Nascar 2009

Rating: E

Score 6.5/10

Most people have heard of Nascar Racing. Simply put, it’s a bunch of drivers racing their cars at 200 mph around a simple oval track. Would that translate to a great game? This game is available for the Playstation 2, Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360.

How fast will you get bored when you race around an oval track hundreds of times? For most people, pretty fast. Watching is one thing, playing is another. You think you could crash everyone to make it more exciting, but no. Crashing your rivals without crashing yourself is hard.

Like the racing itself, everyone is bunched together on the course, most of the time. So, like the actual racing, it’s hard to get around the cars. Their only purpose is to get in your way, and crash you if you tick off the drivers. They’re not as useful as you might have hoped.

The mascot in this game is real life driver Jeff Gordon (Car No. 24). He provides the help to get your career as a racecar driver started. After that, he provides small tips.

You start off in go-kart-like imitations, but move up to trucks, and then Nascar. The racing is all the same. Drive, turn left, drive, turn left, drive, turn left, drive…hard to image the real Nascar driver actually goes hundreds of laps like that. Luckily, you only need to go twelve laps.

If you help people on the track, they become your Allies. People you crash into and block will become your Rivals. Allies “share draft” with you, making you both go faster, while rivals try to crash you and block you from first place.

There are millions of strategies you can use to get to the first position. Personally, I violently move the other cars out of the way on my way up to first, and then stay there.

Because my car’s faster from excellent tuning, nobody can crash me. Unfortunately, once I’m there, there’s no action to keep me entertained.

Nascar fans will love this concept, but fans that have the previous games won’t be overly impressed. The game adds little to the series, but is still fun. If you’ve played one Nascar game, you’re played ‘em all