NASCAR 09 Impressions

 

Ted, I'm assuming from the way my copy is NASCAR 09 EU and yours is NASCAR 09 that there's region locking in place, and my 360 can only play PAL games.

 

The more I play this game, the more I find to love about it.  I thought I was imagining the shadows getting longer until I saw Grambo mention it, the sun in late afternoon going into the last turn at Watkins Glen or turn 4 at Daytona is dazzling, the cockpit view is wonderful and fairly easy to race with, and the driver challenges have started springing surprises on me (as an example, when you come to race Gordon at Talladega, there's a wreck avoidance section at the beginning.  They don't mention it until it happens, and you've got to go through absolutely flat-out otherwise you lose the draft and have no hope of winning).  It should be great online with a sensible bunch of players, because the controls allow for side-by-side running and the tracks have more than one workable groove.

 

One last thing - have you noticed how a car that qualifies up front doesn't necessarily stay there?  I don't remember that happening in past games, but it's another realistic touch.  I had David Gilliland start on pole at Daytona and work his way back outside the top 20 by the end, while David Reutimann (or the UPS car, at any rate - I was a bit busy going backwards through the field so it could have been Jarrett going past me) came through from 39th up to the fringes of the top 20 by the end.  There were other less dramatic examples of it all the way through the field, and I do like knowing that there'll be AI cars with a strong qualifying car who'll fall away in the race while others do the opposite; it feels much more like a proper race this way.

 

Have any of you looked into the car customisation options in the game?  I've just finished painting my first car through the EA Paint Booth (available at easportsworld.com for those who've not already looked).  I didn't have any painting programs on my PC besides Paint so I downloaded paint.net as recommended by EA.  Even though I've very little idea of what all the icons mean, I managed to knock together a Jagermeister car inspired by the famous orange-coloured Porsche sportscars and BMW touring cars of years gone by, and though it's nothing more than one colour fill with some pictures saved from websites and layered on top, it looks very nice in game.  On the same car, I suspect that I've made myself the only driver on the NASCAR circuit to carry sponsorship from Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville.