EA NASCAR Games: Where Did They Go Wrong?
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- Опубликовано: 6 июл 2020
- The EA NASCAR game series is beloved by most of the NASCAR fandom. So with the mixed reception of the Eutechnyx and NASCAR Heat series many are asking questions like why the deal ever ended and/or to bring EA back. So today I want to look back and see why this series ended and what let to it.
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NASCAR 06 was still a good game, NASCAR 07 was the true end of the run of innovation
I disagree. 06 Total Team Control had cars that you straight up couldn't drive unless you went to Daytona or Talladega, unless you had the braking assist on. And even then, the cars just had no steer. 07 actually fixed this problem. The only downside to 07 was 1) Carl Edwards wasn't in it, and 2) you couldn't make a custom car with a number under 102, and no higher than 199. Other than that, 07 was actually a diamond in the rough compared to the games it was sandwiched between. 06 Total Team Control, I already mentioned. 08 played terrible, and 09 took one of the most important parts out of the game: the car manufactures. There was also a huge glitch in 09 that I noticed: Dario Franchitti drove for Chip Ganassi Racing in that game, but if you drive as David Gilliland, (car #38) who drives for Robert Yates Racing in the game, with Travis Kvapil as a teammate in #28, Franchitti is listed as your teammate. Honestly, the only true thing that I enjoyed about 08 and 09 is that if you were at Daytona or Talladega, and you wanted to wreck someone, not only was it easier to turn them, but they always got airborne if you were going fast enough.
I love both 06 and 07. The only EA NASCAR games I dislike are 08 and 09. Especially 08.
06 had good ideas but it was horrifically buggy.
@@ArbitraryOutcome I didn't really notice any glitches. Maybe that's a career mode thing.
@@ArbitraryOutcome IMO, the worst part about it was how the cars drove.
It’s sad a game from 2005 has a better damage model than a game in 2020
@Cole the sgt frog and baby Tamama lover :3, of course life was better for you in those days. You were a little kid with no responsibilities.
@@rossracing6433 No dude trust me, I was born in 94 and he's right, everything was simpler, easier, less toxic, society was better, economics too. My parents had it easier and also my dad had a relatively new car(got it after years of driving rusty posses). After 2008 everything went downhill.
@Cole the sgt frog and baby Tamama lover :3 true all NASCAR PS2 games are so much better than all of NASCAR HEAT games...
@Cole the sgt frog and baby Tamama lover :3 i also love to smash opponent cars head on in all NASCAR PS2 games...
@@Toxic2T for me all of NASCAR PS2 games are WAY better than all 5 of NASCAR HEAT games.
4:33: car gets absolutely destroyed.
Game: *tires worn*
Hud you mean
This might be controversial but I think it’s glad that NASCAR is out of EA’s hands, can you imagine the micro transactions if NASCAR was still with EA?
Yep probably paying for every different paint scheme except for the base car
_PAY $49.99 TO UNLOCK DALE JR!!_
iRacing, I'm looking at you!
Not to mention they prolly would’ve taken everything out of the game till it was bare bones and not touch it for 10 years
“Pay $5.99 to unlock the spotter being able to call cars 3 and 4 wide in cockpit view”
EA: *I don't care about the children, I just care about their parents money*
Accurate description. 😂
Evan Nekula isn’t that line from Spongebob
Except for Ty the Tasmanian Tiger
Honestly
similar to epic games
EA Sports, it’s in the game!
After they rob you from buying DLCs
EA sports, it's behind a way wall
EA Sports, it's in the game for an extra $2.99
EA Sports, what a shame
EA sports- it's in the game
EA sports- it's out of the game
EA sports- it's back in the game again
EA sports- go fuck yourselves
Ea sports it’s in the game..... almost
I feel like you missed one other thing that played into the downfall: exclusivity.
