NASCAR 2005: Chase for the Cup

"Nascar Just isn't quite the same."

This is my review of Nascar 2005: Chase for the Cup. Hope you like it.

Intro.

I was fired up in the new Nascar game with the new features of trying to make your way through the different series all the way up to the Nascar circuit. Being the veteran player of the Nascar series that I am, I believed that this one could be the best one that had been released to date. Boy, did I ever make a bad judgement.

Graphics.

While the graphics are good, there seems like at times the whole screen will freeze up for just a brief second, but nothing too terrible. I like how the smoke from spun tires will hang around for several laps on short tracks, and can make the track extremely hard to see. Sparks will fly if you or a competitor hit the wall or another car. The cars themselves are very well done, and will show damage if you hit something. Also, the smoke coming from cars that are headed down pit row to head back to the garage is a wonderful touch. If it wasn't for the little glitch I mentioned before, the score here would be a 10. As it stands, 9.5

Controls.

Anyone who has played the Nascar series before will know the controls. They have not been changed, and are real easy to pick up. My only problem here is that a lot of the time, the vehicle you are driving seems slow and unresponsive at some points, and really makes driving your vehicle difficult. This is a big problem that needs looking into. Score 7.

AI.

Here is where my complaints lie with this game. I thought that this game was supposed to have a "real" feel to it. The game is not supposed to be an arcade style racing game. So why is it, every time I gain around a three second lead on the car behind me, it only takes them at most three laps to catch back up, yet when I am behind someone, they seem to take off like a bullet to pull away to win by around five seconds? If you work hard to get the fastest car in qualifying, shouldn't it make sense that come the race, your car will pull away from the pack? Also, while I like the whole hero/villain aspect, why is it you are labeled the villain when you get the inside position to take a spot away and the car next to you drives down into you? Makes no sense. And lastly in my rant of the AI, why is it if you have a rival, they can try to wreck you intentionally with no repercussions. No black flags, no penalties like points taken away or a "fine". Heck, when they slam straight into the wall, they don't even knock themselves out of the race, and they always seem to wind up ahead of you. EA sports dropped the ball here, and it needs to improve drastically for 2006. Score 3.

Game Modes.

With all of the options available, it might be hard to get bored with this game. You want to be in the chase for the cup, you can. Want to just run a season in Nascar, you can. Want to start at the bottom and work your way to the top, you can do that too. Not to mention multi player and on line play are avaiable, and it makes for hours of playing time.

Rent/buy.

I hate saying this about an EA Sports game but in my opinion, this is definitely a rental only. If you have it, play 2004 and hope that 2006 is much improved.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/13/04