. The cars can latterly lose control and re gain it too easily. Its one thing for the cars to grip good and easily and fun when in control, but another thing to do it when you in a wreck or out of control. Somehow Dirt to Daytona pulled this off. It gave you great assistance and still allowed for you to lose it and slide for a mile banging into car after car before the wreck stopped. Thunder lacks this. It also lacks a decent replay, as were Dirt to Daytona could replay a full 5% race and you could switch camera angles cars or whatever. In Thunder you get the tiny little 5 clip replays. But still Nascar Thunder has to many good things that the others don't. And this year their is no others ones. The X Box version looks a tad better. But When you get past the graphics problems "that I see" of this version. You have a great really deep game. For a Nascar fan its awesome. Three Dale Sr old cars. All the paint schemes for all the cars of every driver. More realism in were, DEI is fast at big tracks and Robbie Gordan wants to still bump everybody. Gordon is usually a threat in every race. Jr is vary tough. And the young guns start to shine like Newman and Bush, especially in career mode. Solid vary true to the sport game. Just wished they didn't try to make everything we could see and could not see 3D and speed up the frame rate some. Or just got it to look less scratchy. Programer pride at its worst again, everything has to be 3D even if its not moving and is so far of the track its pitiful, these guys have to get over this and take a chill pill on the 3D, some stuff works good flat. But once you get into the game you don't notice it nearly as much. Because the game is that good. So my scores are a bit up and down.