In March of 2004, EA Sports bought the exclusive licensing rights to NASCAR video games, which basically killed off the competition at the time (mainly with Papyrus). During the peak of NASCAR gaming, NASCAR games were being made by EA, Papyrus, and Monster Games, meaning that EA had to be on the top of their game or else Monster or Papyrus could've taken the top spot. But with the lack of competition stemming from the exclusivity license, it meant that EA didn't really need to put out the best product. The EXACT same thing happened with the Madden Franchise even though Madden 07 - 12 were still pretty solid games.
Papy likely wouldn't have been able to make NR2004 anyway as they were in dire financial straights and Sierra kept screwing them.
This! This is exactly what caused the downfall of the EA games. EA owned a Monopoly in sports games due to it's status. With the lack of competition, EA really had no reason to improve the games.
Not to mention Dirt To Daytona was a good underdog title for Monster Games, they had a pretty solid game in just their 3rd/4th try.
This is the case for most sports games, unfortunately. In addition to NASCAR and Madden, MLB the Show has been charging $60 for a roster update for almost a decade
@@Blacknred81 right on! I actually played Dirt to Daytona much more not because of the graphics (EA had that hands down on the visuals) but the car sets ups was much more indept with Monster's game and I loved it. It was practically on par with Papyrus Nascar games.
3:21 yellow flag is out.
**sees all of the cars flying to the moon**
Kurt Bush
@@shanepelton2953 yes
2005 chase for the cup was amazing
That was literally my first video game.
The modified were real fun
Really fun one. I think I enjoyed racing trucks in that more than cup.
Thunder 04 was the peak. 2005 was still really good but 04 was the absolute best. Just one man's opinion.
Should've had "Where'd We Go Wrong" from Nascar 2005: Chase for the Cup in the background.
I thought the same thing right when I saw the video title.
I thought that song was from NASCAR SimRacing.
@@TChapman500Gaming NASCAR SimRacing was Chase For The Cup and NR2003 combined I think, so they took a lot of assets/music from 2005
Archbishop Banana SimRacing was definitely trying to be both an improved PC version of NASCAR Thunder 2004 and a spiritual successor to NR2003. It excluded the Modified Series, production cars, Pocono, and many of the Busch/Truck/fantasy tracks. And guess who was in SimRacing but not Chase for the Cup? Jeremy Mayfield!
Exactly what I thought!
NASCAR 06 was my favorite for many reasons.
1. I liked the Total Team feature. It kept me in races switching from car to car.
2. The roster was also a plus. Rusty Wallace, Carl Edwards, and an unlockable Dale Sr. Not to mention a lot of the drivers were in the cars they were best known for (Dale Jr in red 8, Michael Waltrip in NAPA 15, Sterling Marlin in Coors 40, Jeff Gordon in DuPont 24, Bobby Labonte in Interstate 18, and Tony Stewart in Home Depot 20)
3. Drafting and intimidator features.
4. Chase for the Cup feature.
I used to play Nascar 06 nonstop, it was so good especially the physics. Its crazy how that game 15 years ago is better than the modern Nascar games
"Where do you think EA's NASCAR series went off track"
Apparently turn 1 at Watkins Glen.
2005 took away *some* of the in-depth team management aspects in career mode that made Thunder 2004's so rewarding and award-winning. Those included;
- hiring and firing individual team members
- specific expectations to meet for sponsors
- no cheat codes to fall back on
- repairing, overhauling, and building individual parts within the car
- setting up upgrades to create over a period of time, not instantly
- weighing time versus money among most of said options
The simulation, strategy, and borderline-role-playing-esque mechanics are so satisfying, wish-fulfilling, and meticulous, even on the easiest and shortest-length difficulty settings I play on.
3:19 "Thats incredible."
That was the last EA game I got. Played it for 2 days then returned it
“Iv never seen anything like that in my life!”
I was thinking the same thing lol. How did that happen I kinda wanna dig up that game to see if I can do that
“Prawblems”
@@ericprice5751 this must be the lack of effort he was talking about at that part. Like, how do you fuck the AI up that it can't make a road course turn?
