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NASCAR 09 Updated Hands-On

By Brian Ekberg, GameSpotPosted May 8, 2008 10:31 am PT

Customizable paint jobs are coming to a stock car racing game near you in NASCAR 09.

Tradin' Paint

Senior producer Scott Stutsman talks about the paint booth feature in NASCAR 09.

Though EA Sports' NASCAR series has always had a leg up on its driving competition in one respect--it's tough to discount the impact of the NASCAR license on sales--it's always trailed behind such competitors as the Forza Motorsport series in one crucial area: car customization. Earlier in the week, NASCAR 09 revealed the ace up its sleeve in that respect--downloadable car templates that look to take the customization fight to its competitors.

Currently available for download from EA's NASCAR 09 Web site, the templates give you a great deal of control over how your car will appear in the game. All you need to do is download the templates, bring them into a graphical editor, such as Photoshop, and then set out to create your visual masterpiece. Once NASCAR 09 is released, you'll be able to upload those designs and apply them to your car in the game.

The paint booth tool will let you create your own custom liveries for your cars.

Using such powerful programs as Photoshop to create designs should result in some fantastic user creations--everything from fantasy designs to re-creations of classic NASCAR liveries from the past. Unlike Forza's shapes-based design tool, there's nothing keeping you from using graphical elements, such as photographs on your car, which means that there will likely be some inspiring and more than a few scary car designs out there once the game is released. You will be able to see the designs your friends have created for their cars when racing online, but EA won't be hosting the images for download by other people via the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. Instead, if you want to share a design with a friend, you'll have to do it the old-fashioned way (such as via e-mail or file transfer).

In addition to the paint booth feature, there's more good news for NASCAR fans waiting for their yearly fix: The game is complete and nearly ready for retail. We look forward to seeing what interesting car designs players put together, as well as finding out how NASCAR 09 turns out, and we'll be reporting our findings in our full review after the game is released on June 10.

17 Comments

  • NA3D

    Posted Sep 2, 2008 9:13 am PT

    That paint job looks pretty good...

    As long as EA is a pseudo monopoly I refuse to buy a game of theirs, at least where they can make money off of my purchase.

    @scott, they dont like seeing cars with their branding showing damage, EA can't get as much money from them as they would like, and well, they are stupid... kind of like how we cant select numbers under 100 anymore, it is all BS that shouldnt happen

  • motownboy

    Posted Jun 26, 2008 6:54 am PT

    There's a reason soccer-loving pricks are the bane of most people's existence. For all the whining soccer fans do about Americans not respecting their game, they talk about soccer like it's the only sport. Hey, guess what, other sports are hard too. I hate baseball and can't watch it, but I respect that it takes talent. And why the hatred for protection? I'll take football players in battle armor over diving soccer players who cry every time someone bumps them.

  • vette68

    Posted Jun 13, 2008 6:38 pm PT

    I dont like watching NASCAR because i dont have patience to watch cars go around and around, but being a fan of car games I can say that I love the NASCAR game series. No offense to anyone who watches NASCAR on tv.

  • scott624

    Posted Jun 6, 2008 10:55 am PT

    No car manufactures! Has anyone heard why there is no chevy, ford, dodge or toyota in the game?

  • mitchg187

    Posted Jun 2, 2008 11:14 am PT

    I don't really see what was so wrong with last years game. Yeah it was a little tricky to set up the control sensitivity. But once I got it the control was perfect.My only complaint about the game is that there should have been more to it. And there was no Carl Edwards.Nascar 09 supposedly has Carl Edwards so thats cool.

  • derren22

    Posted May 18, 2008 8:57 pm PT

    i cant wait to play this game

  • nascar20boy

    Posted May 17, 2008 8:20 pm PT

    I'm not gonna argue with you shaddy because you are probaly the type of prick who would get pleasure from that, so im just gonna say a few things in my opinion to what you said. If you like soccer, thats great, you stay in shape and have fun. The same goes for football, nascar, baseball, and basketball. also, the reason that hockey and football players wear so much protection is for the simple reason that your always getting hit. Last year a buffalo bills player got his backed real f'ed up from a tackle and could've died, but guess what saved him, the protection. and for the game, it sure seems like this game sneaked up quick, just seems like recentley 08 came out. I sure hope they fix the driving controls and that ridiculous effect of holding the gas and riding the wall to pass everyone. I'm really dissapointed with the again generic cars but im lookin forward to playin this.

  • joeblofromidaho

    Posted May 13, 2008 7:48 pm PT

    shadydixxx, try to keep you limey comments on your side of the ocean. Your parents obviously never ecouraged you to compete in anything so you wouldn't understand racing or football. I guess you just played with your web cam and listened to lame british rap all day to make up for it.

    As for this game it scares me that it is completed already. That means it's last years game with a new paint feature. typical EA.

  • tannee16

    Posted May 13, 2008 10:39 am PT

    sweet I am looking forward to this game the most when I get my xbox 360

  • hollywoodhayes1

    Posted May 10, 2008 3:18 am PT

    it better be better than 08. I hope EA wakes up and fixes that horrible online performance. Trying to race online is atrocious. Either you freeze up and have to restart, or someone throws 90 cautions and it kicks you off. I hope the rep system does what it says and kicks people offline who cant race, permanently.

  • johnmetcalf

    Posted May 9, 2008 1:26 pm PT

    They can add all the custom paint job stuff they want but they better have fixed the control issue that plagued last years version.

  • e1337prodigy

    Posted May 9, 2008 9:48 am PT

    Looks to easy. All the videos, he is flying by everyone else. I really loved the Sierra one, one thing i didn't like was the AI players hardly ever made a mistake. I hope they do in this. I don't want it to be me that causes the accident everytime.

  • rknauber

    Posted May 8, 2008 7:11 pm PT

    Wow, custom paint jobs, took them awhile to add that in... I remember a previous Nascar series by Sierra that offered that quite a long time ago, around 8-10 years ago I think.

  • twistarhymes48

    Posted May 8, 2008 5:20 pm PT

    this game better be so much better than 08 and especially better be good to make up for not having real cars

  • Pete5506

    Posted May 8, 2008 1:46 pm PT

    Game looks sweet, hope its better then 08

  • nspeedrace

    Posted May 8, 2008 1:40 pm PT

    sweet!!!!

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