NASCAR 09

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 4:23 pm

I'll write more later, but that's my assessment so far.

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 4:26 pm

heh...yeah.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 4:47 pm

I picked it today but can't play till Friday. I forgot to get my $10GC at CC. What system did you guys get it for? I got it for the 360.

Inuyasha · Post by **Inuyasha** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 5:12 pm

It's $49.99 at Fry's this week. Maybe I'll pick it up.

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 5:40 pm

360. I don't even own a PS3.

Darkbandit · Post by **Darkbandit** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 7:15 pm

PS3 here, hope that some others get it as well and we can race online. But I also did gamefly a 360 copy as well to race with for a little bit.

JRod · Post by **JRod** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 10:11 pm

Worst impression thread EVER!

Murph · Post by **Murph** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 10:27 pm

Not even a lot of feeback at Gamefaq yet.

Leebo33 · Post by **Leebo33** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 10:06 am

I really like the driving in the game, however, I am finding two things that are somewhat ruining the experience:

1. I have *never* in several hours of play on different difficulty levels in season, race now, and career seen the CPU cause a yellow flag or wreck. I've seen the CPU bump each other a few times and I've seen one car hit the wall and recover, but never a caution. This makes races boring IMO. If you guys are seeing them I would love to try your settings because I just can't believe it.

2. I raced at Daytona at I think 20% length and went from 18th to 1st in the last two laps because everyone pitted and I didn't have to. I then raced a Craftsman race in career and won because I never needed to pit (even though the setup screen said 1 pit would be necessary). I went from 9th when the lead cars pitted and won easily. I believe it was on "legend" but I could be wrong. Is anyone else seeing this?

At least I could "house rule" the pitstop issue but I'm really concerned about the lack of accidents. Any thoughts?

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 10:10 am

Leebo33 wrote:I really like the driving in the game, however, I am finding two things that are somewhat ruining the experience:

1. I have *never* in several hours of play on different difficulty levels in season, race now, and career seen the CPU cause a yellow flag or wreck. I've seen the CPU bump each other a few times and I've seen one car hit the wall and recover, but never a caution. This makes races boring IMO. If you guys are seeing them I would love to try your settings because I just can't believe it.

2. I raced at Daytona at I think 20% length and went from 18th to 1st in the last two laps because everyone pitted and I didn't have to. I then raced a Craftsman race in career and won because I never needed to pit (even though the setup screen said 1 pit would be necessary). I went from 9th when the lead cars pitted and won easily. I believe it was on "legend" but I could be wrong. Is anyone else seeing this?

At least I could "house rule" the pitstop issue but I'm really concerned about the lack of accidents. Any thoughts?

1. I've seen several. Settings are just Legend and Hard. I was running out front by myself in career and the yellow flew. I don't see them as often as a real race, but I've seen at least 4 of them in one night.

2. Every game with increased wear (NR2003 included) has that issue. The CPU pits on basic math...if the fuel shows that it should pit in 9 laps, even though it may be able to make it to 10 or 11, it pits on 9. On a 20 lap race, it could stretch it to 10 and make it on 1 stop, but instead if pits twice. I've dealt with that for years in NR2003, and I just started putting myself on the CPU's pit window instead of stretching it. It would be nice to have AI so advanced that it would "stretch" a fuel run and see if it could make it, run out of fuel, etc...but we're only 1 year removed from AI that would completely ignore your car and plow right through it, so I'm easily able to deal with the same pit stop AI that I have dealt with in every game in history. It must be pretty tough to get right since so many developers have gotten it wrong, from the Papy NR franchise to Nascar Heat to the EA games.

webdanzer · Post by **webdanzer** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 10:26 am

I just saw an OS poster mention that car upgrades earned offline affect and enhance your online vehicle. Has anyone here played enough online and off to confirm this?

I'm interested in the game, possibly, but probably not in playing online if I not only have to worry about tweaking the car setups but also 'playing enough' in the 1p mode to be competitive with my ride.

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 10:33 am

webdanzer wrote:I just saw an OS poster mention that car upgrades earned offline affect and enhance your online vehicle. Has anyone here played enough online and off to confirm this?

I'm interested in the game, possibly, but probably not in playing online if I not only have to worry about tweaking the car setups but also 'playing enough' in the 1p mode to be competitive with my ride.

I'm arrogant enough to think so. I raced online twice last night. First race we were all various "Cup" cars at Texas, and I took the pole after tweaking the sway bars enough to get the car exactly where I wanted it. I led 15 of the 20 laps and won handily.