My favorite NASCAR/EA Sports game of its time was "NASCAR Thunder 2004"... It had pre race stuff like excerpts from the National Anthem, jet fly-by/fireworks, pre race commentary... And it started the grudges and alliances... Hell, if you pissed off a driver bad enough... He would try and fight you in the garage area...
Visual damage of the cars were awesome, like "doughnuts" on the side of the car caused from contact, wall scrapes, if you "blew" your fuel cell, it would leave a fire trail on the ground from the spilled fuel...
But one of my all time favorite NASCAR games was "Dirt to Daytona"... The visuals left much to be desired, except for the tyre smoke effects, it was just like real life, couldn't see through it for nothing... Also, the game had "random breakdowns" like power steering failures, brake failures etc... Didn't matter how well you took care of your car, the breakdowns just happened...
Also, the animations for caution periods were realistic... Lap counts were based on severity of the incident... It was nothing to see 15+ lap cautions... Unless you press the skip, or advance button... Also, the severity of car damage in that game influenced how long you would be out of a race... I did a race at 100 percent length, got caught up in a crash, messed up car, and wound up in the pits for over an hour and a half... Needless to say, I was almost 300 of the 500 laps down... So yeah, monster games made a great NASCAR game...
NASCAR 04 and 07 were my favorites of all time! I still play them on my og Xbox to this day!
I would say in 2005 with the engine and graphic change. I was never a fan of the HUD in NASCAR 06 and 07 the gauges just seem kinda lazy to me. But I guess it was in preparation of the new Gen but still.
EA Sports, We want your money.
EA $port$
I was expecting "Where Did We Go Wrong" by Magna-Fi for the intro
2005 was about as good as it was going to get...so it couldn't' get better
I think EA actually stopped caring when they had the Mayfield fiasco
What happened with Mayfield?
turned into a meth head... Literally had meth in his system while behind the wheel
YES!!! NASCAR CFTC 2005 never had him ALRTHOUGH he was in the chase in 2004
I think the real reason why EA stop caring is when people stop caring around the early 2010s, thus why people don't have common sense these days, plus that incident with Mayfield too place around early-mid 2004 before that game was released
@@keithadams812 It was actually Adderall, which he had been prescribed by his doctor. NASCAR did Mayfield dirty on purpose by claiming it was meth because he had been critical of his own team owner for having an affair with one of his female drivers. Adderall shows up in drug tests as meth because, it KINDA is meth. Just not the Breaking Bad kind. I wish that was more common knowledge because it not only destroyed Mayfields career, but his reputation and overall his life, all because Ray Evernham wanted to continue porking Erin Crocker.
I think were glad EA left when they did, or else the games now would be much worse.
Honestly if it’s paint schemes and tracks I’d be fine with paying
@@Foxdidnothingwrong Why would you ever want to pay for tracks?? I am glad EA lost their deal for nascar otherwise we would have to pay for "driver packs" and the like
BrownStalin I’d kill for some fantasy tracks made in this era of gaming especially dodge raceway and devils canyon
@@Foxdidnothingwrong probably a good 2.99 for each track
I'm glad they left too, but I wish they would have at least made NASCAR 10 before they left though.....even if it was a copy of 09 it would have still been enjoyable with the badass paintbooth and fun online play.
I expected Magna Fi's "Where Did We Go Wrong". One of my favorite songs from these games.
Memento's "Nothing's Sacred" too and "Action" from Powerman 5000. 3 of the best songs from the franchise.
I remember putting that song on my iPod Nano back in like 2009 because I was listening to it twenty times a day while playing Chase for the Cup on the Gamecube and I couldn't get it out of my head. Probably the best 99-cent iTunes purchase I ever made lol
I like 06 - '10. I loved the damage and the (almost) realistic way some car would spin and go airborne. Now I'm playing Heat 5 getting hit directly by the entire pack of cars and the damage looks exactly the same as it would if I hit the wall at 15mph and every now and then a car will just fly to the damn moon and back.
