Nascar 06: Total Team Control, Review PS2, EA

Nascar 06 is an annual update its US Nascar racing series, this year placing a greater focus on the team element of racing, but do us Brits care about Americans named Cody and Billy Bob racing round oval tracks? Is the game any good? Lets get the motor running……

Story

The game starts by throwing you in, mid race, following an opening movie. Your first driver gets totalled and then you have to make use of the swapping option to take control of your teammates car and head home for the chequered flag.

This is a nice introduction to the game but after this you start from scratch and have to find a driving contract and team to race for. Naturally you start off at the bottom of the ladder and have to win races and garner success to work you way up to the big leagues. The career mode is well structured and presented and has lots of team management options thrown in.

Graphics

For me the graphics in this game were very average, maybe I have been spoiled after playing Burnout Revenge and Need for Speed Most Wanted but I was very disappointed with what I saw. While the better cars looked pretty realistic, the cars you start off in look like bricks with wheels. The tracks and backgrounds are also very bland and monochrome.

However for me the biggest letdown is the speed of the game - the game coveys no sense of speed whatsoever – and this is on a pretty boring oval track where you should be able to get some speed up. While I'm no expert on NASCAR racing I thought the whole point of the simple tracks was so that the cars could tan it around at 200mph+?

Overall very disappointing considering what other superb racers are currently on the market.

Sound

Instantly forgettable – background music is instrumental rock, cars in the game sound like cars. The game neither adds to nor detracts from the game.

Gameplay/Controls

This game should be renamed Nascar 06: Total CRAP Control. The cars are unresponsive lumps that don't seem to move no matter how hard you wrench the dpad – then out of nowhere the games responds and your car shoots across the track – the controls appear to be totally random.
The team control side of the game is a good innovation, as you are not only racing for yourself but your team's success as a whole. There are 15 team commands in total, of which 4 can be assigned to the analogue stick, these allow you to change to another team members car, ask them to defend your lead, block opponents etc. However while this sounds good in theory often your instructions will be turned down or may take too long to implement therefore rendering them useless. I also think the average gamer wants to play and win the race not help a computer opponent take the glory while you spend the race blocking opponents and finishing 11th. As such you may find yourself completely overlooking the main feature of the game.
To further pile on the bad news the game is cursed with a freezing glitch where the in-race action will freeze up completely for seconds, minutes, hours or forever – this is unforgivable for a game from a powerhouse like EA.
Again overall disappointing.

Conclusion

The graphics are below par, controls are frustrating and the tracks are bland all leading to a game that just isn't fun to play – on top of this the game crashes from time to time. There are much better racers out there and even die-hard Nascar fans will struggle to enjoy this.
Overall I give Nascar 06: Total Team Control ……………………….

4 out of 10

Ad