I am not a big NASCAR fan so it is rare I pick up a game. I played a couple of the releases early on in the Playstation 2 life cycle over at a friends house. This is the first version I have actually purchased since the N64 release of NASCAR 2000 which brings me up to date on this release. I got to try the online and it worked pretty good with little to no lag. Although EA has since or is getting ready to shut the servers down. And frankly I do not blame them as every single time I went online there was about 4 to 12 people online which is not enough to keep the servers up and running. Season mode is exactly as it sounds and the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup is probably where you are going to find the depth in this game. It has some nice features as you can choose who you want to sign a contract with, upgrade your car parts, take license challenges, check your career status, change your drivers appearance and of course race. This mode is highly addictive to say the least. The sound is really well done and comes with a varied soundtrack. Some songs I found annoying but overall they were pretty well chosen. Graphically the car models do look dated and the race tracks themselves look pretty good. The menu's are well implemented into the game and are extremely easy to navigate. Nothing really to fancy here but they look nice. Gameplay is a blast. I know some people were upset with this release but I do not buy sports games on a yearly basis because I know well ahead of time they do not change much. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this game and my recommendation is that if you bought the previous years go ahead and skip this one. If you have not bought a NASCAR game in a few years you might as well pick it up if you have a PS2. Bottom line is it is a very fun game.
7 of 8 found this review helpful.
Overall rating
4/ 5
Gameplay
5/ 5
Graphics
4/ 5
Sound
4/ 5
xXMAMASBOYXx
BORING
PostedNovember 21, 2009
This game is just like NASCAR 08 so if you already have 08 dont bother buying 09 unless you hate Tony Stewart and love Jeff Gordon. THe tracks are just like the real life ones but one of my favorites is the New York track and thats where you drive through Bew York either in Craftsman, Sprint, or Nationwide Series. You only have a limited way to customize your car/truck. One of my favorite races are the Whelen Modified races. Those are like what you would find at a local race or something like that. The sound is pretty good, but the bad part about the whole game is that in some series or on certain tracks you cant go into the pits which really stinks when you have a flat. One of my favorite features in the game is the rewind button. Thats where if you wreck oir take a turn bad then you can rewind and do it over. I think you can rewind a max of 8 sec. So if you are a big racing fan and already have 08 dont bother buying this game unless your collecting the games because i heard that this is the last NASCAR game that EA is going to make.
NASCAR 09 on the PS2 is not the best NASCAR game ever. There are certain features that the PS3 and 360 versions have that could easily be in the PS2 version but they are not. The career mode is not as fun because you can't own your own team. The only thing you can do in career is sign contracts and drive someone else's car. The graphics are decent but there are some very noticable glitches like when driving alongside another car the other car won't have any tires and then after a few seconds they will appear. The crashes aren't as fun but the biggest problem with this game is that there are dozens of drivers that are real life competitors that are not in the game at all. This is an OK game for those who have never played NASCAR game ever but die-hard NASCAR fans will probably be a bit dissappointed by the game.