Somewhere between 06 and 07 was where it went downhill. 06 is one of my favorite games, 07 was still great but it was virtually identical to 06, 08 wasn’t as good and 09 is absolute trash
Hello, I'm from Europe and I'm a completely new to the NASCAR. Since NASCAR Heat series is highly critized, I have the option to buy NASCAR 14 or NASCAR 09, both on European PS3. Or I can buy NASCAR 07 for PS2. Which is better for somebody to get first contact with the NASCAR world, please? When You are talking about 08 and 09 trash games, are you talking about PS2 or PS3 version? Why is 09 absolute trash? Thank You for answer.
Marek Tvrdý Both actually, they both are trash in their own way. I would definitely buy a NASCAR 14 over NASCAR 09. It’s absolute trash because a PS2 version is very phoned in, i’ve never played the PS3 version myself but I’ve heard that it’s a lot of the same just with better graphics. If you want all of the real drivers, the manufacturers, and slightly better gameplay, get NASCAR 14. It’s not bad I’m not a fan of the physics, but a lot of people are and you may be
@@matman1396 I do not know any of drivers. I just want to understand the feel of this very exotic style of racing for Europeans. So good physics and IA would be appreciated. If this is only covered in NASCAR 07, then I'll buy European version of 07 for PS2.
Marek Tvrdý honestly, I’m not the best person to ask about that because I don’t hate the Heat games that much
@ If you have a PC that can run games from 20 years ago I would suggest looking into NASCAR Racing 2003 Season by Papyrus. You would probably have to get it by less than legal means these days but in my opinion it is the best of the NASCAR games. Both in terms of gameplay and modding.
Great video! NASCAR Thunder 03 and 04 are definitely my favorite in the series by FAR. I agree when it went downhill was 06 and the terrible glitches. EA Sports what happened?!? 🤦🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️
Nascar 07 is the most underated Nascar game of all time it's truly in my opinion the last good EA Nascar games 08 was not good on PS2 and 09 on PS2 is the worst game except for heat evolution Xbox 360 versions were better
Did you ever play the 360 version? On ps2, you could at least drive the car, but 360/ps3 is easily the worst driving physics I've ever driven in my life, and that's saying something
Well graphics were the only improvement of the game on the next gen consoles on PS2 they were slow in mph and other than the driver changes that is it the game on PS2 I despise and the other as well
And no I have not ayed the game at all and I hope not to
I agree with you! 07 is the only NASCAR game I still have left from my ps2, wish I had kept Thunder 2004. I use to play 07 all the with my dad. I enjoyed racing at Pocono, turning guys down the front stretch and watching them flip uncontrollably. Good times.
NR2003: Still the best.
unless you want an actual career mode
Found your channel and am definitely subscribing!
Great memories playing Nascar 99 on the Nintendo 64. Bobby Labonte on that game was so tough to beat. Lol
Random bonus note, obviously not meant to be realistic, but Nascar Rumble on the PS1 is still one of my all time favorite games!!
I think NASCAR 07 was when the series jumped the shark. Another way of seeing this is the paint schemes: compare the number of paint schemes in 2004-06, and then 07. In 2004, drivers had many throwback schemes that stretch from the 90s, 2005 removed a lot of them but had the 2003 schemes and current ones, 06 had a decent amount too, but by 2007, Ryan Newman, David Stremme, Roush Racing and Denny Hamlin had several schemes, while everyone else had none.
Thank you for the throw back I've in an odd way missed that man constipatedly yelling that at me. Good ol' days of youth past
Congratulations The Iceberg on 20K subs
Nascar 05' was the best one for sure, i still play today, even bought a used ps2 just to play it
It's a shame EA Sports NASCAR Games became shells of their former selves after NASCAR 07
And 704 Games May have gotten off to a rough start but lately they have been doing a great job with the NASCAR Games and I just got NASCAR Heat 5 for both consoles today
PS: Happy Birthday Ally Brooke
704 fucking SUCKS
I love these games with a passion, I’ve always wanted to play the arcade games again. They are very fondly situated in my heart as one of reasons why I love NASCAR. Best NASCAR game to date. Also love the reference to the Magna-Fi song in the game.
Total team control was amazing! I miss it terribly
I actually loved Total Team Control,it added more to the game than just trying to win,it added a team based game that made it more enjoyable to me.
2005 game Was reaaaallly good
The game andretti racing developed by EA sport includes the option to play with stock cars and some cars are inspired by real teams, for example TEXACO, we could say that this was the first game to include nascar content
Except NASCAR Racing by Papyrus was released in 1994
@@iggy1297 Of course
Don't forget Bill Elliott's NASCAR Challenge!
@@scottthewaterwarrior Yes, but I mean the first game with nascar content for EA sport
Nascar 2003 is still by far the best Nascar game because not only was the racing good but you got to actually upgrade the car by buying engine upgrades, drafting upgrades, tire upgrades etc... You also got to pick your pit crew... I like racing games where u can actually upgrade the care & run your team. The newer nascar games its like pick your sponsor & go race. Which that really isn't the case in legit nascar, If you are a new team you can't expect to have the best equipment etc when starting compared to the established teams... So I loved nascar 2003 where u had to buy chassis, engine, body style upgrades before your car got really good.
NASCAR 09 Online was fun, good memories on that game
these kids dont know about the intense racing online. still have friends today because of it
I literally thought the intro was gonna be that "E E E eEeE" meme.
my biggest gripe with 06 and 07 is the spinning apron glitch, as well as 07 not having many alternate liveries for cars like 05 and 06. 07 is the one i played the most of all the nascar games and i never really played 2004 but its from the latter to the former that i consider to be the "golden age" for nascar games. i can see how people say it started to drop off with 06, but still its very easy to say that 06 and 07 are still firmly in said golden age, it wasnt until 08 that things got to the "unplayable" level of bad.
Now I've got "Where'd we go wrong?" from NASCAR SimRacing stuck in my head just from reading the title. Thanks a lot! Perhaps it was EA Sport's exclusive license for making NASCAR games. We had five EA Sports NASCAR simulators released on PC (NASCAR SimRacing being the last, and being very buggy at that). After 2005, EA Sports abandoned the PC market for it's NASCAR games.
Looking back at these old NASCAR games just reminds me that we need a new innovating developer for the series
You missed a golden opportunity to use the song “Where Did We Go Wrong” by Magna-Fi, the most notable song from NASCAR 2005: Chase for the Cup and NASCAR Racing
2005 is a game I played the hell out of on my GameCube when I was younger.
I still regularly play it on an emulator and I still love it.
Make a video on “world of outlaws 2002” that’s the best career mode I have ever seen in a racing game
Try the Tony Stewart all American racing games
World of outlaw sprint cars 2002 is the best sprint car racing game outside of iracing
1. NASCAR games have always had some struggles that aren't the fault of the developers, like hardware limitations (especially on consoles) and legal issues getting things like beer-related branding on cars (especially when your most popular driver is sponsored by Budweiser). During the Thunder era, all I ever really wanted more than what I had in front of me was to be able to play a season mode with someone like my brother-in-law with a full field of 43 cars, but it was just beyond the capabilities of the time. But especially for people who were into the PC games before, getting used to having all that customizability ripped away could not have been easy.
2. NASCAR itself changed, with rulesets that may not lend themselves well to a video game. And it's not just the Chase format, either. I also mean the bent towards cookie cutter tracks. People like me who think it's already boring watching a race at Kentucky are going to really hate actually having to drive it, then move straight on to more exactly like it...let alone when tracks like Rockingham are disappearing and Bristol has been (tragically) altered.
3. At my height of playing these games all the way on to this day, there are features that I think would help a great deal. Historical options, for one. Old tracks and old track layouts, old series with old manufacturers and models of cars, old rulesets, old drivers...even if they have to take that THQ Wrestling game-approach of having them obviously be built on an old status quo and just not calling them by name. (Racing as Davy Notyourson at Stoningham in your Bridgtiac would be more than good enough for a lot of people, I think.) Hell, just offering these sorts of things as DLC would do a lot to help. Better tutorials, for another. I know zilch about cars and car adjustment, and I'm not about to spend hours playing around with crap in practice mode, but it seems like a tutorial for learning that sort of thing wouldn't go amiss. Better create-a-driver and create-a-car options, maybe even with user-created templates for car designs and character modeling. There was also, at one point, seemingly a real move to try and get the drivers on the video game to drive in ways that resembled their real life counterparts. Even if it's just based on some basic stat numbers, that sort of thing is the sort of direction you hope for as a fan.
