NASCAR Thunder 2002

"Grab hold of the thunder!"

The EA Sports Nascar brand has been struggling over the last couple of years, So along with a new name comes a new developer, namely Tiburon of Madden Football fame. Can they replicate the Nascar experience as well as they do on the grid-iron?
Lets find out....

GamePlay: First of all, listen carefully: full 43 car field. Yep, for the first time in a Nascar game on a console there is a full, regulation field of cars, opposed to the twenty or so cars present on inferior consoles. Another first for a game console is all Nascar tracks are included in this game. (some even have a night option!) Also all the most popular winston cup drivers are present, and the developers even went as far as to include over 15 busch series drivers to unlock. Over 50 drivers in all! EA didn't stop there though, since they licensed 100 different paint schemes from this year. Ensuring most every driver has more then one paint scheme to choose from. I especially loved the Tony Stewart and Bobby Labonte Jurassic Park 3 paint schemes, and the multiple Looney Tunes schemes myself. Now this all sounds impressive and all, but we all know gameplay makes a game not the extras, thankfully this title doesn't disappoint. Nascar Thunder has several modes of play: Quick Race, Season,and Career mode.Quick race is just a single race by yourself or with 1-3 friends, and Season is just as it sounds, you (and a friend if you so choose) go through the 2001 Nascar season with the goal to be at the top with the most Winston cup series points at the end of the season. However, Career mode is the real meat and potatoes of this game since you create a race team from scratch, and strive to climb the way to the top by getting eight winston cup Points championships. You get twenty seasons to reach this feat, if you can do it you're the best racer the series has ever known. (The best anyone has ever done in real life is seven.) Before you can start your quest for Nascar glory you need to create a race team, which is done through the liberal create-a-car mode. Besides choosing names for you and your team, you choose which car make, (Dodge, Chevy, Ford, or Pontiac) number, and paint scheme, colors/design, you get the drill. The only downside is you can only choose between 100-199 for your race car number; all double digit numbers are used for real life competition. What makes career mode so great is it can be best classified as a racing ''RPG''. You try to place as well as you can to attract high paying sponsors,who give you money which in turn you can use to upgrade your car. Plus you can get offered to drive a car for a determined amount of races for somebody, or if you are real good you may get offered to drive cars like Jeff Gordon's after they retire. Alot can change within twenty years after all. Oh and a note about Quick race multi-player:
If you race with a friend the racing field is reduced to about 20 cars including you and your friend, but that still is a heck of alot better then just you two on most 64 or PSX Nascar titles. Four-player is even more reduced, with just you four competing against each other. Then again you couldn't even play four player on 64 or PSX.
So multi-player is fun, but I don't recommend you buy the game only for that.

Graphics: The cars models are some of the best I have seen,
the detail on them are simply incredible,and I personally believe the developers couldn't possibly make them look much better then this if they wanted too. It really is that good. Also a high point in the great real-time lighting. To take a quote from Game Informer: '' Equally exciting are the reflections painting all the cars-especially when it's night(night races)and the realtime lighting effects play with the bright track lights on the top of your vehicle''. If you have ever seen a Nascar night you will agree with me when I say it is simply incredible how the light responds with all that sheet metal, and the great thing is this game replicates that effect perfectly . Also this game has the greatest damage model system of any Nascar game on a console. Sheet metal crumples,paint scrapes away,tires from opponents leave doughnuts on your car,and don't get me started about fires. Everything you could possibly do to your car in real life can be done here, and best of all it all looks realistic! So naturally this game looks very nice. That is except for one thing...
Ever hear of aliasing? You know those jagged edges PS2 is famous for? Guess what? This game suffers from it quite a bit. While the cars aren't affected too much every thing else on screen suffers from a serious case of jaggies.
If the developers tried to fix this though they would have to sacrifice the frame-rate. No sir I'll rather take
(a super smooth) 60 frames per second at almost all times and full 43 car field, then little to no jaggies.

Sound: ''Sweet Home Alabama!'' For some reason or another EA saw fit to choose ''Sweet Home Alabama'' for the games menus,
personally I'm just thankful it doesn't spill over into the races. Oh and if you get sick of that aforementioned song you can always go over to the sound options menu and switch it to a lyrics less grunge/rock sounding track.

Control: Very precise, but if you haven't played a Nascar game before you'll soon find out it takes some real finesse'. After all, Nascar cars are overpowered and on skinny tires,a fact compounded with 43 cars like that fighting for positions. Take a turn too late or hard and you can find yourself making doughnuts in the grass, but take it too easy and you'll be trading paint with the wall.

Replay Value:High

This version of Nascar should have more mainstream appeal since most race options can be adjusted to your liking. Season too long? Shorten it. Races too long? Again shorten them. Too hard? You can turn off damage to your car or set it too limited,which give you a rather arcade like hit circle and repair the damage to you car on the fly. Despise caution flags? Say good bye to them, same for pit stops too. Although in Career most setting can't be changed. Race length is at 5%,damage is limited,and each season is 12 races opposed to the official 36,and a few more things are set for you but I'll just skip them to keep the review short. In closing: If you're a fan of Nascar there is nothing better available on a console, if you aren't a fan give it a go any ways.

Closing Quote:''Do we need a better car or a better driver?''

Score:9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/21/02, Updated 07/21/02