Second race, some guy shows up in a completely gray car at Atlanta (how the career cars look before you paint them). I was quick time out of the 13 guys present, and we were (again) all Cup cars. I was Hamlin, another guy was Junior, etc. This guy in the gray car was a half a second quicker than me, and I wasn't losing much time (as far as bleeding speed on the track), as I had upped grill tape and stabilized the car tweaking on the setup again. The race started and I spun the tires, got passed by 3 or 4 guys, but absolutely blew by the "Cup" cars to move into 2nd. By that time, the Phantom X gray car had just absolutely checked out and was gone.

So...I know there are guys out there better than me, but I can drive a stock car, and on day one with not enough hours to tweak a setup, and a guy in a career car is that fast, I'd have to believe it. At least I'd like to believe it, because if not, there's something else fishy going on.

If people get the game for DSP nights or something, the house rule would just have to be to choose Cup cars instead of your career car.

webdanzer · Post by **webdanzer** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 10:40 am

TCrouch wrote: If people get the game for DSP nights or something, the house rule would just have to be to choose Cup cars instead of your career car.

Oh, that's an easy enough workaround! Thanks, Terry!

Leebo33 · Post by **Leebo33** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 5:10 pm

I saw my first CPU crash today and it was pretty cool. A car got loose and went out of control, rolled a few times, and then went through pit row upside down...LOL.

JRod · Post by **JRod** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 5:20 pm

Are there a good amount of crashes?

Past NASCAR games was like racing in a wind tunnel. 43 cars started 43 cars finished.

Inuyasha · Post by **Inuyasha** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 7:19 pm

ok, game sounds great. I will pick this up tonight. How is online like? How many cars max do they allow?

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 7:52 pm

Customization in this game really stinks. The Sprint Cup series is the only one that has a full field. The Truck series is pathetic for real race drivers and the Busch series is also lame.

WTF is EA doing with the license? Car numbers you can use start out with 101.

The paint combinations are also pretty minimal. I remember in Nascar Thunder 2004 you could add multiple colors to your car. The font selection is pretty bare and resembles nothing like you would see on a Cup car. Some features like lower, middle and upper decal colors I couldn't figure out.

Thankfully the game is fairly decent as a console racer.

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 8:02 pm

Also, it only lets you import absolutely anything you can design in a Paint program....so "limited" isn't what I'd call it. If you want incredible designs, you just need to design it in a true paint editor and upload it.

You start with 100-199 because 0-99 are reserved. They've done that in every career mode ever. I would like to see the ability to use the unallocated numbers, but since I just paint my car 26 and then assign it 126, it's certainly not a big deal.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 8:05 pm

TCrouch wrote:Also, it only lets you import absolutely anything you can design in a Paint program....so "limited" isn't what I'd call it. If you want incredible designs, you just need to design it in a true paint editor and upload it.

You start with 100-199 because 0-99 are reserved. They've done that in every career mode ever. I would like to see the ability to use the unallocated numbers, but since I just paint my car 26 and then assign it 126, it's certainly not a big deal.

My problem is I don't have time nor the talent to create designs. I remember Nascar Thunder 2004 had a ton of options.

Inuyasha · Post by **Inuyasha** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 9:28 pm

so can I make a Lightning McQueen car in this?

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 10:41 pm

Inuyasha wrote:so can I make a Lightning McQueen car in this?

Yep. Rodster, if you actually use the paint stuff, you can put whatever number you want to on it. I put '03' because it's in my GT, and it lets me do so.

I created a simple 'lego Indy' car for my boys, but when I downloaded it into the game, the whole template was squashed up on my hood. I don't know what the hell that was about. I'm a complete noob when it comes to these paint programs, so I may have done something wrong...I just don't know what. Just following their directions...

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 10:51 pm

Did a quick whip-together on a Career Craftsman Truck as a test...it definitely works. Had to take pics with a crappy camera phone off of my computer monitor, so they leave something to be desired. But it only takes a few minutes to put something together in a paint program that's far better than the "default" edited cars.

Inuyasha · Post by **Inuyasha** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 11:47 pm

damn this game is fun. all i wanted is to race, and that's what this game gives you. all the other stuff is nice, but i like how the game reminds me of nascar05. Just Race baby!

Teal · Post by **Teal** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 11:55 pm

TCrouch wrote:Did a quick whip-together on a Career Craftsman Truck as a test...it definitely works. Had to take pics with a crappy camera phone off of my computer monitor, so they leave something to be desired. But it only takes a few minutes to put something together in a paint program that's far better than the "default" edited cars.

Well, hot s***! Why in the hell can't I get my simple little design to wrap around the damn car, when you take this one and do it?

Inuyasha · Post by **Inuyasha** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 12:02 am

WOWOWOWOW!

That is awesome!

Teal, is there sharing allowed in this game? I'd love to use your lego car.

My kids love this game. All they've done is play it, wife is pissed since it's a school night but so what. Thinking about making a Lightning McQueen Car, Mater Car, and of course for me, a Sex and the City car. Ok, no sex and the city car, but maybe SPEED RACER!