4. For whatever reason, EA just seemed to give up after their yearly gimmicks failed to improve gameplay. Trying to communicate via actual voice to the pit crew was one of the worst-implemented features I've ever seen in a game. Ever. And yet, the Thunder games were so easy to pick up and learn how to play, even with traction control turned off, that it made it hard to believe how far they fell off the mark of just getting the basics right, later.
It definitely started with 06, but DAMN, 2008 was SO BAD! I bought it a few years ago just to check it out, and literally remember pulling it out after 10 minutes and breaking it in half. Things really didnt seem to pick up until Heat 3/4 came out. Thunder 2004 and NFL2K5 will forever be my favorite Ps2 games.
Loved 2005 Chase for the Cup, but I always hated the way the camera didn't tilt with the corner like in 5:19, but I suppose the newer games still do that which is part of the reason I usually use the hood view
That depswa & motograter insturmental tho. 🔥
I think it was an 04 game, but there was an amazing nascar game that had dirt, modifieds, everything. Still my favorite to this day
Dirt to Daytona?
NASCAR 08 was my first and really only NASCAR console game so i never had anything to compare it to, but for probably the next 3 years I must have logged hundreds of hours on that game and had an absolute blast especially with the expansive career mode
awesome job
NASCAR ‘04 and ‘07 were my two favorites. ‘07 was the first new NASCAR game I played and ‘04 I had a lot of good memories playing them game and having our own custom season. Good times they were...
I've never gotten a chance to play the EA Nascar games but one of my personal favorites that I played was Inside Line. The damage wasn't terrific on the Wii that I played, but it was still fun and had a decent physics engine when it came to spinning people out.
Were did we go wrong!! That old song popped into NY head when I read the title
You put it well, moving towards the ps3 they just fell flat. I still love 03-06 and theyve yet to reach those details in career mode.
think 07 was the begining of the end, but 08 def did it for em
I have NASCAR 08 and i kinda like it. But i wish i had the older games.
I had nascar thunder 2004 on PC and it was amazing, nascar 2005 on ps2 was just as good but the addition of the other series bumps it up just a little more and to this day is my favorite nascar game
Nascar thunder 2003 will forever be a part of my childhood
Us in:
2009: Man, EA Sucks with 09, we hope not to get a worse game.
2016: Evolution Sucks,I hope
Games go Uphill from this point on
2021: I give up
nascar 08,09 is good and decent
Tbh right now, nr2003 is the best old game that is still alive, new mods and tracks come every year. This 2020 they released an ultimate mod for nr2003 called ICR and it has way more features than any other mods in the history of the game
Nascar 08 was the beginning of the end
People say 07 is the start of the downfall
But that game is actually good, not 04 good but not 08 and 09 bad
05, 06, 07, 08 and 09 are all distinct parts of my childhood and a large portion of my car and racing addictions origin.
great video liked 👍🏆
06 team control that you could only race certain teams without screwing up game. they fixed it for 07 then went away from it with the chase format and stuff that'd be funt o have back another thing i'd like to know is why they never added a feature where u could build your own track that might have been cool
NASCAR ‘08 was my personal favorite game, because of all the funky and different tracks that never existed, but they were LOADS of fun to play. I only played NASCAR ‘09 and ‘08, so only 2008 was my favorite
I remember playing Dirt to Daytona when I was a kid.
Great game
If it wasn't for the bugs in 06, it would have probably been decent. The most annoying one being when you would switch cars, there was a chance the car you switched from would just turn hard left into the wall and die.
I can't remember which game had the unintentionally fun rubber banding AI glitch that would produce pack racing at short tracks(I want to say it was 06, but it might have been 09. I remember a race where I started running the furthest lane out in loudon. I dropped from 1st to 16th to let a driver lead a lap. In the course of 4 laps, I would go from 1st to 16th to 26th to 1st to 40th and then back to the win with the whole field being 4 wide coming to the checkers. Me trying to let a driver lead a lap ended up making them finish 28th. There was also a bug where divebombing turn 1 at martinsville would cause the whole field to spin out because they would overdrive the turn and wreck each other to keep up with you.
I might sound off my rocker, but I miss the Papyrus days between 2001-03. Now THOSE were awesome racing games. This leads me to my fun fact - Denny Hamlin swept both Pocono races in 2006, the only other time he saw the track at that time was Papyrus' NASCAR Racing 2003 Season.
For me as a European, it is sad to read that the best EA Nascar titles (NASCAR Thunder 03' and 04' plus 2005: Chase for the Cup) weren't even released in Europe :(
It's a crying shame because I recently became very interested in NASCAR in general and I wanted to purchase some of the older NASCAR games for my collection (I only played Heat 2 before).
Any advice on which EA NASCAR titles I should keep an eye on?
This seems to happen with a lot of EA properties. Their NASCAR games peaked in about 2004-2005 and then were gone about five years later. I still play NASCAR 2005 from time to time. Working your way up from the bottom to become a team owner in Fight to the Top was one of the most satisfying game experiences I've ever had and being able to completely customize up for four cars in each of the four series still hasn't been beaten. The problem is that NASCAR isn't all that popular anymore because the drivers are boring. NASCAR teams go out and sign 13 and 14 year old kids to developmental contracts as soon as they can drive so they never have to work for anything and they're hard to root for and boring to watch because all they do when they don't win is cry. Btw, I really appreciate how you used This Time by Depswa from Thunder 2004 as the background music
That Watkins Glen clip is hilarious
The only good thing of 08/09 Next Gen was the EA locker where you could upload picture files to plaster on the cars. Its why that video in the end of the Pepsi Max car has Manufacturers on the car but not in-game (look at the rest of the AI cars)
I think 07 is the cutoff. That began (as a guy that actually liked racing these games) the time when I started to screw around and exploit the bugs in the games. 07 and 08 were "screw around and take nothing seriously" games for me, and NASCAR games never recovered after that. 2005 is still my favorite game alongside Dirt to Daytona
EA Sports Nascar Thunder 2002 best intro ever if your a Southern like me and in your 20's in the year 2000. God Bless Dale. Shout out to Talladega and Alabama. PS2 version
I played 06-09 on PS2 I did not notice the Watkins Glen glitch. 😂
Where I think EA NASCAR games went wrong is where all their other sports and racing games went wrong: exclusive rights. In the late 90s and early 2000s, EA wasn't the only publisher/dev with rights to make NASCAR games. Papyrus was a big one that dominated the PC NASCAR and sim market from NASCAR Racing 4 to NASCAR Racing 2003 Season, and Monster Games (NASCAR Heat, Dirt to Daytona) competed directly with EA. A year after nr2003 released, NASCAR pulled their license giving EA exclusive rights to produce NASCAR games. Other sports leagues were already doing this or already following this like the NFL. This ruined any competition and push that EA had to constantly produce new features and updates or even at this point keep existing features (like something as basic as manufacturers). The devs 100% wanted to keep evolving their games, but EA, seeing as it doesn't matter what new features are removed or added since they have exclusive rights, saw no reason to waste money on them. It's why every sports and racing game EA has produced since gaining exclusive rights as continued to have features removed with barely anything new added unless it generates money (like microtransactions in MUT).
When EA lost their license in 2009, Eutechnyx gained the rights along with iRacing (which was formed by the former developers at Papyrus that made the NASCAR Racing series and built using nr2003's source code). Eutechnyx blew their shot to do anything worthwhile with their NASCAR The Game series while iRacing brought back everything great about their original NASCAR games. After Eutechnyx gave up their license, Monster Games finally regained their NASCAR license and restarted the NASCAR Heat series with Heat Evolution. While iRacing focuses on the sim side of racing, MG wanted to focus more on what EA and themselves did best with the more arcade style of racing with a focus on career mode. MG had a rough start with Heat Evolution, but with Heat 2, they reintroduced the truck and Xfinity series, and with Heat 3, they introduced dirt track racing. Heat 4 again made leaps in improvements to career mode, but sadly Heat 5 feels more like an update to Heat 4 with a lot of quality of life improvements but no real changes to gameplay or career mode outside of custom championships. Still, between iRacing and Monster Games' Heat series, it feels like the magic that NASCAR fans use to have between in the early 2000's is returning and that NASCAR games are once again on the rise. It's clear why the magic is returning: same devs, no exclusive rights. iRacing as already said is made up of former Papyrus devs with the game even made out of nr2003's source code. Meanwhile, Monster Games' President helped developed the original NASCAR Racing, NASCAR Heat, and EA's NASCAR games from Thunder 2003 to 2005 Chase for the Cup while the dev team themselves are much of the devs that worked on EA's NASCAR games and MG's NASCAR games.
07 was the last decent one, 04 was definitely the peak though. I still have my copy, and along with Mafia and Test Drive: Eve of Destruction, it’s the reason I never got rid of my PS2.
Handling of NASCAR 04 with the customization of NASCAR 15 and the graphics of the heat games is my ideal NASCAR game
If I was stuck on a desert island and could only take one NASCAR game, there's no question about it; "NASCAR '99", for the PS1!
🎵Runnin' my rig around 95 / Rockin' and-a rollin' in overdrive / Yeah, my heart's beatin' like a jackhammer / It's the midnight ride for the gear jammer 🎵
I loved it when Forza did a nascar dlc pack and offered a bunch of stock cars.
They all should have a career mode like 2004
I agree 100% that NASCAR 2006 was where it started to go wrong. Thunder 2004 is the gold standard for console games. Chase for the Cup is very good too. Thunder 2003 is good but the cars are tight at almost every track. Thunder 2002 was when the magic began. It's a solid game.
I was a fan of the EA Nascar series up until the Car of Tomorrow. Can't remember the year. After that it was just a matter of just keeping the collection going.
Getting rid of fight to the top 06-07 was perfect only thing was limited teams uou could pick unless you bought but then limited sponsors
Just bought NASCAR for PSP. Lit game. Can’t imagine them with the license now though. Half the schedule would probably be locked behind a paywall.
I absolutely love Nascar thunder 2003 on the GameCube. Very fun and cool..
However nascar thunder 2004 was the first nascar game I ever played and from what I remember it was amazing. So until I get a ps2 guess I’ll have to wait
Personally I think thunder 2004 is the top bar set by the ea team . While you were only given the option of the cup teams , the thunder challenges were great , the career mode was both incredibly frustrating to start out yet rewarding once you started getting the upgrades needed . The way they did the upgrades made a lot of sense too you didnt just buy +5 engine power you bought a block hoeing kit . And as you got better you could afford to pay better engineers which made your program better too . I really wished they would have expanded on the career mode by letting you field a 2 car operation by offering competitive contracts to vetrans or by scouting for rookies to join the fold that would have made the immersion really next level.
Chase for the Cup will always be my favorite NASCAR game. SOOOOOOOO many hours logged.
I have NASCAR Thunder 2003 and 06. Should I should pick up a copy of 05? It sounds like it is the best in the series. Though right now I've been playing Dirt to Daytona.
E.A should change their name to M.T for Micro Transactions
Watching these old clips makes me want to fix my old PS2 or buy NASCAR Thunder 2004.
I think they went wrong in NASCAR 08 when the car of tomorrow was released in nascar. I think this because all the cars looked the same in the car of tomorrow, the next game was even worse, all of the models in the series used 1 model.
06 and 07 were still great, i even enjoyed 08 some; but the thunder series will never be matched